brotherly and sisterly kindness between them, the restraint which affects strangers passed away.

Thrown out upon the wide world we soon learn to distinguish between enemies and friends, and Innocence is treble guarded, because this primal instinct remains unblunted. Brighter sparkled the hickory, cheerier gleamed the tall candles, while English Cupid called his fairy train to dance in airy circles around the pair and fill their hearts with silent blisses of a new-born joy.

At last the lovely English girl became frank and social. A sweet sense of home comfort filled the room. Our friend the Editor had the tact to make her at ease. Nevertheless curiosity kept whispering "Who is she?" Soon the gallant took courage to say, "I am sure that I have found a dear friend and must tell her something of myself." The fine face kindled, and he spoke of boyhood and its pleasures in the old Wallingford mansion. One by one the closed leaves of the soul expanded like some rare flower, and, before he knew it, the silent thoughts that even now were shaping destiny took form in words and stood arrayed in living images before the maiden's mind.

Confidence calls for a return. With half shut eyes, as if recalling from the past dim and fluctuating memories, the lovely mystery replied, "Mr. Wallingford, I am a gipsy girl, born in Europe, abandoned by a reckless uncle in a farm-house on Long Island, driven from that shelter by ill treatment, found in a hopeless, suffering state by a family of Indians, and educated by them to make baskets and earn my bread.”

The young man drew closer; his soul was deeply moved. She continued: "This Neeshema was a real character, and the story of her early life, the blight that fell upon it and her final, happy death, is true. Her sufferings excited the sympathy of a benevolent gentleman in Connecticut, who placed me under the charge of an estimable Quaker lady,

preceptress of a seminary in the same place. How I left her care it is impossible for me to say. For some cause, I

know not what, I must have been stolen. I recollect retiring to my room in her pleasant cottage. I awoke in a close carriage guarded by two persons whom I never recollect to have seen before. I next found myself in a city which I learned afterward was Charleston, surrounded with every luxury but utterly secluded. Here I became aware that a great peril threatened me; but a slave woman who was my gaoler, and who is now in this house, found means for our escape upon a coasting vessel. Miss Katrina took an interest in us, being also a passenger, and, on arriving at the little village to which the schooner was bound, insisted that we should remain with her for a time."

We have seen that the grand element in Miles Wallingford's nature was chivalry. It is this that makes the gentleman. Its essence consists in the protection of the weak against the strong. There was nothing in the story that suggested to his mind the idea that Charity was more than she had said, a helpless gipsy lass; but he was sweetly content to vow himself in secret her life's guardsman.

Lover's instinct whispered that this treasure must be guarded with sleepless vigilance. The high-born gentleman spoke when he addressed her again. It was as if the mother's soul looked through the boy's eyes. His glances read the noble spirit, that, wrapt in vails of beautiful and maidenly reserve, had yet disclosed, without fear, its lowly origin, its uncertain and eventful history. Had Charity been the great lady in disguise a lofty pride might have spoken; as it was, no vassal, approaching crowned lady on bended knee, could have evinced more perfect reverence.

She held a little, worn book. He saw the sacred name upon it, and remarked, “He who walked through earth in form the lowliest, yet reigns in Heaven high above the highest, has said that we must be little children. Charity,

my friend, I will be as a child with you. The history which you have so freely confided to me is one that it might not be safe to repeat to others, nor is the servant of whom you speak safe even in this shelter. Her master or mistress may reclaim her, nor can our laws interpose any obstacle. You are clearly in non-age, and therefore it may be that your abductors acted under the color of authority. We cannot fathom this secret, but enough is given us to enforce the necessity for silence. I, too, am young, and therefore, perhaps, not fully competent to advise, though living in contact with worldly men and mingling in their pursuits has furnished an experience which otherwise I could not have obtained. You came in the Globe. It is known in Charleston that she sails to and from the village of Tarrytown. Even now the quadroon woman may have been traced to this house." This was indeed the case.

"I cannot judge with entire discretion of the course which ought to be pursued, unless the servant is willing to inform me all that she may know of the circumstances connected with your abduction. There is no time to be lost. Should she be reclaimed as a runaway, arrangements must be made to remove her from pursuit until, if possible,-for I would not interfere with my country's law,—we may negociate her freedom."

Overhead paced Zulette, for she could not sleep. Something seemed whispering "Up, up, for you are needed!" We must now resume the thread of our narrative in another place.

CHAPETR XXXVIII.

THE MIDNIGHT CRY.

Lucretia Lorne paced to and fro in her boudoir, after the flight, like a tigress robbed of its whelp. Five weeks had elapsed since the slave, Zulette, had disappeared, bearing away the innocent cause of all this gathering tragedy from that scene of guilt and woe. Madame had not been idle. A skillful detective, employed with strictest secrecy, had traced the missing quadroon, under a familiar disguise, to the schooner Globe, of Tarrytown. Sent on with documents empowering him to reclaim the fugitive, he had written to his employer that a reasonable certainty existed that she might be recovered.

No other changes had occurred in that respectable family. Still, in the grandly-furnished parlors, dignified and opulent gentlemen were occasionally seen in the bewitching society of lovely and accomplished ladies. The servants, as of old, were obsequious, the hostess charming and agreeable. No thunderbolt had fallen.

Peter Styles had disappeared. Where was Peter? Handy Ben and his friend Major Chelmsford, alias Cunning Joe, have obtained release from prison under heavy bail. Spring is coming, and tiny voices from snowdrop and violet blow their elf-land bugles. A softer breath is on the air. Consumptives who have come here from bleak New England, lean languidly at open windows to inhale the fresh, reviving breath. The buds are swollen upon the peach trees,

and here and there a faint crimson petal is half blown. It promises to be an early spring.

The voluptuous evening dress of the keeper of the Harem, in strict conformity with Parisian propriety and taste, suggests the exquisite outlines of a faultless person, and befits her style of beauty, as its snowy plumage becomes the swan. True, the dark line under each full eye is a little darker; the sinister smile that, spite of will, makes its appearance around the full lips, betrays a little more of the devil. The white brow will settle into a frown when no one gazes at it, but the cheeks wear their peach bloom, the dark hair is as glossy, the voice as bland, the manner as caressing as a month ago. Still lurks the keen poniard within those dainty muslin folds, and, as the golden fingers of the diamond watch turn slowly onward, night and day, the curved blade feels that edge and point are perfect, and lies there as if in silent foreknowledge of a use that is to be. And still the heart feels the cold steel of the scabbard, and still it listens to the metallic click and the friction of the delicate machinery, while the drops of ruby see which shall run the fastest, they or the eddying moments that circle on the dialplate, and ooze away in Time's unfathomed void.

Mr. Ormsby, at home in commodious quarters at the Charleston Hotel, is soon on pleasant and social terms with frank-hearted planters and busy merchants, who there congregate. A quiet rubber of whist with one, a chat over the bottle with another; and then an invitation is given, and accepted, to a little Euchre party and a frolic at Madame Lorne's.

There are three others whom we must follow for a moment, and the first is Peter Styles. Returning to the prison of the heiress on the morning after the eventful day which witnessed in its gray twilight the capture of Handy Ben and the confinement of the two in the city prison upon the charge of various burglaries, Peter Styles reëntered the