h, and I for
keeping mine shut."

"You are a saucy knave," said Bernard, reassured by the fellow's manner;
"and I'll warrant you never served under old Noll's Puritan standard.
But away with you, and remember to be in place at ten o'clock to-night,
and come to me at this signal," and he gave a shrill whistle, which
Holliday promised to understand and obey.

And so they separated, Bernard to while away the tedious hours, by
conversing with the old Colonel, and by endeavouring to reinstate
himself in the good opinion of Virginia, while Holliday repaired to the
kitchen, where, in company with his comrades and the white servants of
the hall, he emptied about a half gallon of brown October ale.

CHAPTER XLII.

"He sat her on a milk-white steed,
And himself upon a grey;
He never turned his face again,
But he bore her quite away."
_The Knight of the Burning Pestle._

"Oh, woe is me for Gerrard! I have brought
Confusion on the noblest gentleman
That ever truly loved."
_The Triumph of Love._

The night, though only starry, was scarce less lovely for the absence of
the moon. So bright indeed was the milky way, the white girdle, with
which the night adorns her azure robe, that you might almost imagine the
moon had not disappeared, but only melted and diffused itself in the
milder radiance of that fair circlet.

As was always the custom in the country, the family had retired at an
early hour, and Bernard quietly left the house to fulfil his engagement
with Mamalis. They stood, he and the Indian girl, beneath the shade of
the old oak, so often mentioned in the preceding pages. With his
handsome Spanish cloak of dark velvet plush, thrown gracefully over his
shoulders, his hat looped up and fastened in front with a gold button,
after the manner of the times, Alfred Bernard stood with folded arms,
irresolute as to how he should commence a conversation so important, and
requiring such delicate address. Mamalis stood before him, with that air
of nameless but matchless grace so peculiar to those, who unconstrained
by the arts and affectations of society, assume the attitude of ease and
beauty which nature can alone suggest. She watched him with a look of
eagerness, anxious on her part for the silence to be broken, that she
might learn the meaning and the object of this strange interview.

Alfred Bernard was too skillful an