cret protectors.

Uncle Nathan returned to the cabin, delighted with the idea of sharing
his responsibility with Henry. But his first wish was to relieve the
distress of Emily, who, he rightly judged, was in continued suffering,
on account of the painful uncertainty which shrouded her destiny.

Emily rose on the morning of the duel in blissful ignorance of the
danger which Henry had incurred on her account. She had passed a
sleepless night, in the most intense agony. Her eyes were red and
swollen with weeping, and her heart yet beat with the violence of her
emotions. She felt in the most intense degree the misery of her
situation, to which she failed not to give all its weight. She had a
friend--a brother--more than brother--near, in the person of Henry. That
love which she allowed her fond heart to cherish was like an oasis in
the desert of her misery. She loved him, and in this thought--in the
delightful sensation which accompanied it--she found her only solace.

At breakfast she saw him again; again his speaking eyes told how fondly
his heart clung to her; again his smile fanned her fevered brain, like
the zephyr of summer, into a dream of bliss. Her heart led her back to
the days when they had wandered together over her father's plantation.
Then, restrained by the coyness of unrevealed love, each enjoyed a
happiness to which the other was supposed to be a stranger.

But the anguish of her painful position _would_ come to destroy the
dream of bliss, and dissipate the bright halo her imagination had cast
before her. She retired to her state-room, to ponder again her unhappy
lot. "Thy will be done," murmured she, as, throwing herself into a
chair, she resigned herself to the terrible reflection that she was a
slave and an outcast. The bright dream of love was only a chimera, to
make her feel more deeply the terrible reality.

Whilst she was thus venting her anguish, she was roused from her
lethargy of grief by the chambermaid, who had entered by the inner door.

"Please, ma'am, a gentleman out in the cabin says he wants to speak to
you."

"A gentleman wishes to speak to me? Did he send his name?"

"No, ma'am. He said you wouldn't know him, if he did; so it was no use
to send it."

"Pray, what looking gentleman is he?"--her mind reverting to Maxwell.

"Well, ma'am, he's a very respectable looking gentleman," answered the
girl, to whom Uncle Nathan (for he was the person alluded to) had given
half a dollar. "I