ost in meditation. He sat in a rude arm-chair
under his favorite fig tree, and his eyes were fixed intently upon the
road that wound away from the manor house, through the broad gate, and
across the brown sward until it lost itself in the oak forest yonder.
Had it been summer the sight of Lawrence in the arm-chair under the fig
tree would not have been surprising, but the spectacle of Lawrence
occupying that seat in mid-winter, with his gaze riveted on the sear
roadway, was simply preposterous, as you will all admit.

It was a February morning--clear, bright, and beautiful, with a hint of
summer in the warmth of its breath and the cheeriness of its smile.
Pope's Creek, as it rippled along, made pleasant music, the partridges
drummed in the under brush, and the redbirds whistled weirdly in the
leafless chestnut grove near the swash. Now and then a Bohemian crow,
moping lazily from the Maryland border, looked down at Lawrence in the
old arm-chair and uttered a hoarse exclamation of astonishment.

But Lawrence heard none of these things; with stony stare he continued
to regard the roadway to the grove. Could it be that he was unhappy?
He was the proprietor of "Wakefield," the thirteen hundred acres that
stretched around him; five hundred slaves called him master; bounteous
crops had filled his barns to overflowing, and, to complete what should
have been the sum of human happiness, he had but two years before taken
to wife the beautiful Mary, daughter of Joseph Ball, Esq., of Epping
Forest, and the acknowledged belle of the Northern Neck. How, then,
_could_ Lawrence be unhappy?

The truth is, Lawrence was in a delirium of expectancy. He stood, as
it were, upon the threshold of an event. The experience which
threatened him was altogether a new one; he was in a condition of
suspense that was simply torturesome.

This event had been anticipated for some time. By those subtile
methods peculiar to her sex, Mary, the wife, had prepared herself for
it, and Lawrence, too, had declared ever and anon his readiness to face
the ordeal; but, now that the event was close at hand, Lawrence was
weak and nervous and pale, and it was evident that Mary would have to
confront the event without the hope of any practical assistance from
her husband.

"It is all the fault of the moon," muttered Lawrence. "It changed last
night, and if I had paid any attention to what Aunt Lizzie and Miss
Bettie said I might have expected this trouble