such stories were generally wound up by an expression of
regret for the sad deteriorations that were going on in this country.

"A man like that," he would sometimes say, pointing to the picture of a
stern old Cavalier, "is rarely, if ever, met with, and in a little
while there will be no living representative of such--at least not in
America, where all social distinctions are rapidly disappearing. In
fact, we have scarcely any thing left, even now, but the shadow of a
true aristocracy, and that is only to be found in Virginia. At the
North, mere wealth makes a man a gentleman; and this new invention of
these degenerate times is fast being adopted even here in the 'Old
Dominion.' But it won't do--unless a man is born and bred a gentleman,
he never can become one."

It was no use to argue with the rigid old Virginian about the
aristocracy of virtue, or the aristocracy of mind; he scouted at the
idea, and reiterated, with added emphasis, that only he who was born of
gentle blood could be a gentleman.

The family of Mr. Tomlinson, which had consisted of his wife, two sons,
and two daughters, was, at the time our story opens, composed of only
two members, himself and his youngest child, Edith, now in her
nineteenth year. Death had taken all but one.

Edith, though born and bred a lady, her father observed, with pain, did
not set a high value upon the distinction, and at last actually refused
to receive the addresses of a young man who came of pure old English
blood, and was a thorough gentleman in the eyes of Mr. Tomlinson,
because she liked neither his principles, habits, nor general
character, while she looked with favour upon the advances of a young
attorney, named Denton, whose father, a small farmer in Essex county,
had nothing higher than honesty and manly independence of which to
boast.

The young gentleman of pure blood was named Allison. He was the last
representative of an old family, and had come into possession, on
attaining his majority, of a large landed estate immediately adjoining
that owned by Mr. Tomlinson. The refusal of Edith to receive his
addresses aroused in him an unhappy spirit, which he cherished until it
inspired him with thoughts of retaliation. The means were in his hands.
There existed an old, but not legally adjusted question, about the
title to a thousand acres of land lying between the estates of Mr.
Tomlinson and Mr. Allison, which had, more than fifty years before,
been settled by t