nd
him, it is not to be supposed that it fell not on him also. He thought
no more of seeking from his wise sister the solution of his antipathy to
Miss Thornton. There was no room in his mind now for aught outside his
home.

In three weeks he asked Ellice to be his wife. The same day he
dispatched a letter to the Principal of the Troy Ladies' Seminary,
soliciting a teacher for Colonel Anderson; another message, also, to the
father of his affianced, begging him to come down at once and perform
the marriage ceremony for his daughter.

This was doing up business very expeditiously. Of course it was soon
noised near and far, that great quantities of snow-white cake were being
made at Kennons kitchen. Servants would talk; little pitchers had ears,
and birds carried news.

Miss Thornton went in state to call upon the strangers. She saw at a
glance how matters stood, or were going to stand. She could have torn
out Ellice's happy heart. As it was, she bowed to all haughtily as a
queen, casting her last contemptuous glance at Miss Linwood's face.

Miss Thornton ordered to be driven rapidly homeward; and, as she was
whirled along, her thoughts, in a swifter whirl, she meditated and
resolved.

Before the bewildered clergyman could make his way down from the North,
before the goddess of Rumor herself had even suspected such a thing,
Miss Thornton's whole retinue of suitors, and the people at large were
electrified by the astounding intelligence that Mr. Harris, from Flat
Rock, had been summoned to Thornton Hall to unite in marriage its
beautiful mistress, Miss Jerusha Thornton, to Doctor Jude Rush!

Dr. Jude Rush had the year previously emigrated to Mecklenburg county
from the State of Maine. There was about him nothing so extraordinary as
to require particular description. He was an ordinary country doctor,
about thirty in years, had sandy hair, was sandy complexioned, and wore
sandy clothes. This is not much to our taste, but then we did not marry
him. We will assert, however, that had we been Madam Jerusha Thornton
Rush, our first business would have been to engage him a black suit at
the tailor's; but not a bottle of hair dye. We believe in adhering to
nature, though insisting that nature can be much assisted, particularly
in the matter of dress.

Duncan Lisle had naught for which to reproach himself. He had never made
love to Miss Thornton, or given her reason for believing himself
otherwise than indifferent. It had,