he Hardscrabble
farm.

CHAPTER IV.

You see this chase is hotly followed.
--_Henry V._

The spot called Hardscrabble was distant about two miles from Fort
Dearborn, and had been the scene of a recent and bloody tragedy.
They who are familiar with the events that occurred during a
different and earlier phase of this tale are aware that, not four
months previously, the father of Mrs. Ronayne had, as well as a
faithful domestic, been cruelly murdered there, during a period of
profound peace, by a party of Winnebagoes, and that, on the removal
of his body to the grounds of the cottage, near the fort, in which
his wife and daughter resided, the house had been hermetically
closed. The outrage upon Mr. Heywood had taken place early in April.
It was now, as has already been said, the 7th of August, and within
that period Mrs. Ronayne had drunk deeply of the cup of reciprocated
wedded bliss, she had also known the anguish of the severance of
every natural tie. Both her parents were buried near the
summer-house, and, had it not been for the fervent love of her
husband--a love that daily increased in purity and intensity--even
the great strength of mind for which she was remarkable would have
ill enabled her to endure the twofold shock. But, even with all
his love, the natural melancholy of her character became tinged
with an additional shade of seriousness, which, far from being
displeasing, or detracting from the sweetness of her most expressive
and faultless face, seemed to invest it with a newer and a holier
charm. The perfection of her classic style of beauty given as Maria
Heywood, may well justify a repetition here.

Above the middle size, her figure was at once gracefully and richly
formed. Her face, of a chiselled oval, was of a delicate olive
tint, which well harmonized with eyes of a lustrous hazel, and hair
of glossy, raven black, of rare amplitude and length. A mouth
classically small, bordered by lips of coral fulness, disclosed,
when she smiled, teeth white and even; while a forehead, high and
denoting strong intellect, combined with a nose somewhat more
aquiline than Grecian, to give dignity to a countenance that might
otherwise have exhibited too much of a character of voluptuous
beauty. Yet, although her features, when lighted up by vivacity or
emotion, were radiant with intelligence, their expression when in
repose was of a pensive cast, that, contrasted with her general
appearance, gave t