"I'm so glad it's all over at last!"

"What, my little friend?" and Mr. Travilla looked fondly into the sweet
face so bright and happy, where the beauties of rare intellect and moral
worth were as conspicuous as the lesser ones of exquisite contour and
coloring.

"The wedding and all the accompanying round of dissipation. Now I hope we
can settle down to quiet home pleasures for the rest of the winter."

"So do I, and that I shall see twice as much of you as I have of late. You
can have no idea how I missed you while you were absent. And I am more
than half envious of our bride and groom. Shall our trip be to Europe,
Elsie?"

"Are we to take a trip?" she asked with an arch smile.

"That will be as you wish, dearest, of course."

"I don't wish it now, nor do you, I know; but we shall have time enough to
settle all such questions."

"Plenty; I only wish we had not so much. Yet I don't mean to grumble; the
months will soon slip away and bring the time when I may claim my prize."

They were riding towards the Oaks; the sun had just set, and the moon was
still below the horizon.

Elsie suddenly reined in her horse, Mr. Travilla instantly doing likewise,
and turned a pale, agitated face upon him. "Did you hear that?" she asked
low and tremulously.

"What, dear child? I heard nothing but the sound of our horses' hoofs, the
sighing of the wind in the tree-tops, and our own voices."

"I heard another; a muttered oath and the words, 'You shall never win her.
I'll see to that.' The tones were not loud but deep, and the wind seemed
to carry the sounds directly to my ear," she whispered, laying a trembling
little hand on his arm, and glancing nervously from side to side.

"A trick of the imagination, I think, dearest; but from whence did the
sounds seem to come?"

"From yonder thicket of evergreens and--I knew the voice for that of your
deadly foe, the man from whom you and papa rescued me in Landsdale."

"My child, he is expiating his crime in a Pennsylvania penitentiary."

"But may he not have escaped, or have been pardoned out? Don't, oh don't,
I entreat you!" she cried, as he turned his horse's head in the direction
of the thicket. "You will be killed."

"I am armed, and a dead shot," he answered, taking a revolver from his
breast pocket.

"But he is in ambush, and can shoot you down before you can see to aim at
him."

"You are right, if there is really an enemy concealed there," he
answered, returning the