in eternity. Perhaps not; perhaps all alike--the
pleasant and the painful--are to be lost in an eternal, oblivious
sleep. It is all speculation; yet hope and doubt go on to the grave,
and thence none return to cheer the one or elucidate the other. But be
it eternal life or eternal death, it is wise; for it is of God.

The autumn grew old and was threatening a frost--the great enemy of
fever. The falling leaves and the fitful gusts of chill wind presaged
the coming of winter. The ear caught the ring of sounds more distant
and more distinct now that the languor of summer was gone, and all
animal nature seemed more invigorated and more elastic. Health and her
inhabitants were returning to the city, and the guests of the
hospitable planters were thinning from the country. Business was
reviving and commotion was everywhere.

The young stranger was preparing to leave; yet he lingered. Ann had
gone; Alice grew more shy and timid, and his walks and rides were
solitary, and but that he loved nature in her autumn robes would have
been dull and uninteresting. The judge was absent at another plantation
beyond the river, and his books and his gun were his only companions.
Sometimes he read, sometimes he rode, and sometimes he walked to visit
Toney. It was on one of those peculiarly lonely afternoons which come
in the last days of October when the stillness persuades to rest and
meditation in the woods that, seated on a prostrate tree near the
pathway which led down the little creek to the residence of Uncle
Toney, the young guest of the judge was surprised by Alice with a small
negro girl on their way to visit Uncle Toney. Both started; but in a
moment were reassured, and slowly walked to the cabin of the good old
negro.

"I have come, Uncle Toney," said the youth, "to see you for the last
time. I am going away to-morrow and, as soon as I can, going back to
the distant home I so foolishly left."

"I am sorry you tell me so; won't you be sorry, Miss Alice?" asked
Toney. Alice bit her lip, and the flush upon her cheek was less ruddy
than usual.

"You no find dis country good like yourn, young massa?"

"Yes, Toney, this is a good country, and there is no country more
beautiful. But, uncle, it requires more than a beautiful country to
make us happy; we must have with us those we love, and who love us; and
the scenes of our childhood--our fathers and mothers, and brothers and
sisters who are glad with us and who sorrow with us, an