Gumbo had killed ever so many Indians, and tried to save Master George, but he was Master Harry's boy,--and Master Harry was as rich,--oh, as rich as ever he like.

He wore black now, because Master George was dead; but you should see his chests full of gold clothes, and lace, and jewels at Bristol.

Of course, Master Harry was the richest man in all Virginia, and might have twenty sixty servants; only he liked travelling with one best, and that one, it need scarcely be said, was Gumbo.
This story was not invented at once, but gradually elicited from Mr.
Gumbo, who might have uttered some trifling contradictions during the progress of the narrative, but by the time he had told his tale twice or thrice in the servants'-hall or the butler's private apartment, he was pretty perfect and consistent in his part, and knew accurately the number of slaves Madam Esmond kept, and the amount of income which she enjoyed.

The truth is, that as four or five blacks are required to do the work of one white man, the domestics in American establishments are much more numerous than in ours; and, like the houses of most other Virginian landed proprietors, Madam Esmond's mansion and stables swarmed with negroes.
Mr.Gumbo's account of his mistress's wealth and splendour was carried to my lord by his lordship's man, and to Madame de Bernstein and my ladies by their respective waiting-women, and, we may be sure, lost nothing in the telling.

A young gentleman in England is not the less liked because he is reputed to be the heir to vast wealth and possessions; when Lady Castlewood came to hear of Harry's prodigious expectations, she repented of her first cool reception of him, and of having pinched her daughter's arm till it was black-and-blue for having been extended towards the youth in too friendly a manner.