shelter of maternal love, will yet bring themselves
to turn a cold stern front on the forlorn defenceless
infancy that peeps in, shivering, from the
hard outer world, at the bright flame burning
on the hearth of home. But not of these was my
aunt. Perhaps my own trouble taught me to
understand and value her, better than I had
ever done before. Sorrow comes to teach such
lessons. The worst was, I could not quite
keep it to myself. "Has Horace written this
week? What does he say?" She would question
me thus, and I could not always keep back tears,
though I tried hard. Though I tried very hard.

It was now drawing near the time at which
I understood Horace was to take his departure
for the north—within a day or two, as I reckoned
—and I was feverishly hoping for a letter. A
packet had come from the Gable House one
morning, directed in Anna's hand, and containing
a long letter from my uncle, and a short
note from Anna for my aunt. But nothing from
Horace; not one word. There was an incomprehensible
allusion to my indolence as a letter-writer,
made by my uncle. "Madge is a good
correspondent to me, my love," he said, writing
to my aunt, " but urge her not to let us old
folks engross all her pretty letters. I think
Horace feels hurt." What did this mean? I
could not understand it.

The day had been oppressively hot, and the
moonless night came down from a brooding sultry
sky. We sat with open windows, listening to the
plash, plash, of the tide upon the shingle, and
catching now and again, through the gathering
darkness, the distant flash of some white-crested
wave leaping high above its fellows.
Mr. Norcliffe was with us, and we had all been
sitting silent for some minutes.

"How the sea booms to-night!" I said. " Is
it not a hollow, threatening noise?"

"Yes," he answered, "I know the sound
well. We shall have a storm."

While he was yet speaking, rapid wheels and
hoofs grated on the road beneath the windows,
and a post-chaise stopped before the door.

I heard a voice telling the postilion to stop.
"Why, it is uncle!"

I started up breathless.

"James!" cried my aunt, with a scared look,
"what can have brought him here?"

"O, I know, I know!" I exclaimed, " Horace
must be with him—he has come to say good-bye,
he has come to see me before he goes!"

I was rushing to the room door, when it
opened, and my uncle stood before me, alone.
I know not what wild thoughts whirled through
my brain. I turned giddy. I saw his pale rigid
face, and my heart stood still.

"Horace!" I gasped out. "He is dead!"

"My bairn! My bairn!"

"He is dead, and you have kept me from
him!" My own voice sounded hoarse and
strange in my own ears.

"Margaret! My beloved child! Be strong,
be brave."

"Tell me the truth. He is mine. I have a
right to know. Is he dead?"

I clutched my uncle's arm. At the touch of
my hand, his locked mouth broke from its fixed
lines, with the terrible convulsion that comes
upon a strong man when he weeps.

"No, Margaret, he is not dead. But he is
gone—fled—fled away with Anna—and he is a
damned black villain!"

The boom of the sea grew into a great roar,
thick darkness came over me, and I fell down
senseless.

ICE-BOUND IN ARKANSAS.

A QUARTER of a century ago a D.D. of
Harvard College left Boston, Massachusetts, on
a professional tour of inspection to the Indian
territory lying to the north of Texas. The
journey of about two thousand miles was made
with the average number of delays, in the way
of boiler explosions and break-downs. The
doctor spent five months in passing from wigwam
to wigwam, helped by a young Cherokee,
whom, together with an Indian boy (not
Titania's), he took with him in the month of
February on the eastward journey back to
Boston. Travel was not in those days very easy;
but the presence of a wise man from the East
was an event in the Cherokee world; and, on
his return, the benevolent Bostonian was charged
with the escort of somebody's wife and family
to the Mississippi, and of somebody else's two
daughters all the way to Boston, where they
were to have their education finished.

Well, they set out, and in a week got to Van
Buren: a small town near the western border of
Arkansas, and a few miles below Fort Smith
on the Arkansas River. Thence they meant to
go by water across the State. But at Van
Buren the doctor learned, to his dismay, that,
owing to the low state of the river, navigation
had been suspended for eight months. Until
the breaking up of the frost in the cold upper
regions of the Arkansas River and its long
tributaries, there could be no boat-communication
with the Mississippi. The detention of his caravan
caused great concern to the excellent D.D.
Arkansas was the resort for the lawless and
the abandoned. Its inhabitants, hardier than
their more southern neighbours, the Texans, had
all their reckless daring, without their refining
influences. Moreover, the little town of Van
Buren was specially favoured by a horde of
border ruffians, whom the doctor, with his Indian
boy, his Cherokee, and his two commission
groups of girls, thought to escape by establishing
himself and them in a farm-house a few miles
from the town.

This farm-house might be taken as a sample
of the planters' dwellings in that region. It
was built of rough logs, and was divided
into two compartments, in which the whole
family cooked, and lived, and slept. In those
days many such farmers or "planters" in
Arkansas, possessing eighty or a hundred
slaves, lived contentedly thus housed, and
passed their lives in smoking, drinking, gambling,