on, this bosom's sovereign became the despot, and stung, goaded and
urged him to see again this living, breathing, glowing, most beautiful
original. To seek her? For what? He did not even try to answer the
question.

Thus passed one week.

And then, had he been disposed to forget the beautiful girl, he could
not have done so. For everywhere where the business of his grandfather
took him--around among the neighboring planters, to the villages of
B---- or of C----, everywhere he heard of Marian, and frequently he
saw her, though at a distance, or under circumstances that made it
impossible for him, without rudeness, to address her. He both saw and
heard of her in scenes and society where he could hardly have expected
to find a young girl of her insignificant position.

Marian was a regular attendant of the Protestant church at Benedict,
where, before the morning service, she taught in the Sunday-school, and
before the afternoon service she received a class of colored children.

And Thurston, who had been a very careless and desultory attendant,
sometimes upon the Catholic chapel, sometimes upon the Protestant
church, now became a very regular frequenter of the latter place of
worship; the object of his worship being not the Creator, but the
creature, whom, if he missed from her accustomed seat, the singing, and
praying, and preaching for him lost all of its meaning, power and
spirituality. In the churchyard he sometimes tried to catch her eye and
bow to her; but he was always completely baffled in his aspirations
after a nearer communion. She was always attended from the church and
assisted into her saddle by Judge Provost, Colonel Thornton, or some
other "potent, grave and reverend seignors," who "hedged her about with
a divinity" that it was impossible, without rudeness and intrusion, to
break through. The more he was baffled and perplexed, the more eager
became his desire to cultivate her acquaintance. Had his course been
clear to woo her for his wife, it would have been easy to ask permission
of Edith to visit her at her house; but such was not the case, and
Thurston, tampering with his own integrity of purpose, rather wished
that this much coveted acquaintance should be incidental, and their
interviews seem accidental, so that he should not commit himself, or in
any way lead her to form expectations which he had no surety of being
able to meet. How long this cool and cautious foresight might avail him,
if once he