“Miss Alice, I have a memory, or it may be a fancy, that in the delirium of my fever, some weeks since, I saw you like a spirit of light flitting about my bed and ministering to my wants; and I am sure, when all supposed me in extremis, you came, and on my brow placed your soft hand, and pressed it gently above my burning brain.  My every nerve thrilled beneath that touch; my dead extremities trembled and were alive again.  The brain resumed her functions, and the nervous fluid flashed through my entire system, and departing life came back again.  You saved my life.  Were the records of time and events opened to my inspection and I could read it there, I could not more believe this than I now do.  Then what is due from me to you?  This new evidence of confidence adds nothing to the obligation—­it was full without it.  But it is an inspiration I had not before.  We are here, Miss Alice, within a few steps of the threshold of the house in which you were born.  I am far from the land of my nativity—­our meeting was strange, and this second meeting not the less so.”

“Ah! you have almost confessed that you are superstitious.  You need not have acknowledged that you are romantic; your young life has proven this.”

“Stay, Miss Alice:  you asked me but now if there had never been the realization of previous predictions.  You said you knew I would not offend you.  I would not, but may.  Now listen to me, here under the shade of this old oak.  When I was a child, my nurse was an aged African woman; like all her race, she was full of superstition, and she would converse with me of mysteries, and spells, and wonderful revelations, until my mind was filled as her own with strange superstitions and presentiments.  On one occasion, on the Sabbath day, I found her in the orchard, seated beneath a great pear-tree, and went to her—­for though I was no longer her ward to nurse, I liked to be with her and hear her talk.  It was a beautiful day, the fruit-trees were in bloom, and the spring-feeling in the sunshine was kindling life into activity through all nature.  She asked me to let her see my hand and she would tell me my fortune.  She pretended sagely to view every line, and here and there to press her index finger sharply down.  At length she began to speak.

“‘You will not stay with your people,’ she said, ’but will be a great traveller; and when in some far-away country, you will be sick—­mighty sick; and a beautiful woman will find you, and she will nurse you, and you will love that beautiful woman, and she will love you, and she will marry you, and you will not come to reside with your people any more.’  Now, Miss Alice, I have wandered far away from my home, have been sick, very sick, and a beautiful woman has nursed me until I am well, and oh! from my heart I do love that beautiful woman.  So far all of this wild prediction has been verified; and it remains with you, my dear Alice, to say if the latter portion shall be.  You are too candid to delay reply, and too sincere to speak equivocally.”