extended his business, and seemed in a fair way to realize his favorite
dream of making a fortune and returning to the North to marry. The
subject of Slavery was then seldom discussed. North and South seemed
to have entered into a tacit agreement to ignore the topic completely.
Alfred's experience was like that of most New Englanders in his
situation. He was at first annoyed and pained by many of the
peculiarities of Southern society, and then became gradually accustomed
to them. But his natural sense of justice was very strong; and this,
added to the influence of early education, and strengthened by scenes of
petty despotism which he was frequently compelled to witness, led him
to resolve that he would never hold a slave. The colored people in his
employ considered him their friend, because he was always kind and
generous to them. He supposed that comprised the whole of duty, and
further than that he never reflected upon the subject.

The pretty little picture at Pine Grove, which had made so lively
an impression on his imagination, faded the more rapidly, because
unconnected with his affections. But a shadowy semblance of it always
flitted through his memory, whenever he saw a beautiful child, or
observed any unusual combination of trees and vines.

Four years after his interview with Mr. Duncan, business called him to
the interior of the State, and for the sake of healthy exercise he
chose to make the journey on horseback. His route lay mostly through a
monotonous region of sandy plain, covered with pines, here and there
varied by patches of cleared land, in which numerous dead trees were
prostrate, or standing leafless, waiting their time to fall. Most of
the dwellings were log-houses, but now and then the white villa of some
wealthy planter might be seen gleaming through the evergreens. Sometimes
the sandy soil was intersected by veins of swamp, through which muddy