d by nature, it was not so strange that thy
skeleton fingers should clutch at the myriad-headed city, situate by
river and by sea, but thou wert insatiable! Proud dwellings and lowly
cots in green fields and midst waving woods thou didst not spare; for
thy victim, the human form, was there.

In the middle of August, the skies shone over Kennons happy and fair.
Some cousins came down from the city seeking safety--bringing, alas,
suffering and death!

In one little month, how fearful a change!

Duncan Lisle, sitting before the fire on this sad rainy evening, after
the lapse of twenty years, shudders as he recalls the blackened pall
that seemed spread over earth and air.

Strange to say, the disease prevailed least amongst the frightened
servants.

The hundred were perhaps decimated.

In the house only Duncan and his half-sister Della survived; they in
fact escaped the contagion. The father, a strong, healthy man, struggled
bravely with the fierce attack; he even rallied, until there was good
hope of his recovery. But a sudden relapse bore him swiftly beyond
mortal remedy. Duncan, in his reverie, closes his eyes, to shut out the
fearful memory. He glides over his college years and his sister's course
at school. He sees Jerusha Thornton in her youth and pride and beauty.
She waves off the many suitors in her train, only to smile winsomely at
the young master of Kennons. Her estate is equal to, and adjoins his
own. He has known her from her childhood--he loves no other--and still
he loves not her. He revolves the reason of this in his own mind. She
has beauty, wealth, accomplishments. He gives no credence to rumors of
her cruelty to servants, though aware of her haughtiness to all, and her
disdain to inferiors. The high favor which she showed to him would be
welcomed with joy by at least a half-dozen of his acquaintance. But
this, her manifest preference, did not please Duncan Lisle--there might
be no accounting for it, but it was a fact.

What was to be done? Kennons needed sadly a woman at its head. Its
master had come to be nearly twenty-eight, and not married yet!

The servants were in a state of terrified suspense, lest he _should_
bring Miss Rusha as their mistress. They wished their master to
marry--they would dance for joy--but it must be some other young lady
than the heiress of Thornton Hall.

Delia had been to a Northern school nearly five years; she would soon be
eighteen, and was about to graduate.