nomy and considerably assisting her in the
preparation of delicate dishes.

In the evening the doctor, Clara, Mrs. Rocke and Traverse gathered
around the fire as one family--Mrs. Rocke and Clara engaged in
needlework, and the doctor or Traverse in reading aloud, for their
amusement, some agreeable book. Sometimes Clara would richly entertain
them with music--singing and accompanying herself upon the piano.

An hour before bedtime the servants were always called in, and general
family prayer offered up.

Thus passed the quiet, pleasant, profitable days. Traverse was fast
falling into a delicious dream, from which, as yet, no rude shock
threatened to wake him. Willow Heights seemed to him Paradise, its
inmates angels, and his own life--beatitude!

CHAPTER XX.

THE OUTLAW'S RENDEZVOUS.

Our plots fall short like darts which rash hands throw
With an ill aim, and have too far to go;
Nor can we long discoveries prevent;
God is too much about the innocent!
--Sir Robert Howard.

"The Old Road Inn," described in the dying deposition of poor Nancy
Grewell, was situated some miles from Hurricane Hall, by the side of a
forsaken turnpike in the midst of a thickly wooded, long and narrow
valley, shut in by two lofty ranges of mountains.

Once this turnpike was lively with travel and this inn gay with custom;
but for the last twenty-five years, since the highway had been turned
off in another direction, both road and tavern had been abandoned, and
suffered to fall to ruin. The road was washed and furrowed into deep and
dangerous gullies, and obstructed by fallen timber; the house was
disfigured by moldering walls, broken chimneys and patched windows.

Had any traveler lost himself and chanced to have passed that way, he
might have seen a little, old, dried-up woman, sitting knitting at one
of the windows. She was known by those who were old enough to remember
her and her home, as Granny Raven, the daughter of the last proprietor
of the inn. She was reputed to be dumb, but none could speak with
certainty of the fact. In truth, for as far back as the memory of the
"oldest inhabitant" could reach, she had been feared, disliked and
avoided, as one of malign reputation; indeed, the ignorant and
superstitious believed her to possess the "evil eye," and to be gifted
with "second sight."

But of late years, as the old road and the old inn were quite forsaken,
so the