d forth upon the plantation to blow up his lazy overseer, Mr. Will
Ezy, and his idle negroes, who had loitered or frolicked away all the
days of their master's absence.

Mrs. Condiment went away to mix a plum pudding for dinner, and Cap was
left alone.

After wandering through the lower rooms of the house the stately,
old-fashioned drawing-room, the family parlor, the dining-room, etc.,
Cap found her way through all the narrow back passages and steep little
staircases back to her own chamber.

The chamber looked quite different by daylight--the cheerful wood fire
burning in the chimney right before her, opposite the door by which she
entered; the crimson draped windows, with the rich, old mahogany bureau
and dressing-glass standing between them on her left; the polished, dark
oak floor; the comfortable rocking chair; the new work-stand placed
there for her use that morning and her own well-filled trunks standing
in the corners, looked altogether too cheerful to associate with dark
thoughts.

Besides, Capitola had not the least particle of gloom, superstition or
marvelousness in her disposition. She loved old houses and old legends
well enough to enjoy them; but was not sufficiently credulous to
believe, or cowardly to fear, them.

She had, besides, a pleasant morning's occupation before her, in
unpacking her three trunks and arranging her wardrobe and her
possessions, which were all upon the most liberal scale, for Major
Warfield at every city where they had stopped had given his poor little
protegee a virtual _carte blanche_ for purchases, having said to her:

"Capitola, I'm an old bachelor; I've not the least idea what a young
girl requires; all I know is, that you have nothing but your clothes,
and must want sewing and knitting needles and brushes and scissors and
combs and boxes and smelling bottles and tooth powder and such. So come
along with me to one of those Vanity Fairs they call fancy stores and
get what you want; I'll foot the bill."

And Capitola, who firmly believed that she had the most sacred of claims
upon Major Warfield, whose resources she also supposed to be unlimited,
did not fail to indulge her taste for rich and costly toys and supplied
herself with a large ivory dressing-case, lined with velvet and
furnished with ivory-handled combs and brushes, silver boxes and crystal
bottles, a papier-mache work-box, with gold thimble, needle-case and
perforator and gold-mounted scissors and winders; a