apartment of one of the lowliest dwellings of
Chestatee, Edith and her father sat in the deepest melancholy, conjuring
up perpetually in their minds those images of sorrow so natural to their
present situation. It was somewhat late, and they had just returned from
an evening visit to the dungeon of Ralph Colleton. The mind of the youth
was in far better condition than theirs, and his chief employment had
been in preparing them for a similar feeling of resignation with
himself. He had succeeded but indifferently. They strove to appear firm,
in order that he should not be less so than they found him; but the
effort was very perceptible, and the recoil of their dammed-up emotions
was only so much more fearful and overpowering. The strength of Edith
had been severely tried, and her head now rested upon the bosom of her
father, whose arms were required for her support, in a state of
feebleness and exhaustion, leaving it doubtful, at moments, whether the
vital principle had not itself utterly departed.

At this period the door opened, and a stranger stood abruptly before
them. His manner was sufficiently imposing, though his dress was that of
the wandering countryman, savoring of the jockey, and not much unlike
that frequently worn by such wayfarers as the stagedriver and carrier of
the mails. He had on an overcoat made of buckskin, an article of the
Indian habit; a deep fringe of the same material hung suspended from two
heavy capes that depended from the shoulder. His pantaloons were made of
buckskin also; a foxskin cap rested slightly upon his head, rather more
upon one side than the other; while a whip of huge dimensions occupied
one of his hands. Whiskers, of a bushy form and most luxuriant growth,
half-obscured his cheek, and the mustaches were sufficiently small to
lead to the inference that the wearer had only recently decided to
suffer the region to grow wild. A black-silk handkerchief, wrapped
loosely about his neck, completed the general outline; and the _tout
ensemble_ indicated one of those dashing blades, so frequently to be
encountered in the southern country, who, despising the humdrum monotony
of regular life, are ready for adventure--lads of the turf, the
muster-ground, the general affray--the men who can whip their weight in
wild-cats--whose general rule it is to knock down and drag out.

Though startling at first to both father and daughter, the manner of the
intruder was such as to forbid any further alar