you know the jeopardy in which you placed yourself in
riding out alone at this hour? Suppose three or four great runaway
negresses had sprung out of the bushes and--and--and----" She broke off
apparently for want of breath, and strode up and down the floor; then,
pausing suddenly before him, with a stern stamp of her foot and a fierce
glare of her eye, she continued:

"You shouldn't have come back here any more! No dishonored old man
should have entered the house of which I call myself the mistress!"

"Oh, I take! I take! ha, ha, ha! Good, Cap, good! You are holding up the
glass before me; but your mirror is not quite large enough to reflect
'Old Hurricane,' my dear. 'I owe one,'" said the old man, as he passed
into the house, followed by his capricious favorite.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTER.

Oh, her smile, it seemed half holy,
As if drawn from thoughts more far,
Than our common jestings are.
And, if any painter drew her,
He would paint her unaware
With a hallow round her hair.
--E. B. Browning.

On the appointed day Traverse took his way to Willow Heights to keep his
tryst and enter upon his medical studies in the good doctor's office. He
was anxious also to know if his patron had as yet thought of any plan by
which his mother might better her condition. He was met at the door by
little Mattie, the parlor-maid, who told him to walk right up-stairs
into the study, where her master was expecting him.

Traverse went up quietly and opened the door of that pleasant
study-room, to which the reader has already been introduced, and the
windows of which opened upon the upper front piazza.

Now, however, as it was quite cold, the windows were down, though the
blinds were open, and through them streamed the golden rays of the
morning sun that fell glistening upon the fair hair and white raiment of
a young girl who sat reading before the fire.

The doctor was not in the room, and Traverse, in his native modesty, was
just about to retreat when the young creature looked up from her book
and, seeing him, arose with a smile and came forward, saying:

"You are the young man whom my father was expecting, I presume. Sit
down; he has stepped out, but will be in again very soon."

Now, Traverse, being unaccustomed to the society of young ladies, felt
excessively bashful when suddenly coming into the presence of this
refined and lovely girl. Wit