broken up, and proposing a
renewal of the game the next night at the Blue Chamber at the Garter
Inn. Old Presley has evidently, to use his own phrase, "got his load,"
and waddling away to his quarters, he winks his eye mischievously at the
lamps, which, under the multiplying power of his optics, have become
more in number than the stars. Thus the guests all pass away, and the
lights which flit for a few moments from casement to casement in the
palace, are one by one extinguished, and all is dark, save where one
faint candle gleams through an upper window and betrays the watchfulness
of the old chaplain.

And who is he, with his dark, melancholy eyes, which tell so plainly of
the chastened heart--he who seeming so gentle and kind to all, reserves
his sternness for himself alone--and who, living in love with all God's
creatures, seems to hate with bitterness his own nature? It was not then
as it is sometimes now, that every man's antecedents were inquired into
and known, and that the young coxcomb, who disgraces the name that he
bears and the lineage of which he boasts, is awarded a higher station in
society than the self-sustaining and worthy son of toil, who builds his
reputation on the firmer foundation of substantial worth. Every ship
brought new emigrants from England, who had come to share the fate and
to develope the destiny of the new colony, and who immediately assumed
the position in society to which their own merit entitled them. And thus
it was, that when Arthur Hutchinson came to Virginia, no one asked,
though many wondered, what had blighted his heart, and cast so dark a
shadow on his path. There was one man in the colony, and one alone, who
had known him before--and yet Alfred Bernard, with whom he had come to
Virginia, seemed to know little more of his history and his character
than those to whom he was an entire stranger.

Arthur Hutchinson was in appearance about fifty years of age. His long
hair, which had once been black as the raven's wing, but was now thickly
sprinkled with grey, fell profusely over his stooping shoulders. There
was that, too, in the deep furrows on his broad brow, and in the
expression of his pale thin lips which told that time and sorrow had
laid their heavy hands upon him. As has been before remarked, by the
recommendation of Lord Berkeley, which had great weight with his
brother, Hutchinson had been installed as Chaplain to Sir William, and
through his influence with the vestry