ttle
distance; but so habituated to rule that no other security than his own
will was considered by his master necessary for his continued presence.
The lover waited not long. Descending the hill, through a narrow pathway
one side of the wood, well known and frequently trodden by both, he
beheld the approach of the maiden, and hurried forward to receive her.

The terms upon which they had so long stood forbade constraint, and put
at defiance all those formalities which, under other circumstances,
might have grown out of the meeting. She advanced without hesitancy, and
the hand of her lover grasped that which she extended, his arm passed
about her, his lip was fastened to her own without hinderance, and, in
that one sweet embrace, in that one moment of blissful forgetfulness,
all other of life's circumstances had ceased to afflict.

But they were not happy even at that moment of delight and illusion. The
gentler spirit of the maiden's sex was uppermost, and the sad story of
his crime, which at their last meeting had been told her, lay with heavy
influence at her heart. She was a gentle creature, and though dwelling
in a wilderness, such is the prevailing influence upon female character,
of the kind of education acquirable in the southern,--or, we may add,
and thus perhaps furnish the reason for any peculiarity in this respect,
the slave-holding states--that she partook in a large degree of that
excessive delicacy, as well of spirit as of person, which, while a
marked characteristic of that entire region, is apt to become of itself
a disease, exhibiting itself too frequently in a nervousness and
timidity that unfit its owner for the ruder necessities of life, and
permit it to abide only under its more serene and summer aspects. The
tale of blood, and its awful consequences, were perpetually recurring to
her imagination. Her fancy described and dwelt upon its details, her
thoughts wove it into a thousand startling tissues, until, though
believing his crime unpremeditated, she almost shrank from the embrace
of her lover, because of the blood so recently upon his hands. Placing
her beside him upon the seat he had occupied, he tenderly rebuked her
gloomy manner, while an inward and painful consciousness of its cause
gave to his voice a hesitating tremor, and his eye, heretofore
unquailing at any glance, no longer bold, now shrank downcast before the
tearful emphasis of hers.

"You have come, Kate--come, according to your pr