“How are you, Harry, my boy? give me a kiss, Em’,” he said, in one breath, as he shook the young man warmly by the hand and pressed a parental kiss on the brow of his daughter.  “Pretty warm weather, this,” he continued, speaking to the young man; “it is almost stifling.”

“Suppose we step out on the balcony, pa,” said the young lady; “it is much cooler there.”

“Ha, ha, ha,” he laughed; “you had not found that out until I entered.  However,” he went on, “do you both go out there.  I am certain you will do better without than with me.”

His daughter blushed, but made no reply, and the young man removing two chairs to the balcony, they both left the old gentleman, who, turning up the gas, proceeded to read his evening Mississippian.

Dr. James Humphries was one of the oldest and most respectable citizens of Jackson, and was looked upon with great esteem by all who knew him.  He had been a medical practitioner in that city from the time it was nothing more than a little village, until railroad connections had raised it to be a place of some consequence, and the capital of the State.  He had married when a young man, but of all his children, none remained but his daughter Emma, in gaining whom he lost a much-loved wife, she having died in child-birth.

At the time we write, Emma Humphries was betrothed to Henry Shackleford, a young lawyer of fine ability, but who was, like many of his countrymen, a soldier in the service of his country, and been elected first lieutenant of the “Mississippi Rifles.”

We will now leave them for the present, and in the next chapter introduce the reader to two other characters.

CHAPTER SIXTH

The Spectator and Extortioner.

Mr. Jacob Swartz was sitting in the back room of his store on Main street counting a heap of gold and silver coins which lay on a table before him.  He was a small, thin-bodied man, with little gray eyes, light hair and aquiline nose.  He was of that nationality generally known in this country as “Dutch;” but having been there for over twenty years, he had become naturalized, and was now a citizen of the chivalrous States of Mississippi, a fact of which he prided himself considerably.

Mr. Swartz was busily engaged counting his money, when a little boy, who seemed, from a similarity of features, to be his son appeared at the door, and mentioned that Mr. Elder desired to see him.

“Vot can he vant?” said Mr. Swartz.  Then as if recollecting, he continued:  “I suppose it is apout that little shtore he vants to rent me.  Tell him to come in.”