They (the Lloyds) are an old and honored family in Maryland, exceedingly wealthy.

The home plantation, where they have resided, perhaps for a century or more, is one of the largest, most fertile, and best appointed, in the state.
About this plantation, and about that queer old master--who must be something more than a man, and something worse than an angel--the reader will easily imagine that I was not only curious, but eager, to know all that could be known.

Unhappily for me, however, all the information I could get concerning him increased my great dread of being carried thither--of being{34} separated from and deprived of the protection of my grandmother and grandfather.

It was, evidently, a great thing to go to Col.

Lloyd's; and I was not without a little curiosity to see the place; but no amount of coaxing could induce in me the wish to remain there.