“I rather wouldn’t, mais I will do it for you;—­just the same, like Monsieur le Compte would say, ’Charlie, you old fool, I want to shange houses wid you.’”

So long as the Colonel suspected irony he was angry, but as Charlie seemed, after all, to be certainly in earnest, he began to feel conscience-stricken.  He was by no means a tender man, but his lately-discovered misfortune had unhinged him, and this strange, undeserved, disinterested family fealty on the part of Charlie touched his heart.  And should he still try to lead him into the pitfall he had dug?  He hesitated;—­no, he would show him the place by broad daylight, and if he chose to overlook the “caving bank,” it would be his own fault;—­a trade’s a trade.

“Come,” said the planter, “come at my house to-night; to-morrow we look at the place before breakfast, and finish the trade.”

“For what?” said Charlie.

“Oh, because I got to come in town in the morning.”

“I don’t want,” said Charlie.  “How I’m goin’ to come dere?”

“I git you a horse at the liberty stable.”

“Well—­anyhow—­I don’t care—­I’ll go.”  And they went.

When they had ridden a long time, and were on the road darkened by hedges of Cherokee rose, the Colonel called behind him to the “low-down” scion: 

“Keep the road, old man.”

“Eh?”

“Keep the road.”

“Oh, yes; all right; I keep my word; we don’t goin’ to play no tricks, eh?”

But the Colonel seemed not to hear.  His ungenerous design was beginning to be hateful to him.  Not only old Charlie’s unprovoked goodness was prevailing; the eulogy on Belles Demoiselles had stirred the depths of an intense love for his beautiful home.  True, if he held to it, the caving of the bank, at its present fearful speed, would let the house into the river within three months; but were it not better to lose it so, than sell his birthright?  Again,—­coming back to the first thought,—­to betray his own blood!  It was only Injin Charlie; but had not the De Charleu blood just spoken out in him?  Unconsciously he groaned.

After a time they struck a path approaching the plantation in the rear, and a little after, passing from behind a clump of live-oaks, they came in sight of the villa.  It looked so like a gem, shining through its dark grove, so like a great glow-worm in the dense foliage, so significant of luxury and gayety, that the poor master, from an overflowing heart, groaned again.

“What?” asked Charlie.

The Colonel only drew his rein, and, dismounting mechanically, contemplated the sight before him.  The high, arched doors and windows were thrown wide to the summer air; from every opening the bright light of numerous candelabra darted out upon the sparkling foliage of magnolia and bay, and here and there in the spacious verandas a colored lantern swayed in the gentle breeze.  A sound of revel fell on the ear, the music of harps; and across one window, brighter than the rest, flitted, once or twice, the shadows of dancers.  But oh! the shadows flitting across the heart of the fair mansion’s master!