The bride was gone, and already she felt the tide of scandal and gossip which she knew would be the theme of the entire neighborhood.  Still, if her own shameful act was kept a secret she could bear it, and it must be.  No one knew of it except Captain Atherton and Caesar, the former of whom would keep his own counsel, while fear of a passport down the river, the negroes’ dread, would prevent the latter from telling.

Accordingly, her chagrin was concealed, and affecting to treat the whole matter as a capital joke, worthy of being immortalized in romance, she returned to her room, and hastily writing a few lines, rang the bell for Caesar who soon appeared, declaring that “as true as he lived and breathed and drew the breath of life, he’d done gin miss every single letter afore handin’ ’em to anybody else.”

“Shut your mouth and mind you keep it shut, or you’ll find yourself in New Orleans,” was Mrs. Livingstone’s very lady-like response, as she handed him the note, bidding him take it to Captain Atherton.

For some reason or other the captain this morning was exceedingly restless, walking from room to room, watching the clock, then the sun, and finally, in order to pass the time away, trying on his wedding suit, to see how he was going to look!  Perfectly satisfied with his appearance, he was in imagination going through the ceremony, and had just inclined his head in token that he would take Anna for his wife, when Mrs. Livingstone’s note was handed him.  At first he could hardly believe the evidence of his own eyes.

Anna gone!—­run away with Mr. Everett!  It could not be, and sinking into a chair, he felt, as he afterwards expressed it, “mighty queer and shaky.”

But Mrs. Livingstone had advised him to put a bold face on it, and this, upon second thought, he determined to do.  Hastily changing his dress, now useless, he mounted his steed, and was soon on his way toward Maple Grove, a new idea dawning upon his mind, and ere his arrival, settling itself into a fixed purpose.  From Aunt Martha he had heard of ’Lena’s strange visit, and he now remembered the many times she had tried to withdraw him from Anna, appropriating him to herself for hours.  The captain’s vanity was wonderful.  Sunnyside needed a mistress—­he needed a wife, ’Lena was poor—­perhaps she liked him—­and if so there might be a wedding, after all.  She was beautiful, and would sustain the honors of his house with a better grace, he verily believed, than Anna!  Full of these thoughts, he reached Maple Grove, where he found Durward, to whom Mrs. Livingstone had detailed the whole circumstance, dwelling long upon ’Lena’s meddling propensities, and charging the whole affair upon her.

“But she knew what she was about—­she had an object in view, undoubtedly,” she added, glad of an opportunity to give vent to her feelings against ’Lena.

“Pray, what was her object?” asked Durward, and Mrs. Livingstone replied, “I told you once that ’Lena was ambitious, and I have every reason to believe she would willingly marry Captain Atherton, notwithstanding he is so much older.”