s--

"Jacob, when my son--he is now absent with his father--reaches his tenth
year, give him this, and say that it is a gift from his mother, and
contains a lock of her hair. Can I trust you faithfully to perform this
office of love?"

Tears filled her eyes; then her breast heaved with a great sob.

"As Heaven is my witness, madam," answered Jacob Perkins, "it shall be
done."

"Remember," she said, "that you are only to give this to John, and not
until his tenth year. Keep my gift sacred from the knowledge of every
one until that time, and then let the communication be to him alone."

Jacob Perkins promised to do according to her wishes, and then left her
looking so pale, sad, and miserable, that, to use his own words, "he
never could recall her image as she stood looking, not at him, but past
him, as if trying to explore the future, without thinking of some marble
statue in a grave-yard."

She was never seen in S----again.

CHAPTER IV.

The excitement in the little town of S----, when Jacob returned from
Boston, and told his singular story, may well be imagined. The whole
community was in a buzz.

It was found that Mrs. Allen had so arranged matters, as to get all
the servants away from the house, on one pretence or another, for
that night, except an old negro woman, famous for her good sleeping
qualities; and she was in the land of forgetfulness long before the hour
appointed for flight.

Many conjectures were made, and one or two rather philanthropic
individuals proposed, as a common duty, an attempt to arrest the
fugitives and bring them back. But there were none to second this, the
general sentiment being, that Captain Allen was fully competent to look
after his own affairs. And that he wood look after them, and promptly
too, on his return, none doubted for an instant. As for Jacob Perkins,
no one professed a willingness to stand in his shoes. The fire-eating
Captain would most probably blow that gentleman's brains out in the
heat of his first excitement. Poor Jacob, not a very courageous man,
was almost beside himself with fear, when his view of the case was
confidently asserted. One advised this course of conduct on the part of
Jacob, and another advised that, while all agreed that it would on no
account be safe for him to fall in the Captain's way immediately on his
return. More than a dozen people, friends of Jacob, were on the alert,
to give him the earliest intelligence of Captain Allen's