Princess

t were, and ask himself what should be the result. He had lingered in Virginia, lengthening his stay from week to week, because the old world quaintness of the people, the freshness and yet a

expression of the beaten track, of the sameness of th

en, more candid, less impressible. He could not discover what she thought of him, beyond her surface interest in his talents and conversation. She piqued and stimulated him; in her prese

ecause of his contentment with the present. Now, self delusion was no longer possible; the report of his gun had blown away the last rays of it forever. When Pocahontas lay well-nigh senseless in his arms, when her fair face

t to love her; he

tance had so withdrawn itself into the background of his life that he had forgotten that the shadow still rested on him. He was free, and he was bound. Thorne turned the i

eave her the protection of his home and name as long as she cared to keep it. Then, too, the habit of thought in his family, and all his early influences were against divorce. The idea had not presented itself spontaneously, as the natural solution of his domestic difficulties; he had been obliged to familiarize himself with it. His family had been Catholics for generations, his mother had become one on her marriage, and had been ardent and devout, as is usual with proselytes. Thor

wretched fiasco his marriage had proved! And yet he had loved his wife! Her beauty was of a type that insures its possessor love of a certain sort-not the best, but strong enough to stand the wear and tear of w

n the surface was so pleasant and satisfying? She liked Thorne well enough, but his ceaseless craving for congeniality, deep affection, community of interest, and the like, wearied, bored and baffled her. Why should they care for the same things, cultivate similar tas

f. He wanted his wife to lean on him, to clothe the strength of his manhood with the grace of her womanhood-and his wife showed herself not only capable of standing alone, but of pushi

n; everywhere there was a feeling that foreboded snow. In the sky, few stars were visible, and those glimmered with a cold, wan light; at the zenith a solitary p

s him, her hand in his, her influence surrounding him, to what might not a man aspire! There were no insincerities, no half-truths, no wheels within wheels, such as Ethel delighted in, about this other woman. Ev

nly had he failed of securing the love he sought, and it was the memory of that failure which made him pause and question now. He was not sure. She liked him, was pleasant and gracious, but he had seen her so to other men. Never until this evening had she changed color at his touch. She liked him-and Thorne felt within him a fier

proclaimed race-two negroes returning from the little village, beyond Shirley, whither they had gone to make Christmas purchases. They walked by the light of a flaring pine knot, which was encouraged to burn by being swung around violently from time to time; it lighted the men's dark faces, and reflected itself in intermittent flashes on the sides of a bright tin bucket wh

n', an' rattlin' down like broke up lamp chimblys. De little gals was 'pon de groun' watchin' him, an' hollerin' an' wringin' deir han's. I was

her negro; "hit's mighty dangersome gitt

oldin' it by de stem wid he teef. He wouldn't fling it down, kase he's feard he'd spile de berries. Time he totch de groun' good, Miss Grace, she hauled off, she did, an' smacked his jaws ez hard ez she could stave, an' axed him how da

d forward, with a muttered "What's dat?" Nothing of any consequence; a bird, or a rabbit, perhaps-nothing worth investigation. The man with the bucket set his burden on the ground, and opened and shut his

an resumed

't fitten fur Miss Pocahontas ter set her foots 'pon in his notion; he'd er liked ter

objected the torch-b

him; dat how come he

n get what he wa

ter rake up money 'nouf ter buy one mule, an' rent er scrop o' lan', so ez I could marry Sarah. Mars Jim's comin' back; las' word he sed ter Aunt Vi'let, was dat. Miss Pocahontas ain't kick him n'other. What she gwine kick him fur? Mars

razed Thorne's face and caused him to throw up his hand with an impatient oath. The wisdom of the defunct "kyar'ege driver" was overwhelmed in the flood of perturbation which seized his descendant. The man swung his torch around nervousl

was an ancient graveyard, and the rumor went, that the denizens thereof were of a specially unruly, not to say malicious spirit, and f

n bold with long immunity of office, were held capable of deeper malignity, than would be within the range of ghosts oppressed with the modesty of debutants. The fact that the occupants of the place had, in life, been of their

re urgence than they ever did at "pray'r meetin'," they grabbed up their belongings and addressed themselves to flight. The bags, flopping up and down on their backs, held them to their speed, by corporeal reminder of what they had to lose if the devil should overtake them, and the molasses in the bucket slopped over the sides and sweetened the dust at every jump. The bucket top had bounced off in the first burst and

il was this Jim Byrd? These men had spoken of him as the avowed lover of Pocahontas, the man she would eventually marry. The girl herself had admitted him to be a dear and valued friend-a friend so dear that his going had left a blank in her life. T

of antagonism grew so intense that it seemed to annihilate space and materialize his distant rival into an actual presence; his feeling was that which animates brutes when they lock horns, or fly

ble, beautiful possibilities, filled with joy and light and sweetness-and filled for his rival-not for him. As in a mirror he beheld his love in his rival's arms, resting on his bosom, as an hour ago she had rested on his own; only in this man's embrace, he

rce. He would wait no longer; he would break at once and forever the frail fetter that still bound him to a union from which all reality, all sanctity had fled. He would be free in fa

threatened to overwhelm the pure light of the planet. The lesser stars vanished, two or three falli