t be playing at hide-and-seek with her friends! The hussy had ever
too much of la famille de Barberie, and her high Norman blood about her,
as that silly old valet has it, to stoop to such childish trifling. Gone
she certainly is," he continued, looking, again, into the empty drawers
and closets, "and with her the valuables have disappeared. The guitar is
missing--the lute I sent across the ocean to purchase, an
excellently-toned Dutch lute, that cost every stiver of one hundred
guilders, is also wanting, and all the--hem--the recent accessions have
disappeared. And there, too, are my sister's jewels, that I persuaded her
to bring along, to guard against accidents while our backs are turned,
they are not to be seen. Francois! Francois I Thou long-tried servitor of
Etienne Barberie, what the devil has become of thy mistress?"

"Mais, Monsieur," returned the disconsolate valet, whose decent features
exhibited all the signs of unequivocal suffering, "she no tell le pauvre
Francois! En supposant, que Monsieur ask le capitaine, he shall
probablement know."

The burgher cast a quick suspicious glance at Ludlow, and shook his head,
to express his belief that the young man was true.

"Go; desire Mr. Van Staats of Kinderhook to favor us with his company."

"Hold," cried Ludlow, motioning to the valet to withdraw. "Mr. Beverout,
an uncle should be tender of the errors of one so dear as this cruel,
unreflecting girl. You cannot think of abandoning her to so frightful a
fortune!"

"I am not addicted to abandoning any thing, Sir to which my title is just
and legal. But you speak in enigmas. If you are acquainted with the place
where my niece is secreted, avow it frankly, and permit me to take those
measures which the case requires."

Ludlow reddened to his forehead, and he struggled powerfully with his
pride and his regrets.

"It is useless to attempt concealing the step which Alida Barberie has
been pleased to take," he said, a smile so bitter passing over his
features, as to lend them the expression of severe mockery; "she has
chosen more worthily than either of us could have believed; she has found
a companion more suited to her station, her character, and her sex, than
Van Staats of Kinderhook, or a poor commander of a Queen's ship!"

"Cruisers and manors! What in the name of mysteries is thy meaning? The
girl is not here; you declare she is not on board of the Coquette, and
there remains only----"

"The brigantine!" g