ling cavalier, Hugh Price. He
sobbed himself to sleep and dreamed that his father was watching him
from out the great, green ocean where he had lain all these years. Price
was seeking to repay him the blows he had laid on his shoulders, when
the face of the dead man was seen struggling in the green waters, but so
choked and entangled among seaweeds that he was forced to give up the
effort. A great monster of the deep swallowed his father, and, uttering
a shriek, he awoke. The child was trembling from head to foot, while a
cold sweat broke out all over his body.

Next morning the negro slave who had brought the children to Flower de
Hundred came for them. Taking Robert aside, he said:

"I dun tole yer, Mass Robert, dat a calamity war comin'. It am come--De
Missus am married to dat fellah wat ye walloped wid de stick. Hi! but I
wish ye kill um."

The long journey to Jamestown was made. They left at sunrise one morning
and rode until noon, when they halted in the wilderness to allow the
horses an hour to rest and graze, while they lay on a blanket spread on
the grass under a tree. Robert and his sister fell asleep, and the negro
was nodding, when a snake came gliding through the grass toward the
sleeping children. Sam awoke in a moment and, seizing a stout stick,
struck the snake and killed it before it could reach the children. They
were awakened by the blow and, trembling at their narrow escape, once
more set out for Jamestown.

Though they put their horses to their best all the afternoon, the sun
was sinking behind the western hills and forests as they came in sight
of the settlement. Twilight's sombre mantle was falling over the earth
when they arrived at the door of their home and were assisted by the
servants to alight.

Robert and his sister were so sore and tired they scarcely could stand.
A candelabra had been lighted in the house, and the soft rays came
through the open casement; but the house was strangely silent. No mother
came to welcome them home with a kiss, and a chill of death fell upon
those young hearts. Robert dared not ask where she was and why she was
not at the stiles; but Rebecca was younger, more inexperienced and
impulsive.

"Where is mother, Dinah?" she asked her mother's housekeeper.

"In de house, chile, waitin' for you," she answered.

Poor, tired, heart-broken little Rebecca forgot all save that she was
her mother, and she ran upon the piazza and burst into the room where
Mr. Hugh P