o his
great disgust, as he approached the spot where he had left Grandison,
the familiar form of his servant stretched out on the ground, his face
to the sun, his mouth open, sleeping the time away, oblivious alike to
the grandeur of the scenery, the thunderous roar of the cataract, or the
insidious voice of sentiment.

"Grandison," soliloquized his master, as he stood gazing down at his
ebony encumbrance, "I do not deserve to be an American citizen; I ought
not to have the advantages I possess over you; and I certainly am not
worthy of Charity Lomax, if I am not smart enough to get rid of you. I
have an idea! You shall yet be free, and I will be the instrument of
your deliverance. Sleep on, faithful and affectionate servitor, and
dream of the blue grass and the bright skies of old Kentucky, for it is
only in your dreams that you will ever see them again!"

Dick retraced his footsteps towards the inn. The young woman chanced to
look out of the window and saw the handsome young gentleman she had
waited on a few minutes before, standing in the road a short distance
away, apparently engaged in earnest conversation with a colored man
employed as hostler for the inn. She thought she saw something pass from
the white man to the other, but at that moment her duties called her
away from the window, and when she looked out again the young gentleman
had disappeared, and the hostler, with two other young men of the
neighborhood, one white and one colored, were walking rapidly towards
the Falls.

IV

Dick made the journey homeward alone, and as rapidly as the conveyances
of the day would permit. As he drew near home his conduct in going back
without Grandison took on a more serious aspect than it had borne at any
previous time, and although he had prepared the colonel by a letter sent
several days ahead, there was still the prospect of a bad quarter of an
hour with him; not, indeed, that his father would upbraid him, but he
was likely to make searching inquiries. And notwithstanding the vein of
quiet recklessness that had carried Dick through his preposterous
scheme, he was a very poor liar, having rarely had occasion or
inclination to tell anything but the truth. Any reluctance to meet his
father was more than offset, however, by a stronger force drawing him
homeward, for Charity Lomax must long since have returned from her visit
to her aunt in Tennessee.

Dick got off easier than he had expected. He told a straight st