my head and take a
hearty cry. And what are men at such a season? Mocking fiends, usually,
the best of them! I shall go abroad, Miss Harz. I am no anchorite. You
will hear of me as a gay man of the world, perhaps; but, as to being
happy, that can never be again! The bubble of life has burst, and my
existence falls flat to the earth. Victor Favraud, that airy nothing, is
scarcely a 'local habitation and a name' now!"

"Let him make a name, then," I urged. "With military talents like yours,
Major Favraud, the road to distinction will soon be open to you. Our
approaching difficulties with France--"

"Oh, that will all be patched up, or has been, by this time. Van Buren
is a crafty but peace-loving fox! Something of an epicurean, too, in his
high estate. What grim old Jackson left half healed, he will complete
the cure of. Ah, Miss Harz, I had hoped to flesh my sword in a nobler
cause!"

I knew what he meant. That dream of nullification was still uppermost
in his soul--dispersed, as it was, in the eyes of all reasonable men. I
shook my head. "Thank God! all that is over," I said, gravely,
fervently; "and my prayer to Him is that he may vouchsafe to preserve us
for evermore an unbroken people!"

"May He help Israel when the time comes," he murmured low, "for come it
will, Miss Harz, as surely as there is a sun in the heavens! 'and may I
be there to see!' as John Gilpin said, or some one of him--which was
it?"

And, whipping up his lagging steeds as we gained the open road, we
emerged swiftly from the shadows of the forest--between nodding
cornfields, already helmed and plumed for the harvest, and plantations
green with thrifty cotton-plants, with their half-formed bolls,
promising such bounteous yield, and meadows covered with the tufted
Bermuda grass, with its golden-green verdure, we sped our way toward
Lenoir's Landing.

This peninsula was formed by the junction of two rivers, between which
intervened a narrow point of land, with a background of steep hills,
covered with a growth of black-jack and yellow-pine to the summit. Here
was a ferry with its Charon-like boat, of the primitive sort--flat
barge, poled over by negroes, and capable of containing at one time many
bales of cotton, a stagecoach or wagon with four horses, besides
passengers _ad libitum._

This ferry constituted the chief source of revenue of Madame Grambeau,
an old French lady, remarkable in many ways. She kept the stage-house
hard by, with its