Taking all these things into consideration, my Lady Choicewest is exceedingly cautious lest young Gourdoin Choicewest should do aught to dishonour the family name; and on this strange perplexity in which her much indulged son is placed being referred to her, she gives it as her most decided opinion that the wench, if as obstinate as described, had better be sold to the highest bidder-the sooner the better.  My lady lays great emphasis on “the sooner the better.”  That something will be lost she has not the slightest doubt; but then it were better to lose a little in the price of the stubborn wretch, than to have her always creating disturbance about the genteel premises.  In furtherance of this-my lady’s mandate-Annette is sold to Mr. Blackmore Blackett for the nice round sum of fifteen hundred dollars.  Gourdoin Choicewest hates to part with the beauty, grieves and regrets,—­she is so charmingly fascinating.  “Must let her slide, though; critter won’t do at all as I wants her to,” he lisps, regretting the serious loss of the dollars.  His friend Blackmore Blackett, however, is a gentleman, and therefore he would not deceive him in the wench:  hence he makes the reduction, because he finds her decidedly faulty.  Had Blackmore Blackett been a regular flesh trader, he would not have scrupled to take him in.  As it is, gentlemen must always be gentlemen among themselves.  Blackett, a gentleman of fortune, who lives at his ease in the city, and has the very finest taste for female beauty, was left, most unfortunately, a widower with four lovely daughters, any one of which may be considered a belle not to be rung by gentlemen of ordinary rank or vulgar pretension.  In fact, the Blackett girls are considered very fine specimens of beauty, are much admired in society, and expect ere long, on the clear merit of polish, to rank equal with the first aristocracy of the place.

Mr. Blackmore Blackett esteems himself an extremely lucky fellow in having so advantageously procured such a nice piece of property,—­so suited to his taste.  Her price, when compared with her singularly valuable charms, is a mere nothing; and, too, all his fashionable friends will congratulate him upon his good fortune.  But as disappointments will come, so Mr. Blackmore Blackett finds he has got something not quite so valuable as anticipated; however, being something of a philosopher, he will improve upon the course pursued by the younger Choicewest:  he makes his first advances with great caution; whispers words of tenderness in her ear; tells her his happy jewel for life she must be.  Remembering her mother, she turns a deaf ear to Mr. Blackett’s pleadings.  The very cabin which he has provided for her in the yard reminds her of that familiar domicile on Marston’s plantation.  Neither by soft pleadings, nor threatenings of sale to plantation life, nor terrors of the lash, can he soften the creature’s sympathies, so that the flesh may succumb.  When he whispered soft words and made fascinating promises, she would