gers, among
whom were several ladies, wearing coquettish bonnets with ribbons
or beau-catchers attached, were too weary even to view with wonder
the odd-looking theatrical caravan. Only the driver, a diminutive
person with puckered face the color of dried apples, so venerable
as to be known as Old Hundred, seemed as spry and cheery as when
he started.

"Morning," he said, briskly, drawing in his horses. "Come back, have
ye, with yer troupe? What's the neuws from Alban-y?"

"Nothing, except Texas has been admitted as a State," answered
Barnes.

"Sho! We air coming on!" commented the Methuselah of the road.

"Coming on!" groaned a voice in the vehicle, and the florid face of an
English traveler appeared at the door. "I say, do you call this
'coming on!' I'm nearly gone, don't you know!"

"Hi!--ge' long!--steady there!" And Old Hundred again whipped up his
team, precipitating a lady into the lap of the gentleman who was
"nearly gone," and well-nigh completing his annihilation.

In less time than when a friendly sail is lost in the mist, Old
Hundred's bulky land-wherry passed from view, and the soldier again
turned to his companion. But she was now intent on some part in a play
which she was quietly studying and he contented himself with lighting
that staple luxury of the early commonwealth, a Virginia stogie,
observing her from time to time over the glowing end. With the book
upon her knee, her head downcast and partly turned from him, he could,
nevertheless, through the mazy convolutions and dreamy spirals of the
Indian weed, detect the changing emotions which swept over her, as in
fancy she assumed a role in the drama. Now the faintest shadow of a
smile, coming and going; again beneath the curve of her long lashes, a
softer gleaming in the dark eyes, adding new charm to the pale, proud
face. Around them nature seemed fraught with forgetfulness; the Libyan
peace that knows not where or wherefore. Rocked in the cradle of ruts
and furrows, Hans, portly as a carboy, half-dozed on the front seat.

Shortly before noon they approached an ancient hostelry, set well back
from the road. To the manager's dismay, however, the door was locked
and boards were nailed across the windows. Even the water pail,
hospitably placed for man or beast, had been removed from its
customary proximity to the wooden pump. Abandoned to decay, the
tenantless inn was but another evidence of traffic diverted from the
old stage roads by the Erie