along the thicket. There came the farmer on his plough-horse, in his coarse striped breeches, blue homespun coatee, and broadbrimmed hat; there, the whirling carriage, borne along by four showy bays, of the wealthy planter; there the trudging countrygirl in her huge sunbonnet and short-waisted cotton frock; and there, in little groups of two or three, the negroes, male and female, with their own small stock of eggs, chickens, blackberries, and sassafras, ploughing their way through the heavy sands to occupy their places in the village market.
While Humphries looked, he saw, to his great vexation, the figure of Dame Blonay approaching, accompanied by his sister. All his suspicions were reawakened by the sight. The girl was dressed as for church. Her dress was simple, suited to her condition, and well adapted to her shape, which was a good one. Her bonnet was rather fine and flaunting, and there was something of gaudiness in the pink and yellow distributed over her person in the guise of knots and ribands. But still the eye was not offended, for the habit did not show unfavourably along with the pretty face, and light, laughing, good-natured eye that animated it. What a contrast to the old hag beside her! The one, capricious enough, was yet artless and simple—the other old, stern, ugly, poor, was even then devising plans for the ruin of the child.
"Come, my daughter, come farther—I would not others should hear what I say to you; and I know it will please you to know. The wood is cool and shady, and we can talk there at our ease."
"But, mother, wasn't it a strange dream now—a very strange dream, to think that I should be a great lady, and ride in my coach like the ladies at 'Middleton Place,' and 'The Oaks' and ' Singletons,' and all the rich people about here?—and it all seemed so true, mother—so very true, I didn't know where I was when I woke up this morning."
There was a devilish leer in the old hag's eye, as she looked into that of the vain-hearted but innocent girl beside her, and answered her in a speech well calculated to increase the idle folly already so active in her mind. Humphries heard nothing of the dialogue—he was quite too far off; but he felt so deeply anxious on the subject of the old woman's connexion with his sister, that he had
