of the mammon of unrighteousness."

"Friends! I would die first. I who have been moving in the first
circles, the wife of Colonel Temple, who, if he had chosen, might have
been the greatest in the land, to make friends with a party of mean,
sneaking, cowardly ruffians. Never--and I'll speak my mind freely
too--they shall see that I have a woman's tongue in my head and know how
to resent these injuries. Oh, for shame! and to wear swords too, which
used to be the badge of gentlemen and cavaliers, who would rather have
died than wrong a poor, weak, defenceless woman--much less to rob and
murder her."

"Well, let us hope for the best, my friend," said Mrs. Ballard; "God
knows I feel as you do, that we have been grossly wronged; but let us
remember that we are in the hands of a just and merciful Providence, who
will do with us according to his holy will."

"I only know that we are in the hands of a parcel of impious and
merciless wretches," cried the old lady, who, as we have seen on a
former occasion, derived but little comfort from the consolations of
religion in the hour of trial. "I hope I have as much religion as my
fellows, who pretend to so much more--but I should like to know what
effect that would have on a band of lawless cut-throats?"

"He has given us his holy promise," said Virginia, in a solemn, yet
hopeful voice of resignation, "that though we walk through the valley
and the shadow of death, he will be with us--his rod and his staff will
comfort us--yea, he prepareth a table for us in the presence of our
enemies, our cup runneth over."

"Well, I reckon I know that as well as you, miss; but it seems there is
but little chance of having a table prepared for us here," retorted her
mother, whose fears and indignation had whetted rather than allayed her
appetite. "But I think it is very unseemly in a young girl to be so calm
under such circumstances. I know that when I was your age, the bare idea
of submitting to such an exposure as this would have shocked me out of
my senses."

Virginia could not help thinking, that considering the lapse of time
since her mother was a young girl, there had been marvellously little
change wrought in her keen sensibility to exposure; for she was already
evidently "shocked out of her senses." But she refrained from expressing
such a dangerous opinion, and replied, in a sad tone--

"And can you think, my dearest mother, that I do not feel in all its
force our present awful co