sed speaking, he returned to the hut, and emerged leading the
widow. Her looks were much changed since we had seen her the day before.
Weeping and fasting, and sleepless nights, and above all, the thoughts
of her husband's sudden death, had so preyed upon her spirits that she
seemed like another person.

"Here are the two Americans, child, who wish to bid you farewell," her
father said, when he saw that she was disposed to pay no attention to
us.

Twice did he speak before she comprehended him; and after she had placed
her hands to her head, as though to recall a recollection of our
features, a faint look of recognition came over her face, and her leaden
eyes were lighted up with some such expression as we had seen the day
before, when she asked if Black Darnley was dead.

"You are sure that he is dead?" she asked in a low whisper, seizing Fred
by the arm, and gazing into his blank-looking face.

"Whom do you mean?" Fred inquired, evading her question.

"You know; Black Darnley,--the wretch who killed my husband, and injured
me. You look like him; but your face is not so black, and your hair is
lighter. But you may have changed it for the purpose of deceiving and
wronging me again. Ah, the more I look at you the firmer am I convinced
that you are the wretch."

She pushed his arm away, and turned with flashing eyes upon her parent,
speaking vehemently,--

"You told me that Darnley was dead, and that my injuries were avenged;
and yet you see him standing before you alive, and insulting me with
infamous propositions. Have I no friend here to protect me?"

"We are all your friends," I replied, in a soothing tone.

"It is false! There is not a man here, or Black Darnley would not live
to see another sun. Men, indeed? Ha, ha! my husband possesses more
spirit than a dozen of you."

She folded her arms, and rocked her body to and fro, shaking her head,
and muttering incoherent sentences, with her eyes fixed upon the ground
intently, as though trying, amid the dirt, to discover the blood of her
destroyer.

Poor Fred, who looked about as much like Black Darnley as the man in the
moon, turned slightly red with mortification; and to this hour, an
allusion to his wonderful likeness to the celebrated bushranger is sure
to bring on a fit of the sulks that will last a day or two.

Fred retired as soon as he found that his presence irritated the unhappy
woman, who, it was very evident, was slightly deranged by her
accumul