om the distance emerge from the
vat, return to the homestead, and skulk, dripping in, like a rat of
outlandish breed, at his chamber-window, they were amply avenged: the
Captain, for the freedom with which the city-exquisite had treated the
Peabody family, especially the good old grandfather, and Mopsey, for the
slighting manner in which he had referred to absent young Mas'r
Elbridge.

When all was peace again within the homestead, there was one who still
watched the night, and ignorant of the nature of this strange tumult,
trembled as at the approach of a long-wished for happiness. It was
Miriam, the orphan dependent, who now sat by the midnight casement. Oh,
who of living men can tell how that young heart yearned at the
thought--the hope--the thrilling momentary belief--that this was her
absent lover happily returning?

In the wide darkness of the lonesome night, which was it shone brightest
and with purest lustre, in view of the all-seeing Mover of the
Heavens--the stars glittering far away in space, in all their lofty
glory, or the timid eyes of that simple maiden, wet with the dew of
youth, and bright with the pure hope of honest love! When all was still
again, and no Elbridge's voice was heard, no form of absent Elbridge
there to cheer her, oh, who can tell how near to breaking, in its silent
agony, was that young heart, and with what tremblings of solicitude and
fear, the patient Miriam waited for the friendly light to open the
golden-gate of dawn upon another morrow!

CHAPTER SEVENTH.

THE THANKSGIVING SERMON.

The morning of the day of Thanksgiving came calm, clear and beautiful. A
stillness, as of heaven and not of earth, ruled the wide landscape. The
Indian summer, which had been as a gentle mist or veil upon the beauty
of the time, had gone away a little--retired, as it were, into the hills
and back country, to allow the undimmed heaven to shine down upon the
happy festival of families and nations. The cattle stood still in the
fields without a low; the trees were quiet as in friendly recognition of
the spirit of the hour; no reaper's hook or mower's scythe glanced in
the meadow, no rumbling wain was on the road. The birds alone, as being
more nearly akin to the feeling of the scene, warbled in the boughs.

But out of the silent gloom of the mist there sprang as by magic, a
lovely illumination which lit the country far and wide, as with a
thousand varicolored lamps. As a maiden who has tarried