gayety.

To say that these wedded lovers were very happy, would scarcely express
the delirium of pure joy in which they had dreamed away their days and
nights for the last few weeks--joy that both were too young and untried
to know could not last for ever, could not indeed even last long--joy so
elevated in its insanity as almost to tempt some thunderbolt of
malignant fate to fall upon it with destroying force, even as the highly
rarefied air sometimes draws on the whirlwind and the storm.

But then the story of their loves was rare and strange, and almost
justified the intensity of their mutual devotion, and that story is
briefly this:

CHAPTER II.

JOHN LYON HOWE.

"A brow half martial and half diplomatic,
An eye upsoaring like an eagle's wing."

John Lyon Howe was the younger son of a planter, residing in one of the
wildest mountain regions in central Virginia. The elder Howe was blessed
with a large family, and cursed with a heavily mortgaged estate--a
combination of circumstances not unusual among the warm-hearted,
generous and extravagant people of the Old Dominion.

John Lyon Howe had been educated in the Law School of the University of
Virginia, where, at the age of twenty-three, he graduated with the
highest honors.

Then, instead of commencing his professional life in one of the great
Eastern cities, or striking out for the broad fields of enterprise
opened in the Far West, young Howe, to the astonishment of all who were
acquainted with the talents and ambition of the new lawyer, returned to
his native county and opened his law office in Blackville, a small
hamlet lying at the foot of the Black Valley, and enjoying the honor and
profit of being the county-seat.

But the young lawyer had strong motives for his actions. He had great
talent, an intense passion for politics, and quite as much State pride
as personal ambition. He wished to distinguish himself; yes, but not in
Massachusetts or Minnesota, nor in any other place except in his native
State, his dear old Virginia.

Sometime to represent her in the National Congress, and to do her
service and credit there, was the highest goal of his youthful
aspirations.

For this cause, he settled in the obscure hamlet of Blackville, and
opened his law office in one of the basement rooms of the county
court-house.

While the courts were in session he at