“I think we have the grandest storms at Ridgeley that visit our continent,” resumed Mabel thoughtfully. “I suppose because the house stands so high. The wind never sounds to me anywhere else as it does here on winter nights.” Yielding to the weird attraction of the scene invoked by her fancy, she arose and walked to the window at the eastern extremity of the hall, pulling aside the curtain that she might peer into the wild darkness. The crimson light of the burning logs and the lamp rays threw a strongly defined shadow of her figure upon the piazza floor, distinct as that projected by a solar microscope upon a sheeted wall; sent long, searching rays into the misty fall of the snow, past the spot from which she had her last glimpse of Frederic Chilton, so many, many months agone, showing the black outline of the gate where he had looked back to lift his hat to her. What was there in the wintry night and thick tempest to recall the warmth and odor of that moist September morning, the smell of the dripping roses overhead, the balmy humidity of every breath she drew? What in her present companion that reminded her of the loving clasp that had thrilled her heart into palpitation? the earnest depth of the eyes that held hers during the one sharp, yet sweet moment of parting--eyes that pledged the fealty of her lover's soul, and demanded hers then and forever? His conscience might have been sullied by crimes more heinous than those charged upon him by her brother and his friends; he might--he HAD--let her go easily, as one resigns his careless hold upon a paltry, unprized toy; but when her hand had rested thus in his, and his passionate regards penetrated her soul, he loved her, alone and entirely! She would fold this conviction to her torpid heart for a little while before she turned herself away finally from the memories of that love-summer and battle-autumn of her existence. If it aroused in the chilled thing some slight pangs of sentiency, it would do her no hurt to realize through these that it had once been alive. She saw a shadow approaching to join itself to hers upon the whitened floor without, before Mr. Dorrance interrupted her reverie by words. “The fury of the tempest you admire proves its paternity,” he said, with a manifest effort at lightness. “It emanates from the vast magazines of frost, snow, and wintry wind that lie far to the north-east even of my home, and THAT is in a region you would think drear and inhospitable after the more clement airs of of your native State.” “We have very cold weather in Virginia sometimes,” returned Mabel, still scanning the sentinel gate-posts, and the pyramidal arbor-vitae trees flanking them. Her gaze was a mournful farewell, but she neglected none of the amenities of hospitality. She was used to talking commonplaces. “We feel it all the more, too, on account of the mildness of the greater part of the winter,” she subjoined.