At breakfast she saw him again; again his speaking eyes told how fondly his heart clung to her; again his smile fanned her fevered brain, like the zephyr of summer, into a dream of bliss.  Her heart led her back to the days when they had wandered together over her father’s plantation.  Then, restrained by the coyness of unrevealed love, each enjoyed a happiness to which the other was supposed to be a stranger.

But the anguish of her painful position would come to destroy the dream of bliss, and dissipate the bright halo her imagination had cast before her.  She retired to her state-room, to ponder again her unhappy lot.  “Thy will be done,” murmured she, as, throwing herself into a chair, she resigned herself to the terrible reflection that she was a slave and an outcast.  The bright dream of love was only a chimera, to make her feel more deeply the terrible reality.

Whilst she was thus venting her anguish, she was roused from her lethargy of grief by the chambermaid, who had entered by the inner door.

“Please, ma’am, a gentleman out in the cabin says he wants to speak to you.”

“A gentleman wishes to speak to me?  Did he send his name?”

“No, ma’am.  He said you wouldn’t know him, if he did; so it was no use to send it.”

“Pray, what looking gentleman is he?”—­her mind reverting to Maxwell.

“Well, ma’am, he’s a very respectable looking gentleman,” answered the girl, to whom Uncle Nathan (for he was the person alluded to) had given half a dollar.  “I think he is a Yankee, by his talk.”

“Pray, ask him to send his name.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the chambermaid, retiring.

Emily was puzzled by the request, and, judging from the girl’s description that it could not be Maxwell, began to dread a new enemy.

The chambermaid presently returned, and said the gentleman’s name was
Benson.

Emily’s perplexity was not diminished, but she resolved to see the applicant at the door of the room, so that, if his errand was from Maxwell, she could easily retire from his presence.  Accordingly she instructed the girl to show him to the door on the gallery.

“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” said Uncle Nathan, as soon as he reached the position assigned him; “you are Miss Dumont, I believe?”

“The same,” said she, as calmly as her fluttering heart would permit.  “May I beg to know your business with me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Uncle Nathan, bluntly; “but don’t be scart.  I know something of your trials; and I trust the Lord will give you strength to endure them with patience.”

“Really, sir, you astonish me!  May I be allowed to ask how you became acquainted with my affairs?”

“All in good time, ma’am; I have in my possession a document, which, I’m told, will set matters all right with you.”

“What is it, sir?”—­and Emily was still more astonished at the singularity of the adventure.