"There you are wrong, sir; I'm sure I feel old when I think how soon my boys will be men."
"Not old yet, Alice," said the Colonel, in a singularly familiar tone; "you seem to me no older than when you were fifteen."
"You have been long acquainted," I remarked, not knowing exactly what to say.
"Oh, yes," replied my host, "we were children together."
"Your Southern country, Madam, affords a fine field for young men of enterprise."
"My eldest son resides in Germany," replied the lady. "He expects to make that country his home. He would have passed his examination at Heidelberg this autumn had not circumstances called him here."
"You are widely separated," I replied.
"Yes, sir; his father thinks it best, and I suppose it is. Thomas, here, is to return with his brother, and I may live to see neither of them again."
My curiosity was naturally much excited to learn more, but nothing further being volunteered, and the conversation soon turning to other topics, I left the table with it unsatisfied.
After enjoying a quiet hour with the Colonel in the smoking-room, he invited me to join him in a ride over the plantation. I gladly assented, and Jim shortly announced the horses were in waiting. That darky, who invariably attended his master when the latter proceeded from home, accompanied us. As we were mounting I bethought me of Scip, and asked where he was.