Toney lubed your mamma--Toney lubs you, and de day you is married and
goes away, I want to go away too. I want to go yonder, Miss Alice, on
de top ob dat mound, and lie down wid ole massa and missus. He told
your pa to put me dar; but your pa's gone. O Miss Alice! dey's all gone
but you and me and your brodder, and he don't care for Toney, and maybe
he will trow him out in de woods like a dog when he die." Tears stole
down the black face of the venerable man, and the eyes of Alice
filled--and then she laughed the shrill, fearful laugh, and rode
rapidly away.

She was singing and walking hurriedly the gallery, when the stranger
and her cousin came leisurely into the yard.

"Your cousin, Miss Ann, has a strange laugh."

"Indeed she has, sir; but we who know her understand it. She never
laughs that unearthly laugh when her heart is at ease. I doubt if you
have ever met such a person. I think the world has but one Alice. She
is very young, very impressible, and some think very eccentric, very
passionate and romantic to frenzy. There is something which impels me
to tell you--but no, I have no right to do so. But this I must tell
you; for you cannot have been in the house here so long without
observing it. There is no congeniality between herself and brother;
indeed, very little between her and any of her family. She is alone.
She is one by herself; yes, one by herself in the midst of many; for
the family is a large one. But remember, there is none like Alice. Be
gentle to her and pity her; and pity her most when you hear that
strange laugh."

There was music in the drawing-room, soft and gentle, and the
accompanying voice was tremulous with suppressed emotion. Gradually it
swells in volume until it fills the spacious apartment, and the clear
notes from the tender trill rose grandly in full, clear tones, full of
pathetic melody, and now they almost shriek. They cease--and the laugh,
hysterical and shrill, echoes through the entire house. The judge was
silent; but a close observer might have seen a slight contraction of
the lips, and a slighter closing of the eyes. A moment after Alice
entered the room, and there was a glance exchanged between her brother
and herself. There was in it a meaning only for themselves.

"You have been riding, sir," he said to his guest, "and my sister tells
me to the mound at the White Apple village. To those curious in such
legends as are connected with its history, it is an interesting spot.