The night is chilly without, in the fire-place of the antiquary’s back parlor there burns a scanty wood fire.  Tor has eaten his supper and retired to a little closet-like room overhead, where, in bed, he muses over what fell from Maria’s lips, in their interview.  Did she really cherish a passion for him? had her solicitude in years past something more than friendship in it? what did she mean?  He was not one of those whose place in a woman’s heart could never be supplied.  How would an alliance with Maria affect his mother’s dignity?  All these things Tom evolves over and over in his mind.  In point of position, a mechanic’s daughter was not far removed from the slave; a mechanic’s daughter was viewed only as a good object of seduction for some nice young gentleman.  Antiquarians might get a few bows of planter’s sons, the legal gentry, and cotton brokers (these make up our aristocracy), but practically no one would think of admitting them into decent society.  They, of right, belong to that vulgar herd that live by labor at which the slave can be employed.  To be anything in the eyes of good society, you must only live upon the earnings of slaves.

“Why,” says Tom, “should I consult the dignity of a mother who discards me?  The love of this lone daughter of the antiquary, this girl who strives to know my wants, and to promote my welfare, rises superior to all.  I will away with such thoughts!  I will be a man!  Maria, with eager eye and thoughtful countenance, sits at the little antique centre-table, reading Longfellow’s Evangeline, by the pale light of a candle.  A lurid glare is shed over the cavern-like place.  The reflection plays curiously upon the corrugated features of the old man, who, his favorite cat at his side, reclines on a stubby little sofa, drawn well up to the fire.  The poet would not select Maria as his ideal of female loveliness; and yet there is a touching modesty in her demeanor, a sweet smile ever playing over her countenance, an artlessness in her conversation that more than makes up for the want of those charms novel writers are pleased to call transcendent.  “Father!” she says, pausing, “some one knocks at the outer door.”  The old man starts and listens, then hastens to open it.  There stands before him the figure of a strange female, veiled.  “I am glad to find you, old man.  Be not suspicious of my coming at this hour, for my mission is a strange one.”  The old man’s crooked eyes flash, his deep curling lip quivers, his hand vibrates the candle he holds before him.  “If on a mission to do nobody harm,” he responds, “then you are welcome.”  “You will pardon me; I have seen you before.  You have wished me well,” she whispers in a musical voice.  Gracefully she raises her veil over her Spanish hood, and advances cautiously, as the old man closes the door behind her.  Then she uncovers her head, nervously.  The white, jewelled fingers of her right hand, so delicate and tapering, wander over and smooth her silky black hair, that falls in waves over her Ion-like brow.  How exquisite those features just revealed; how full of soul those flashing black eyes; her dress, how chaste!  “They call me Anna Bonard,” she speaks, timorously, “you may know me?—­”