zing the meat and bread, rushed noiselessly into the night.

She hardly knew what she was doing until she had crossed a bridge and
come to the edge of a small town, around which she took a road to the
right that led into another country road, and this she followed a mile
or more, till she saw a small brick house, by a stile and pole-well, in
the edge of woods.

The light from a little dormer-window in the garret beamed so brightly
that it charmed Virgie's soul with the fascination of warmth and home,
and, without thinking, she crossed the stile, bathed her hot temples at
the well, and walked into the kitchen before the fire.

"Freedom!" said Virgie, wanderingly; "have I come to it?" She fell upon
the rag carpet before the fire, saying, "Father, dear father," and did
not move.

"Well," spoke a man of large paunch and black snake's eyes, sitting
there, "it's not often people in search of freedom walk into Devil Jim
Clark's!"

"She is white," exclaimed a woman, looking compassionately upon the
stranger, "and she is dying."

"No," retorted the man, "she is too pretty to be white. This is the
bright wench Sam Ogg was seen with. She belongs to Allan McLane, and
there's a reward of five hundred dollars for her, but she'll bring two
thousand in New Orleans for a mistress."

"Hush!" said the woman; "you may bring a judgment upon your daughters."

"Joe Johnson is about to sail," remarked Devil Jim Clark; "he shall take
her with him."

The girl had heard _that_ name through the thick chambers of oblivion.
She rose and shrieked, and rushed into the woman's arms:

"Save me, mother, save me from that man!"

The woman's heart was pierced by the cry, and she folded Virgie to her
breast and kissed her, saying:

"She shall sleep in our daughter's bed and rest her poor feet this
night--our daughter, James, that we buried."

The man's mouth puckered a little; he looked uneasy, and drew his
handkerchief to his eyes.

"You're all agin me! you're all agin me!" he bellowed, and rushed from
the room.

* * * * *

The wife of Devil Jim Clark was a pious Methodist, and, with her
rich-eyed daughter, spent the next day at Virgie's bedside, hearing her
broken mutterings for fatherly love and Vesta's cherished remembrance.

"Your father is out for mischief," Mrs. Clark said. "Jump on your
saddle-horse, my daughter, and ride to the Widow Brinkley's, just over
the Camden line. Tell her to send for thi