law.

Major Warfield received her with all a soldier's gallantry, a
gentleman's courtesy and a father's tenderness.

He next shook hands with his old acquaintance, Mrs. Le Noir.

And then supper was ordered and the evening was passed in general and
comparative reminiscences and cheerful conversation.

CHAPTER XXXI.

"THERE SHALL BE LIGHT AT THE EVENTIDE."--_Holy Bible._

They shall be blessed exceedingly, their store
Grow daily, weekly more and more,
And peace so multiply around,
Their very hearth seems holy ground.

--Mary Howitt.

The marriage of Capitola and of Herbert and that of Clara and of
Traverse was fixed to take place upon the first of August, which was
the twenty-first birthday of the doctor's daughter, and also the
twenty-fifth anniversary of the wedding of Ira Warfield and Marah
Rocke.

German husbands and wives have a beautiful custom of keeping the
twenty-fifth anniversary of their marriage by a festival, which they
call the "Silver Wedding." And thus Major Warfield and Marah resolved
to keep this first of August, and further to honor the occasion by
uniting the hands of their young people.

There was but one cloud upon the happiness of Capitola; this was the
approaching execution of Black Donald.

No one else seemed to care about the matter, until a circumstance
occurred which painfully aroused their interest.

This was the fact that the Governor, through the solicitation of
certain ministers of the gospel who represented the condemned as
utterly unprepared to meet his fate, had respited him until the first
of August, at which time he wished the prisoner to be made to
understand that his sentence would certainly, without further delay, be
carried into effect.

This carried a sort of consternation into the heart of every member of
the Hurricane Hall household!

The idea of Black Donald being hanged in their immediate neighborhood
upon their wedding day was appalling!

Yet there was no help for it, unless their wedding was postponed to
another occasion than that upon which Old Hurricane had set his heart.
No one knew what to do.

Cap fretted herself almost sick. She had cudgeled her brains to no
purpose. She had not been able to think of any plan by which she could
deliver Black Donald. Meantime the last days of July were rapidly
passing away.

Black Donald in the condemned cell maintained his firmness, resolutely
asserting his inn