street. The intense darkness favored his flight,
and, hurrying on, he gained the levees, secreted himself in the hold of
a boat, and had the good fortune to find himself floating down the river
in the morning.

CHAPTER XIX.

"Go forth, thou spirit proud and high,
Upon thy soaring way;
Plume all thy pinions for the sky,
And sing a glorious lay."

As the young sapling of the forest bends and sways in the fury of the
blast, and, when it is passed, rises and shakes the weight of rain-drops
from its pliant boughs, and stands stronger, higher, more beautiful than
before, so Annie Evalyn, when the passion-storm had spent its fury, rose
a purer, loftier being, with a heart firm and free, and a soul elevated
and sublime in its aspirations. There might be traces to tell the
tempest had been a wild one; a paleness on the brow; the lips thinned
and slightly compressed; the eyelids sometimes drooping their long
lashes over the dark, liquid eyes, and a tear stealing silently over the
marble cheek; or a slight shudder for a moment convulsing the slender
frame, as if memory painted a picture the soul shrank from contemplating.
Yet these light tokens of what _had_ been, heightened the sublime beauty
of what was _now_. Annie was no longer a child in the world's lore of
experience. Sorrow and suffering are swift teachers. They unfold and
perfect the powers with astonishing rapidity. Annie Evalyn was a woman;
with a quick eye and ready judgment to detect and discern the workings
of that great mystery, the human heart, yet simple and child-like in her
manners, as of old.

"Bless it, but this is an agreeable surprise!" exclaimed Aunt Patty, as
Annie entered the little, rock-built cottage, on a clear, cool evening
in early autumn, with a bright smile beaming on her lovely features;
"why, I didn't once think of your comin' to-night, hinney, bein' as you
were here last Saturday. But it does my old heart good to know you
remember your poor, ignorant aunty, when you are among your little
scholars and so many kind friends at the Parsonage."

"O, I never forget you, aunty!" said Annie, returning the old lady's
embrace; "this humble cot and these old Scraggiewood oaks are very dear
to my heart."

"I'm glad to hear it, dear; it is a homely spot, to be sure, but it has
sheltered us well. But what is doing at the parson's, love? All well and