m to-day. Finding herself nearing the limit of diminution of
several household necessities, and the spring suggesting the beginning
of new ones, she made up her mind to profit by her husband's absence
and the fair weather to make a trading visit to the neighboring town
next day.

[Illustration: "TURNED TO HER DOMESTIC DUTIES."]

So, early in a morning as beautiful as the preceding one, mounted on
her own stanch mare Maid Marion, she ambled down the green over-hung
forest-road, in the vista of which she had watched her husband
disappear the day before; thinking about what she had to buy, and
thinking, no doubt, much more, as brides will, of the absent lord and
master--as brides of those days loved to consider and denominate their
husbands.

Coming into the little town, the freshly painted, swinging sign-board
of the new tavern, "The Honest Georgian," as usual was the thing to
catch her eye; but the instant after what should she see but Black
Beetle hitched to the rack under the tree that shadowed the hostelry!

It was not decorous; but she was young, and the day of her first
separation from her husband had been so long; and was he not also,
against the firmest of resolutions and plans, hastening back to her,
the separation being too long for him also?

Slipping her foot from the stirrup, she jumped to the ground, and ran
into the tavern. There he stood calling hastily for a drink; and
her heart more than her eyes took in his, to her, consecrated
signalment--the riding-boots, short clothes, blue coat, cocked hat,
ruffles. She crept up behind to surprise him, her face, with its
delight and smiles, beyond her control. She crept, until she saw his
watch-fob dangling against the counter, and then her heart made a
call. He turned. He was not her husband! Another man was in her
husband's clothes, a man with a villainous countenance! With a scream
she gave the alarm. The stranger turned, dropped his drink, bounded to
the door and out, leaped to the back of Beetle, gave rein and spur,
and the black horse made good his reputation. In a second all was
hue-and-cry and pursuit. While men and horses made, for all they were
worth, down the road after Beetle, she on Maid Marion galloped for
her life in the opposite direction, the direction of the court town
whither her husband had journeyed. The mare's hide made acquaintance
with the whip that day if never before, for not even the willing Maid
Marion could keep pace with the appre