Cruel As The Grave

martial and h

ing like an e

irginia. The elder Howe was blessed with a large family, and cursed with a heavily mortgaged estate-a combina

of the University of Virginia, where, at the age of

Far West, young Howe, to the astonishment of all who were acquainted with the talents and ambition of the new lawyer, returned to his native county and

itics, and quite as much State pride as personal ambition. He wished to distinguish himself; yes, but no

ess, and to do her service and credit there, wa

of Blackville, and opened his law office in one

g and pleading; advocating and defending with great ability and success the cause of the poor and oppressed, and winning much ho

onal labors, he engaged in equall

to a just and wise policy, or what he, in his young enthusiasm, conceived to be such. He wro

to reach a high position some day. Yes! some day; but that des

y in love, since she whom he loved was at once the richest heiress, the greatest beauty, and the proudest lady in the whole community-Sybil Berners! Miss Berners, of Black Hall!-in social position as far above the briefless young lawyer as the sun above the

althy heiress. Or had he possessed a little more personal vanity, he might have suspected the truth; for certainly there was not a handsomer man in the whole county than was this briefless young lawyer with the napless hat and thread-bare coat. His person was of that medium height and just proportions necessary to give perfect elegance of form and grace of motion. His features were

erners? To tell you all she was. I must first tell you

stinies of the two hemispheres. Their house was older than the history

and they claimed descent from a ducal house whose patent of nobilit

re these Berners; no one ever loved as these Berners loved, or hated as they hated. In the intensity of their love or their hate they were capable of suffering or inflicting death; these Berners, whose friendship was almost as fatal as their enmity; these Berners, who "never spared man in their hate or woman in their lo

t heiress as well as the most

holding besides its own home plantation, several of th

he home manor of the Berners family, and known as the Black Valley. It is a long, deep, narrow vale, lyi

now bursting into light as it foams over the face of some rock, until at length it tumbles down to the foot of the mountain and flows along through the bottom of the Valley, until about half way down its length, it wide

rising ground on the west side of the Black Water with its o

iron gray rocks dug from the home quarries; and it is scarcely to be

rom the time of King James the First, who made a grant of

h rank, the daughter of the colonial governor of Virginia. This union, which was neither

resolved to marry again in the hope of having heirs. He chose for his second wife a y

opes, when, a year after their marriage, she present

id not die immediately, yet from the day of Sybil's birth, she fell

y disappointed in his hopes of a male heir, yet he was not mad enough, at his advanced period of life, to try matrimony again. He w

ly child, who is besides the offspring of his age. He would not part with her to send he

vernesses, each one of whom excessively annoyed him by persistently trying to

han the first; for each one of the tutors in his turn tried to marry the heire

unate in his selection of teachers. It must have been so indeed, since he had been accustomed

st capricious, fitful and irregular manner, the worst suited to her, wh

owledge of literature, arts, and sciences, and a very i

the other branches of a polite education;" that, for instance, she never could remember whether the "Pons Asinorum" were a plant or a p

trifling exaggeration of the n