From place to place and from scene to scene Durward had hurried, caring nothing except to forget, if possible, the past, and knowing not where he was going, until he at last found himself in Richmond, Virginia.  This was his mother’s birthplace, and as several of her more distant relatives were still living here, he determined to stop for awhile, hoping that new objects and new scenes would have some power to rouse him from the lethargy into which he had fallen.  Constantly in terror lest he should hear of ’Lena’s disgrace, which he felt sure would be published to the world, he had, since his departure from Laurel Hill, resolutely refrained from looking in a newspaper, until one morning some weeks after his arrival at Richmond.

Entering a reading-room, he caught up the Cincinnati Gazette, and after assuring himself by a hasty glance that it did not contain what he so much dreaded to see, he sat down to read it, paying no attention to the date, which was three or four weeks back.  Accidentally he cast his eye over the list of arrivals at the Burnet House, seeing among them the names of “Mr. H. R. Graham, and Miss L. R. Graham, Woodford county, Kentucky!”

“Audacious!  How dare they be so bold!” he exclaimed, springing to his feet and tearing the paper in fragments, which he scattered upon the floor.

“Considerable kind of uppish, ’pears to me,” said a strange voice, having in its tone the nasal twang peculiar to a certain class of Yankees.

Looking up, Durward saw before him a young man in whose style of dress and freckled face we at once recognize Joel Slocum.  Wearying of Cincinnati, as he had before done with Lexington, he had traveled at last to Virginia.  Remembering to have heard that his grandmother’s aunt had married, died, and left a daughter in Richmond, he determined, if possible, to find some trace of her.  Accordingly, he had come on to that city, making it the theater of his daguerrean operations.  These alone not being sufficient to support him, he had latterly turned his attention to literary pursuits, being at present engaged in manufacturing a book after the Sam Slick order, which, to use his own expression, “he expected would have a thunderin’ sale.”

In order to sustain the new character which he had assumed, he came every day to the reading-room, tumbling over books and papers, generally carrying one of the former in his hand, affecting an utter disregard of his personal appearance, daubing his fingers with ink, wiping them on the pocket of his coat, and doing numerous other things which he fancied would stamp him a distinguished person.

On the morning of which we have spoken, Joel’s attention was attracted toward Durward, whose daguerreotype he had seen at Maple Grove, and though he did not recognize the original, he fancied he might have met him before, and was about making his acquaintance, when Durward’s action drew from him the remark we have mentioned.  Thinking him to be some impertinent fellow, Durward paid him no attention, and was about leaving, when, hitching his chair a little nearer, Joel said, “Be you from Virginny?”