“My dear one,” said Marion, as they rolled on the bridge at Chester, and the few lights of the town and of the vessels and the single steamboat descended into the river, “had you not better have an understanding with your father on the subject of his affection?  Perhaps you have talked in riddles.  Something far back may have disturbed your mutual faith.  Whatever it is, nothing shall break my promise to you.  I will be your wife, or no man’s.  But the shadow that is on Judge Whaley’s face I fear no wife can drive away.”

These words disturbed young Perry Whaley, as he drove his horses into the hotel stable and slowly pursued his way across the public plot or area, past the old square brick Methodist church, already lighted brightly for a special evening service, though it was a week-day.  He passed next the small, echoing market-house and the Episcopal church, and court-house yard.  Every thing he saw had at that moment the appearance of something so very vivid and real that it frightened him.  Yonder was the spot where, with other boys, he had burned tar-barrels on election nights; up a lane the jail where he had seen the prisoners flatten their noses against the bars to beg tobacco; a tall Lombardy poplar at a corner stood stolid except at its summit, where a portion of the foliage whispered with a freshening sound.  How still; as if every thing was in suspense like him—­the favorite of the old town for so many years, and soon to become the possessor of its most beautiful and virtuous woman!

He sounded the knocker at the door of the square, solid brick mansion, built while all acknowledged the King of Britain here, and in whose threshold General Washington had stood more than once.  His father admitted him directly into a prim, wainscoted room with a square-angled stairway in the corner leading above; a thick rag carpet was on the floor; the furniture was mahogany and hair-cloth; on the wall were portraits of the Whaleys or Whalleys, back to that regicide who fled from the vengeance of King Charles’s sons, and, escaping many perils in New England, lived unrecognized on this peninsula.

Judge Whaley had lighted a large oil lamp, and its shade threw the flame upon his strong magisterial face, wherein grief and righteousness seemed as highly blent as in some indigent republican Milton or Pym.

“My father,” said Perry Whaley with the tender tone habitual to him, “I have consulted your wishes as well as my desire.  Marion Voss will be my wife.”

“It is well, my son,” replied Judge Whaley, placing upon his nose his first pair of silver spectacles.  “You are entitled to so much beauty and grace on every ground of a dutiful youth and agreeable person, and of talents which will make both of you a comfortable livelihood.”

“Father, with so great a change of relations before me, I desire to obtain your whole confidence.”

Perry’s voice trembled; the Judge sat still as one of the brazen andirons where the wood burned with a colorless flame in the fireplace.  The father took off the spectacles and laid them down.