* * *

Vesta told the story of Mary, the free woman, to her husband, who
listened closely and said:

"I know of but one thing, my darling, that will make such ignorance and
cruelty fade out in the forests of this peninsula: an iron road. A new
thing, called the railroad-engine, has just been made by an Englishman,
one George Stephenson, and a specimen of it has been sent to New York,
where I have had it examined. The errand your father went to do for me,
he has done well. I shall send him to Annapolis next, to get a charter
for a railroad up this peninsula that will pass inside the line of
Maryland, and penetrate every kidnapping settlement hidden there, and
light, intercourse, and law shall exterminate such barracoons as
Johnson's."

Vesta was glad to hear her father praised by her husband, and hopes
rekindled of some happier family reunion, when she should feel the
heartache die within her that now raged intermittently during her vestal
honeymoon. A letter came on the fourth day which dashed these hopes to
the ground, and it was as follows:

"DORCHESTER COUNTY, MD., _October--, 1829_.

"_Darling Niece_,--Idol of my heart, let me begin by entreating you
to take a conservative course when I break the sad intelligence to
you of the death of my dear sister, Lucy, at Cambridge, yesterday,
of the heart disease. She was the star of the house of McLane. She
is gone. 'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord, and I shall take a
conservative though _consistent_ course on the parties who have
inflicted this injury upon you, my dear niece, and upon your calm
and collected, if stricken, uncle.

"'The Lord moves in a _mysterious_ way, his wonders to perform,'
and his humble instruments require only to be _inflexible and
conservative_ to do all things well. Be assured that
_righteousness_ shall be done upon the adversaries of our family,
and _that_ right speedily. My own grief is composed in the
satisfaction I shall take, and the assurance that your sainted
mother is where the wicked cease from troubling.

"The financial arrangements of my dear sister were of the most
conservative and high-toned character, as was to have been expected
of her.

"You may be desirous, my outraged, but, I hope, still _spirited_,
idol, to hear the particulars of Lucy's death. She did not reach
Cambridge