ourse, the hours rolled heavily away until the
time fixed for her appointment with Hansford. Despite her attempt to
prove cheerful and unconcerned, her lynx-eyed mother detected her
sadness, but was easily persuaded that it was due to a slight head-ache,
with which she was really suffering, and which she pleaded as an excuse.
The old lady was more easily deceived, because it tallied with her own
idea, that Jamestown was very unhealthy, and that she, herself, could
never breathe its unwholesome air without the most disastrous
consequences to her health.

At length, Colonel Temple, having left the crowd of busy politicians,
who were discussing the events of the day in the hall, returned with his
good wife to their own room. Virginia, with a beating heart, resumed her
watch at the window, where she was to await the coming of Sarah
Drummond. It was a warm, still night. Scarcely a breath of air was
stirring the leaves of the long line of elms that adorned the street.
She sat watching the silent stars, and wondering if those bright worlds
contained scenes of sorrow and despair like this; or were they but the
pure mansions which the Comforter was preparing in his heavenly kingdom
for those disconsolate children of earth who longed for that peace which
he had promised when he told his trusting disciples "Let not your heart
be troubled, neither let it be afraid." How apt are the sorrowing souls
of earth to look thus into the blue depths of heaven, and in their
selfishness to think that Nature, with her host of created beings, was
made for them. She chose from among those shining worlds, one bright and
trembling star, which stood apart, and there transported on the wings of
Fancy or Faith, she lived in love and peace with Hansford. Sweet was
that star-home to the trusting girl, as she watched it in its slow and
silent course through heaven. Free from the cares which vex the spirit
in this dark sin-world, that happy star was filled with love, and the
blissful pair who knew it as their home, felt no change, save in the
"grateful vicissitude of pleasure and repose." Such was the picture
which the young girl, with the pencil of hope, and the colours of fancy
painted for her soul's eye. But as she gazed, the star faded from her
sight, and a dark and heavy cloud lowered from the place where it had
stood.

At the same moment, as if the vision in which she had been rapt was
something more than a dream, the door of her chamber opened, an