'And do you remain on the plantation?' I inquired.
'Oh yes, I am needed here,' he replied; 'but Madam's son is with my family.'
'Madam's son!' I exclaimed in astonishment, forgetting in my surprise that the lady was present.
'Yes, sir,' she remarked, 'my oldest boy is twenty.'
'Excuse me, Madam; I forgot that in your climate one never grows old.'
'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.'