red Blennerhassett, clasping his wife in a
parting embrace.

"Good-bye, dear!" she said, and kissed him. "Be strong! Be brave! All
will end well. God bless you! Think of a glorious future!"

She turned to go, looked back, turned again from the icy margin of the
river, and started homeward; but, after taking a few steps, she again
stopped and stood a minute, shivering, and weeping under the bare
boughs of the great oak tree beneath which Burr had read aloud to her
one of her own sentimental poems. Groaning in spirit, and heart-stung
by pangs of self-reproach, she hurried up the slope of the carriage
road alone.

Through the drifting snow the brave woman returned to her house,
which, seen dimly through a veil of falling flakes, had looked to her
from a distance like an unsubstantial pile--a phantom habitation for
spectres. As she entered its dark hall the Geneva clock struck twelve.

XXV. HEROINE AND HERO.

Blennerhassett was afloat to join Burr. The management of the affairs
of the island devolved upon his wife. In the sole care of one woman
were left houses and land, man and beast, domestic duties at home and
business transactions abroad. Her children required constant
attention, and the servants, bond and free, for the most part lazy,
evasive, and insubordinate--spoilt by the inefficiency of a
vacillating master--were hard to govern or to please. Peter Taylor
was insidious, but plausible; Albright, obstinate; the negroes, with
few exceptions, "something between a hindrance and a help."

On returning to her house at midnight, having just seen her husband
embark, the vigilant wife and mother did not bury her troubles in
sleep. The urgent demands of a crisis not to be postponed forbade
slumber. The words of General Tupper rang in her ears: "I arrest you
by the authority of the State of Ohio." That her peace and liberty
would soon be threatened, if not taken from her, by civil or by
military force, she had much reason to fear; that her island retreat
was already invaded by scouts from the Virginia militia she did not
surmise. "How I wish I were a man," she said to herself, and sat down
to think how a man in her situation would act. Whatever may have been
the sex of her brain, her mind worked swiftly, both to decide and to
will. "I shall go to Marietta," was her mental conclusion, "and make
another effort to secure the family boat for my children and myself.
It belongs to my husband; he paid for it from his o