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Adversity, or something better, had taught him the folly of the prominent foible of the Virginian – insane state pride, and consequent individual importance. His mind was prepared to test men by the proper criterion – merit, without regard to the adventitious circumstances of birth, wealth, or nativity.

Major Smith deserves the meed, I believe, for being the first one of the race to acknowledge that he was not an F. F. ; which confession, showing his integrity of character, proved to me that he really was one of the very first of the land. But, in describing the father, I am neglecting by far the most interesting, if not the most important character of the story – his daughter – a sweet blooming girl of seventeen, at the time of which I write. Ah! she was the bright exemplar of her sex! Look in her eye – so luminous, yet so tender, and far down in its dreamy still waters, you could see the gems of purity and feeling glimmering; listen to her voice – and never yet forest bird, on the topmost leafy bough, gave forth such a gush of melody, as when it rose and melted away in a laugh; her modesty and timidity – you have seen the wild fawn, when, pausing on the brink of some placid lake, it sees its beautiful image reflected in the waters – thus shrank she, as if into herself, when voice of love, or praise, or admiration stole into her ears – and yet, with all her maidenly reserve and timidity, she loved and was beloved. Knowing that I am a bachelor, think not, in this recital, that my swelling heart is tearing open anew wounds which time and philosophy have just enabled me to heal. No! my fair friend – for friend she was, and is – never kindled in my heart the flames of love, or heard aught of the soft impeachment from me; for, long before I had seen her, the “Swamp Doctor” had wedded his books and calling – rather a frigid bride, but not an unprolific one, and her yearly increase, instead of bringing lines of anxiety to my brow, smooths the wrinkles that care and deep thought – certainly it cannot be age – Lord! Lord! I have broken my wig spring – have dropped upon my visage!

My friend Jerry was the favoured mortal, and, without doubt, in an equal intensity reciprocated her love; but cowardice had hitherto prevented an avowal upon his part, and the two lovers, therefore, dwelt in a delicious state of uncertainty and suspense. No one, to know Jerry, as the majority of men – going through the world with their noses either too elevated or too depressed for observation – know their kind, would have thought him a coward: but I knew, that, as respected women, a more arrant poltroon did not exist. He would have met any peril that resolution, strength, or a contempt for life could overcome, without fear of the consequences or the least tremor; and yet he dared not for his life tell a pretty girl, “that he loved her, and would be highly pleased, and sorter tickled, too, if she would marry him.” There was something more terrible in the idea of such an avowal, than fighting bears, hugging Indians, or strangling panthers.

The poor girl, with the intuitive perception of her sex, had long perceived that Jerry loved her as ardently as if the avowal on his part had already been made. Almost daily she saw him, eagerly she awaited a declaration, but poor Jerry never could get his courage to the sticking point; like Bob Acres, it would ooze out at his fingers’ points, in spite of himself and his determination to bring things to the condition of a fixed fact.