ST GRAVE.

At the commencement of the war of eighteen hundred and twelve, between
Great Britain and the United States, there lived, in the western part of
Virginia, three families, named, respectively, Stone, Cutler, and
Roberts. They were all respectable people, of more than ordinary wealth;
having succeeded, by an early emigration and judicious selection of
lands, in rebuilding fortunes which had been somewhat impaired east of
the Blue Ridge. Between the first and second there was a relationship,
cemented by several matrimonial alliances, and the standing of both had
been elevated by this union of fortunes. In each of these two, there
were six or seven children--the most of them boys--but Captain Roberts,
the head of the third, had but one child, a daughter, who, in the year
named, was approaching womanhood.

She is said to have been beautiful: and, from the extravagant admiration
of those who saw her only when time and suffering must have obscured her
attractions, there can be little doubt that she was so. What her
character was, we can only conjecture from the tenor of our story:
though we have reason to suspect that she was passionate, impulsive,
and somewhat vain of her personal appearance.

At the opening of hostilities between the two countries, she was wooed
by two suitors, young Stone, the eldest of the sons of that family, and
Abram Cutler, who was two or three years his senior. Both had recently
returned home, after a protracted absence of several years, beyond the
mountains, whither they had been sent by their ambitious parents, "to
attend college and see the world." Stone was a quiet, modest, unassuming
young man, rather handsome, but too pale and thin to be decidedly so.
Having made the most of his opportunities at "William and Mary," he had
come home well-educated (for that day and country) and polished by
intercourse with good society.

His cousin, Abram Cutler, was his opposite in almost everything. He had
been wild, reckless, and violent, at college, almost entirely giving up
his studies, after the first term, and always found in evil company. His
manners were as much vitiated as his morals, for he was exceedingly
rough, boisterous, and unpolished: so much so, indeed, as to approach
that limit beyond which wealth will not make society tolerant. But his
freedom of manner bore, to most observers, the appearance of generous
heartiness, and he soon gained the good will of the neighborhood by the
carel