odel for the statuary. After the
indulgence of a few moments in this harmless egotism, he returned to the
point, as if but now recollected, from which he set out.

"Well, then, Master Colleton, as I was saying, 'twas at this same muster
that I first saw the 'squire. He was a monstrous clever old buck now, I
tell you. Why, he thought no more of money than if it growed in his
plantation--he almost throwed it away for the people to scramble after.
That very day, when the muster was over, he called all the boys up to
Eben Garratt's tavern, and told old Eben to set the right stuff afloat,
and put the whole score down to him. Maybe old Eben didn't take him at
his word. Eben was a cunning chap, quite Yankee-like, and would skin his
shadow for a saddle-back, I reckon, if he could catch it. I tell you
what, when the crop went to town, the old 'squire must have had a mighty
smart chance to pay; for, whatever people might say of old Eben, he knew
how to calculate from your pocket into his with monstrous sartainty.
Well, as I was saying, 'squire, I shouldn't be afraid to go you a a
little bet that old Ralph Colleton is some kin of your'n. You're both of
the same stock, I reckon."

"You are right in your conjecture," replied the youth; "the person of
whom you speak was indeed a near relative of mine--he was no other than
my father."

"There, now--I could have said as much, for you look for all the world
as if you had come out of his own mouth. There is a trick of the eye
which I never saw in any but you two; and even if you had not told me
your name, I should have made pretty much the same calculation about
you. The old 'squire, if I rightly recollect, was something stiff in his
way, and some people did say he was proud, and carried himself rather
high; but, for my part, I never saw any difference 'twixt him and most
of our Carolina gentlemen, who, you know, generally walk pretty high in
the collar, and have no two ways about them. For that matter, however, I
couldn't well judge then; I may have been something too young to say,
for certain, what was what, at that time of my life."

"You are not even now so far advanced in years, Mr. Forrester, that you
speak of your youth as of a season so very remote. What, I pray, may be
your age? We may ask, without offence, such a question of men: the case
where the other sex is concerned is, you are aware, something
different."

The youth seemed studiously desirous of changing the directio