ld return.

Mrs. Stanhope broke the seal, and read with surprise and astonishment
depicted on her features. The girl stood waiting to learn its contents.

"I think," said Mrs. Stanhope, suddenly recollecting herself, "that your
mistress will be absent some time. She informs me she has gone on a
visit to the aunt with whom she resided previous to her marriage."

"Where does her aunt live?" asked the girl.

"I do not know," returned Mrs. Stanhope, "but I think at a considerable
distance from this place."

The girl retired, and Mrs. Stanhope reentered the breakfast room.

"Who was in the porch?" inquired Miss Pinkerton, as her sister assumed
her place by the coffee urn.

"Mrs. Edson's servant," returned she, arranging the cups with an absent
air.

"What did she want?" asked Miss Martha, opening her muffin and dropping
a piece of golden butter on its smoking surface.

"She brought me a note from her mistress," said Mrs. Stanhope, "who has
departed suddenly on a visit to her aunt, and wishes me to superintend
the care of her mansion for a time."

"I guess she is coming out of her dumps," said Martha. "I always said
there was no danger of her dying of grief for the loss of a husband.
She'll come home one of these days a gay widow, and set her cap for Col.
Malcome. I always thought she had a liking for him."

Mrs. Stanhope made no reply to this unfeeling speech. After breakfast
the colonel chanced in to take the long-forgotten package away, when he
learned of Louise's sudden departure, and went home in a state of
increased anguish and despair.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

"To the old forest home
I hie me again;
But I bring not the gladness
My spirit knew when
I roamed in my childhood
Its wide-spreading bounds;
For sorrows have pierced me,
My soul wears the wounds."

The Hermit of the Cedars sat in his antique room alone, by a peat-wood
fire. He appeared wrapt in moody thought and contemplation, though ever
and anon, as the wintry blast gave a wilder sweep over the swaying roof
above him, he turned and glanced uneasily toward the door, as though he
wished and waited the appearance of some form over its threshold. But
the hours passed on, and no one came to cheer his loneliness. So,
heaping the ashes over the glo