"Alice," said Philip, placing the fair hand of the proud stranger in hers; "this is my cousin Virginia." "I have come to wish you joy, Alice," said Virginia, kissing her cheek lightly, and smiling in a sad, cold kind of way. Her mourning attire, and the evident melancholy of her manner, touched the affectionate heart of her hostess, who returned her kiss with interest. "For de law's sake, Saturn, come here quick--quick! Who be dat comin' up de walk wid masser and de comp'ny? Ef dat ain't little Virginny Moore, growed up, who is it?" "It's Virginny, sure 'nuff!" ejaculated her husband. In the mean time that young lady herself began to look about with quick, inquiring glances; she peered into the raftsman's face anxiously, and again toward the old servants, a perplexed look coming over her face as she neared the house. "You needn't say a word, Miss Virginny--it's us, sartain--Pallas and Saturn, your fadder's people, who had you in our arms ebery day till you was eight year old. You do remember old Pallas, don't you now, honey? My! my! what a han'some, tall girl you is growed--de picture ob your fadder. Yer a Moore tru and tru, Missus. My ole eyes is glad to see you." "Hi! hi! Miss Virginny!" chuckled Saturn, bowing and scraping. "Come 'long and let me get your bunnit off. I want to take a good look at ye, honey. Missus Alice neber was a Moore--she was like _her_ mudder, small and purty and timid-like; but ye's a perfect Moore, Miss Virginny. My! my! I know 'em all, root and branch. I tol' my ole man Masser Philip belonged to our Mooreses, but Masser Wilde he neber let on"--she had the visitor's bonnet off by this time, talking all the time, and oblivious, in her excited state, of the other guests. "Yes, Miss Virginia," said the raftsman, drawing his powerful figure up to its full height, "I am that brother-in-law you have been taught to detest and be ashamed of. You would hardly have come to the wedding, if you had known what poor company you were to get in." All those of the company who knew him looked at him in surprise, for he had dropped his hoosier form of speech and took on the air of a superior man. Virginia looked at him a moment calmly, taking, as it were, an estimate of the mind and heart outside of that athletic frame, and gleaming through those noble though weather-beaten features. "I do not see any thing to be ashamed of," she said, with a smile, giving him her hand, frankly, in a sisterly manner. "I was but a little child, you know, when your connection with our family commenced. Doubtless I have been influenced by what I have heard. If my father wronged you, David Wilde, it is time for you to forgive it--lay up no hard thoughts against the dead." Her lip trembled over the last sentence. "Dear Virginia! is it possible my Alice is to find in you--" "An aunt? yes, Philip,--and you are about to marry your third cousin. It's rather curious, isn't it?"