We entered the vehicle, and drove off. When we reached the shanty, the negress got out, and, amid a shower of blessings from her, we rode on to the plantation. For four long years she had worked fifteen hours a day, and denied herself every comfort to buy her child; and when at last she had secured his freedom, she was willing to part with him that he might 'larn suffin out ob de books.' Who that reads this truthful record of a slave mother's love, will deny to her wretched race the instincts and feelings that make us human?

It was a clear, cold, sunshiny day—one of those days so peculiar to the Southern climate, when the blood hounds through every vein as if thrilled by electricity, and a man of lively temperament can scarcely restrain his legs from dancing a 'breakdown.' We rode rapidly on through a timbered country, where the tall trees grew up close by the roadside, locking their huge arms high in the air, and the long, graceful, black moss hung like mourning drapery from their great branches. The green pine-tassels, which carpeted the ground, crackled beneath our horses' feet, and breathed a grateful odor around us; and the soft autumn wind, which rustled the leaves and swayed the tops of the old trees, sang a pleasant song over our heads. Every pine bore the scars of the turpentine axe, and here and there we came upon a patch of woods where the negroes were gathering the 'last dipping;' and now and then we passed an open clearing where a poor planter was at work with a few field hands. Occasionally we forded a small stream, where, high up on the bank, was a rude ferry, which served in the rainy season as a miserable substitute for a bridge; and once in a while, far back from the road, we caught sight of an old country-seat, whose dingy, unpainted walls, broken down fences, and dilapidated surroundings reminded one that shiftless working men, and careless, reckless proprietors, are the natural products of slavery. Thus we rode on for several hours, till, turning a slight bend in the road, we suddenly halted before the gateway of my friend's plantation. I had observed for half a mile that the woods which lined the wayside were clear of underbrush, the felled trees trimmed, and their branches carefully piled in heaps, and the rails, which in other places straggled about in the road, were doing their appropriate duty on the fences; and I said to Preston:

'I am glad to see you are as good at planting as you are at preaching.'

'Bless you,' he replied, 'it isn't me—it's Joe. Joe is acknowledged to be the best farmer in Jones county.'

At the gateway we met such a greeting as is unknown all the world over, outside of a Southern plantation. Perched in the fences, swinging on the gate, and hanging from the trees, were a score of young ebonies of both sexes, who, as we came in sight, set up a chorus of discordant shouts that made the woods ring. Among the noises I made out: 'Gorry, massa am come!' 'Dar dey is.' 'Dat'm de strange gem-man.' 'How's 'ou, massa?' 'Glad 'ou's come, massa; 'peared like we'd neber see 'ou no more, massa;' and a multitude of similiar exclamations, that told unmistakably the character of the discipline to which they were accustomed. The young chattels are an infallible barometer—they indicate the real state of the weather on a plantation. One may never see among the older slaves of even a cruel master, any but sunshiny faces, for they know the penalty of surliness before a stranger; but the little darkies cannot be so restrained. They will slink away into by-corners, or scamper out of sight whenever their owner appears, if they are not treated kindly.

'Massa's well. Are you all well?'

'Yes, massa, we's right smart; an' all on we's good little nigs eber sense 'ou's 'way.'

'I'm glad to hear it; now, scamper back to the house, and tell 'missus' we're coming.'

'Missus knows 'ou's comin', massa; massa Joe am dar; missus knows 'ou's I comin'.'

After a short drive over a narrow winding avenue, strewn with leaves and shaded with the long branches of the pine, the oak, and the holly, we came to the mansion, which stood on a gentle mound in the midst of a green lawn, sloping gently down to a small lake. It had once been a square, box-like structure; but Preston had so transformed it, that but for its rustic surroundings and the thick groups of giant evergreens which clustered at its sides, it might have been taken for a suburban villa. Projecting eaves, large dormers, which sprang out from the roof-line and rested on a broad porch and balcony, a rustic porte cochere, and here and there a vine-covered bay or oriole window, broke up the regularity of its outline, and proclaimed its designer a true poet—and poetry, now-a-days, is more often written on the walls of country houses than in the corners of country newspapers.