ife, he'd done gin
miss every single letter afore handin' 'em to anybody else."

"Shut your mouth and mind you keep it shut, or you'll find yourself
in New Orleans," was Mrs. Livingstone's very lady-like response, as
she handed him the note, bidding him take it to Captain Atherton.

For some reason or other the captain this morning was exceedingly
restless, walking from room to room, watching the clock, then the
sun, and finally, in order to pass the time away, trying on his
wedding suit, to see how he was going to look! Perfectly satisfied
with his appearance, he was in imagination going through the
ceremony, and had just inclined his head in token that he would take
Anna for his wife, when Mrs. Livingstone's note was handed him. At
first he could hardly believe the evidence of his own eyes.

Anna gone!--run away with Mr. Everett! It could not be, and sinking
into a chair, he felt, as he afterwards expressed it, "mighty queer
and shaky."

But Mrs. Livingstone had advised him to put a bold face on it, and
this, upon second thought, he determined to do. Hastily changing his
dress, now useless, he mounted his steed, and was soon on his way
toward Maple Grove, a new idea dawning upon his mind, and ere his
arrival, settling itself into a fixed purpose. From Aunt Martha he
had heard of 'Lena's strange visit, and he now remembered the many
times she had tried to withdraw him from Anna, appropriating him to
herself for hours. The captain's vanity was wonderful. Sunnyside
needed a mistress--he needed a wife, 'Lena was poor--perhaps she
liked him--and if so there might be a wedding, after all. She was
beautiful, and would sustain the honors of his house with a better
grace, he verily believed, than Anna! Full of these thoughts, he
reached Maple Grove, where he found Durward, to whom Mrs. Livingstone
had detailed the whole circumstance, dwelling long upon 'Lena's
meddling propensities, and charging the whole affair upon her.

"But she knew what she was about--she had an object in view,
undoubtedly," she added, glad of an opportunity to give vent to her
feelings against 'Lena.

"Pray, what was her object?" asked Durward, and Mrs. Livingstone
replied, "I told you once that 'Lena was ambitious, and I have every
reason to believe she would willingly marry Captain Atherton,
notwithstanding he is so much older."

She forgot that there was the same disparity between the captain and
Anna as between him and 'Lena, but Du