e Mr. Byle stood up and began rummaging in his pockets. The mention
of the name of Blennerhassett had altered his mood and changed his
manner. A shade of seriousness bordering on melancholy came over his
features. He slowly drew from the poke of his warmus a white cambric
handkerchief, which he blinked at for a minute, and then replaced,
venting an audible sigh. Long he listened in silence to remarks about
the islanders and their untoward fate. At length he broke in with:

"I told Harman before he sot out for Eternal Smash what he was comin'
to. _He_ wouldn't take my advice. But, gentlemen and ladies, in my
opinion, the near-sighted was about as much to blame for what
happened, as a pewee is for being swallered by a black snake. Harman
lost everything, as I told him he would. Fust in debt heels over
head--then the house burns--then he sells the plantation. Now he's
tryin' to run a cotton-gin down about Natchez. The boys are growin' up
no account. And she--Jerusalem artichokes! What a shame it war for
Margaret to throw herself away!"

The amused expression of Arlington indicated his appreciation of
Byle's sentiments, but Evaleen could not smile when the distress of
her much-beloved friend was the theme of conversation. The rich,
beautiful, commanding lady, who had presided like an Eastern princess,
in her luxurious island palace, was now struggling with adverse fate,
on a cotton plantation, near Port Gibson, Mississippi. Recollecting
the downfall and humiliation of Madam Blennerhassett, Evaleen sighed
and cast her gaze mournfully toward the spot upon which had stood the
stately mansion, which had been to her a second home. But on that May
day in 1815, could she have lifted the veil of the future, events far
more depressing would have been disclosed. She would have beheld the
former lord of the isle, landless, harassed by debts, now in Natchez,
now in New York, and now in Canada, unsuccessfully attempting the
practice of the law. He made a voyage to Ireland, returned to
Montreal, and then again crossed the ocean to reside with his maiden
sister, Avis, on the Isle of Jersey. His wife shared his
disappointments and sorrows, and it was on her faithful bosom that he
breathed his last at Port Prerie, Guernsey, in 1831. Ten years later,
the widow, having returned to the United States destitute, forlorn,
her health gone, her beauty faded, took up lodgings in a poor
tenement-house in the city of New York--and it was here that sh