At the Mercy of Tiberius

s only a mile and a half, I can easily walk.

with stone pillars, and two tremendous brass dogs on top, showing their teeth and ready to spring. There's no mistaking the place, because it is the only one left in the country that looks like the good old times before the wa

u. I will

ent of the railway station, leaning against the door of

e and walk, and such a steady look in her big solemn eyes, as if she saw straight throug

she soon began to identify the land-marks along the road, alter passing the cemetery, where so many generations of Darringtons slept in one corner, en

sly to cover her retreat, the south wind came heavily laden with hot vapor from equatorial oceanic caldrons; and now the afternoon sun, glowing in a cloudless sky, sh

and year after year the mellow brown carpet of reddish straw deepened, forming a soft safe nidus for the seeds that sprang up and now gratefully embroidered it with mas

"piney-woods' branches," she was charmed by the novel golden brown wavelets that frothed against the pillars of the bridge, and curled caressingly about the broad emerald fronds of luxuriant ferns, which hung Narcissus-like over their own graceful quivering images. Profound quiet brooded in the warm, hazy air, burdened with bals

rge undulating park, which stretched away to meet the line of primitive pines. There was no straight avenue, but a broad smooth carriage road curved gently up a hillside, and on both margins of the graveled way, ancient elm trees stood at regular intervals, throwing their boughs across, to unite in lifting the superb groined arches, wh

the vivid scarlet of sumach and black gum, the delicate lemon of wild cherry-the deep ochre all sprinkled and splashed with intense crimson, of the giant oaks-the orange glow of ancestral hickory-and the golden glory of maples, on w

ving under the elm arches. Beneath the far reaching branches of a patriarchal cedar, a small herd of Jersey calves had grouped themselves, as if posing for Landseer or Rosa Bonheu

rave chivalric, warm-hearted, open-handed, noble-souled, refined southern gentlemen who built and owned them. No Mansard roof here, no pseudo "Queen Anne" hybrid, with lowering, top-heavy projections like scowling eyebrows over squinting eyes; neither mongrel Renaissance, nor

e front, ran a lofty piazza supporting the roof, with white smooth round pillars; while the upper broad square windows, cedar-framed, and deeply embrasured, looked down on the floor of the piazza, where so many generations of Darringtons had trundled hoops in childhood-and promenaded as lovers in the silvery moonlight, listening to the ring doves cooing above them, from the columbary of the stucco capitals. This spacious colonnade extended around the northern and e

y park and ancient trees, to the unbroken facade of the gray old house; and as, in painful contrast she recalled the bare bleak garret room, where a beloved invalid held want and death at bay, a sudden mist clouded her visio

Is it the faint shadow, the solemn rustle of their hovering wings, as like mother birds they spread protect

ma

at visit us, we

piration, are

ed spirits,

o wait outside

ed windows speak

plicable impulse to turn and flee; but

gany door was so glossy, that she dimly saw her own image on its polished panels, as she lifted and let fall the heavy silver knocker, in the middle of an oval silver plate, around the edges of which were raised the square letters of the name "Darrington." The clanging sound startled a

see Mr. D

n, don't you? Mr. Darrington, Mars

arrington, the own

e Darrington. Well,

him, and I shall st

not to let nobody else in I'de ruther set down in a yaller jacket's nest than to

I presume my sitting on the steps here

you had better walk in the drawing-room, and rest yourself. There's pictures

a long, dim apartment, on

I prefer t

and taking off her straw hat, fanned her heated br

I give, when the lie-ye

ishes to see him about

ing of white ones. Marse Lennox Dunbar (he is our lie-yer now, since his pa took paralsis) he is a powerful wrastler with justice. They do say down yonder, at the court house, that when he gets done

d to "Bedney")-who had once saved his mother's life at the risk of his own. Mrs. Brentano had often related to her children, an episode in her childhood, when having gone to play with her dolls in the loft of the stable, she fell asleep on the hay; and two hours later, Bedney remembering that he had heard her s

n the name of those early years, when her mother's childish feet made music on the wide mahogany railed stairs, that wou

oduce an effect very similar to the ringing of some Tamil Pariah's bell, before the door of a Brahman temple, Beryl wisel

southward, and disappeared behind the house; where at the foot of a steep bluff, a pretty boat and bath house nestled under ancient willow trees. At her feet the foliage of the park stretched like some brilliant carpet, before whose gorgeous

l was roused from her reverie by the sound of hearty laughter in the apa

tion this afternoon, and I shall certai

oth-covered floor of the hall, and B

han thirty years old, of powerful and impressive physique; very tall, athletic, sinewy, without an ounce of superfluous flesh to encumber his movements, in the professional palaestra; with a large finely modeled head, whose c

antly, as a perplexing disagreeable memory; an uncanny resemblance hovering just beyond the grasp of identification. A feeling of unaccountable repulsion made her shiver, and she breathed more freely, when he hewed sl

poken comment was: "Superb woman; I wonder what bri

head to avoid the yellow poplar branche

bedcharmber, as he feels poorly to-day, and the Doctor won't let him out. Follow me. You see, o

taller, until he seemed a giant, drawn to his full height, and resting for support on the hand that was rested upon the table. Intensity of emotion arrested her breath, as she gazed at the silvered head, piercing black eyes, and spare wasted framp of the handsome man, who had always reigned as a brutal ogre in her imagination. The fire in his somewhat sunken eyes, seemed to bid

im, Luke Darrington bowed low, surveyed her int

l you take a seat, and excuse the feebleness th

she found it impossible to utter the words, rehearsed so frequently during h

ey encircled. The burnished auburn hair clinging in soft waves to her brow, was twisted into a heavy coil, which the long walk had shaken down till it rested almost on her neck; and thou

e to whom I am indebted for

tter which will explain itself,

ingering in admiration upon the classic outlines of her face and for

'piping days of Pan' I should flatter myself that 'Ox-eyed Juno' had

ress-"To my dear father, Gen'l Luke Darrington"-the smile on his face changed to

son, Prince Darrington. I have repeatedly refused to hol

a caressing touch, as though it were

dying; and this is

I am in my dotage, and may relent, she strangely forgets the nature of the blood she saw fit to cross with that of a beggarly foreign scrub. Go back and tell h

sy caged tiger, suddenly stirred into wrath, and a grayish p

recollection of her mother's tearful, suffering countenance

hung by a thread, would you deliberat

d on the table, pushed roughly aside a salver,

l operation, which may restore her health, she will certainly die. I am indulging in no exaggeration to extort alms. In this letter is the certificate of a distinguished physician, cor

n my own house, and tell me to my f

ched hand on the table with a force that made the g

rand demands; but the tender love in a woman's heart nerves

n the fangs from the old crippled Da

che, until she saw the outline o

esh his claws, in the quivering body of his own offspr

efore him, and looked down on h

hat right dare you

her mother's sufferings and vho would never have endured the humiliation of this

mean that

but the bearer of a lette

e the child o

im, and with what a host of memories its echo peopled the room, w

is my dear mo

ing so proudly down upon him, as from an inaccessible height;

ht her child

ungest of tw

daughter of that infernal, low-bo

e dead ar

f interdict; and all the stony calm in her pale face seemed shivered by a p

from dire necessity, at your mercy-a helpless, defenseless pleader in my mother's behalf-and as such, I appeal to the boasted southern chivalry, upon which you pride yourself, for immunity from insult while I am under your roof. Since I stood no taller than your knee, my mother has st

signal, then General Darrington sprang to his feet, and with

thern chivalry, I swear

r, and let us cut short an interview-which, if d

loor; and smothering an oath under his heavy mustache, t