ght, slowly crept through the hall-door,
down the front steps, and into the avenue leading to the road. She
shuddered when she found herself alone in the cold dark air; but soon
plucking up her courage, she ran down as quickly as she could to the
spot where the old gate always stood open, and leaning against the
post, listened intently for the sound of the gig wheels. She stood
there, listening for three or four minutes, which seemed to her to
be an hour, and then getting cold, she thought she'd walk on to meet
Ussher as he had directed her; but before she had gone a dozen yards
the darkness frightened her, and she returned. As soon as she had
again reached the gateway she heard a man's footstep on the road a
little above; and still more frightened at this, she ran back the
avenue towards the house till the footsteps had passed the gate. She
did not, however, dare again to stand in sight of the road, though it
was so dark, that no one passing could have seen her if she were a
few yards up the avenue; so she sat down on the stump of a tree that
had been lately felled, and determined to wait till she heard the
sound of the gig.

There she remained for what seemed to her a cruelly long time; she
became so cold that she could hardly feel the ground beneath her
feet; and her teeth shook in her head as she sat there alone in the
cold night air of an October night, with no warmer wrapping than a
slight shawl thrown over her shoulders. There she sat, listening for
every sound--longing to catch the rattle of the wheels that were
to carry her away--fancying every moment that she heard footsteps
approaching, and dreading lest the awful creak of the house-door
opening should reach her ears.

She could not conceive why Ussher did not come--she had absolutely
been there half an hour, and she thought it must be past ten--she had
long been crying, and was now really suffering with bodily pain from
cold and fright; and then the whole of Ussher's conduct to her since
that horrid morning passed through her mind--she saw things now in
their true light, which had never struck her so before. What would
she not have given to have been safe again at Mrs. McKeon's; to have
been in her own room, of which she could still see the light through
the window; in fact, to be anywhere but where she was? She did not
dare, however, to return to the house, or even again to walk down the
road. Poor, unhappy Feemy! she already felt the wretched fruits of