n."

"Father! forgiven!" she murmured, and felt a warm face, that yet could
not warm her own, shedding tears and kissing her, and close to it her
arms were thrown tight, as if she never could let go, and everything was
music, but wonderful.

She feared she must fall if she did not hold to him. Who was it that
called her "daughter"? Why came those cold stars so close, as if to spy
upon him?

Oh, holy purity, that held so fast and did not know, but trusted
nature's quivering embrace! She wrestled with something, like a rock of
ice, to move her eyes and see, or ere she was dashed down forever, the
eyes that gushed for her. They were her master's.

"Master," she said, "whose am I?"

"Mine before God. Pure to my heart as your white sister, Vesta! White as
young love, in fondness and trust forever!"

"And mother?" gurgled the girl's low notes; "where is she?"

"Yonder," said the Judge, "in Heaven, that will judge me, whither she
winged in bearing thee to me!"

A happy light came over Virgie's face. She kissed her father twice, as
if the second kiss was meant for her happier sister, and, raising her
arms towards the sky he pointed to, whispered, "Freedom!" and died upon
his breast.

CHAPTER XL.

HULDA BELEAGUERED.

Owen Daw brought the news of the repulse from Cowgill House and the
wounding of Captain Van Dorn.

"Where is the little tacker, Levin?" asked Patty Cannon, furiously.

"Arrested, I 'spect," cried O'Day, boldly; "Van Dorn's hit in the
throat."

"He'll not talk much, then," muttered the woman; "his time had to come.
Where will I find another lover at my age? Why, honey," she chuckled to
herself, in a looking-glass, "that son of his'n may come back. He's took
a shine to Huldy: why not to me?"

At the idea another hideous thought came to her mind: to settle Hulda's
fate in her young lover's absence, and monopolize the corrupting power
over Levin Dennis, if he ever lived to see Johnson's Cross-roads again.

As individual fugitives returned, confirming the decisive repulse of the
band, Patty Cannon's face grew dark, and her oaths low and deep; Cyrus
James heard her say:

"If I could only hang some one for this! Joe Johnson's the white-livered
sneak that would not go. I've hanged a better son-in-law."

"Aunt Patty, I love your grandchild, Huldy," Cy James ventured to say.
"The Captain's wounded and Joe's going away to Floridy. Maybe I kin git
you up another band."

Without an instant's con