decision; and at length, finding he could not prevail, gave him

till the moon rose to settle his affairs, and say farewell to wife

and daughter. 'For,' said he, 'then, at the latest, you must ride

with me.'

I dare not dwell upon the hours that followed: they fled all too

fast; and presently the moon out-topped the eastern range, and my

father and Mr. Aspinwall set forth, side by side, on their

nocturnal journey. My mother, though still bearing an heroic

countenance, had hastened to shut herself in her apartment,

thenceforward solitary; and I, alone in the dark house, and

consumed by grief and apprehension, made haste to saddle my Indian

pony, to ride up to the corner of the mountain, and to enjoy one

farewell sight of my departing father. The two men had set forth

at a deliberate pace; nor was I long behind them, when I reached

the point of view. I was the more amazed to see no moving creature

in the landscape. The moon, as the saying is, shone bright as day;

and nowhere, under the whole arch of night, was there a growing

tree, a bush, a farm, a patch of tillage, or any evidence of man,

but one. From the corner where I stood, a rugged bastion of the

line of bluffs concealed the doctor's house; and across the top of

that projection the soft night wind carried and unwound about the

hills a coil of sable smoke. What fuel could produce a vapour so

sluggish to dissipate in that dry air, or what furnace pour it

forth so copiously, I was unable to conceive; but I knew well

enough that it came from the doctor's chimney; I saw well enough

that my father had already disappeared; and in despite of reason, I

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