sappeared in the distance, when a feminine voice,
close at hand, suddenly accosted him.

"O Mr. Travilla! how are you? I consider myself very fortunate in
finding you here."

He turned toward the speaker, and was not too greatly pleased at sight
of her.

"Ah! good-evening, Miss Deane," he said, taking her offered hand, and
speaking with gentlemanly courtesy. "In what can I be of service to
you?"

"By inviting me to Ion to spend the night," she returned laughingly.
"I've missed my train, and was quite in despair at the thought of
staying alone over night in one of the miserable little hotels of this
miserable little village. So I was delighted to see your carriage
standing there, and you yourself beside it; for, knowing you to be one
of the most hospitable of men, I am sure you will be moved to pity, and
take me home with you."

Edward's heart sank at thought of Zoe, but, seeing no way out of the
dilemma, "Certainly," he said, and helped his self-invited guest to a
seat in his carriage, placed himself by her side, and bade the coachman
drive on to Ion.

"Now, really, this is very good in you, Mr. Travilla," remarked Miss
Deane: "there is no place I like better to visit than Ion, and I begin
to think it was rather a fortunate mishap--missing my train."

"Very unfortunate for me, I fear," sighed Edward to himself. "The loss
of her drive will be a great disappointment to Zoe, and the sight of
such a guest far from making it up to her. I am thankful the visit is to
be for only a night."

Aloud he said, "I fear you will find it less pleasant than on former
occasions,--in fact, rather lonely; as all the family are
absent--spending the winter at Viamede, my mother's Louisiana
plantation--except my wife and myself."

"Ah! but your wife is a charming little girl,--I never can think of her
as a woman, you know,--and you are a host in yourself," returned the
lady laughingly.

Zoe's callers had left; and she, having donned hat and cloak, not to
keep her husband a single moment, was at the window watching for his
coming, when the carriage came driving up the avenue, and drew up at the
door.

She hurried out, expecting to find no one there but himself, and to be
at once handed to a seat in the vehicle, and the next minute be speeding
away with him, enjoying her drive all the more for the little
disappointment that had preceded it.

What, then, was her chagrin to see a visitor handed out, and that
visitor the woman fo