The Rovero family-old and distinguished-had struggled against the misfortunes brought upon them by their son Lorenzo.  Deeply involved, they had allowed their difficulties to go on till they had found themselves living by the favour of courtesy and indulgence.  Lorenzo and Franconia were only children; and since the departure of the former the latter had been the idol of their indulgence.  She was, as we have before said, delicate, sensitive, endowed with generous impulses, and admired for her gentleness, grace, and vivacity.  To these she added firmness, and, when once resolved upon any object, could not be moved from her purpose.  Nor was she-as is the popular fallacy of the South-susceptible to the influence of wealth.  Her love and tenderness soared above it; she prized wealth less than moral worth.  But she could not appease the pride of her parents with her feelings.  They, labouring under the influence of their reduced fortunes, had favoured and insisted upon the advances of the very wealthy Colonel M’Carstrow, a rice-planter, who had a few years before inherited a large estate.  The colonel is a sturdy specimen of the Southern gentleman, which combines a singular mixture of qualities, some of which are represented by a love of good living, good drinking, good horse-racing, good gambling, and fast company.  He lives on the fat of the land, because the fat of the land was made for him to enjoy.  He has no particular objection to anybody in the world, providing they believe in slavery, and live according to his notions of a gentleman.  His soul’s delight is faro, which he would not exchange for all the religion in the world; he has strong doubts about the good of religion, which, he says, should be boxed up with modern morality.

Laying these things aside, however, he is anything but what would have been properly selected as a partner for Franconia; and, while she is only eighteen, he has turned the corner of his forty-third year.  In a word, his manners are unmodelled, his feelings coarse, his associations of the worst kind; nor is he adapted to make the happiness of domestic life lasting.  He is one of those persons so often met with, whose affections-if they may be supposed to have any-are held in a sort of compromise between an incitement to love, and their natural inclination to revel in voluptuous pleasures.  The two being antagonistic at times, the latter is sure to be the stronger, and not unfrequently carries its victim into dissolute extremes.  Riches, however, will always weigh heavy in the scale; their possession sways,—­the charm of gold is precious and powerful.  And, too, the colonel had another attraction-very much esteemed among slave-dealers and owners—­he had a military title, though no one knew how he came by it.

Franconia must be the affianced bride of the supposed wealthy Colonel M’Carstrow; so say her parents, who feel they are being crushed out by misfortune.  It is their desire; and, however repulsive it may be to Franconia’s feelings, she must accept the man:  she must forget his years, his habits, his associations, for the wealth he can bring to the relief of the family.