When all was peace again within the homestead, there was one who still watched the night, and ignorant of the nature of this strange tumult, trembled as at the approach of a long-wished for happiness. It was Miriam, the orphan dependent, who now sat by the midnight casement. Oh, who of living men can tell how that young heart yearned at the thought--the hope--the thrilling momentary belief--that this was her absent lover happily returning? In the wide darkness of the lonesome night, which was it shone brightest and with purest lustre, in view of the all-seeing Mover of the Heavens--the stars glittering far away in space, in all their lofty glory, or the timid eyes of that simple maiden, wet with the dew of youth, and bright with the pure hope of honest love! When all was still again, and no Elbridge's voice was heard, no form of absent Elbridge there to cheer her, oh, who can tell how near to breaking, in its silent agony, was that young heart, and with what tremblings of solicitude and fear, the patient Miriam waited for the friendly light to open the golden-gate of dawn upon another morrow! CHAPTER SEVENTH. THE THANKSGIVING SERMON. The morning of the day of Thanksgiving came calm, clear and beautiful. A stillness, as of heaven and not of earth, ruled the wide landscape. The Indian summer, which had been as a gentle mist or veil upon the beauty of the time, had gone away a little--retired, as it were, into the hills and back country, to allow the undimmed heaven to shine down upon the happy festival of families and nations. The cattle stood still in the fields without a low; the trees were quiet as in friendly recognition of the spirit of the hour; no reaper's hook or mower's scythe glanced in the meadow, no rumbling wain was on the road. The birds alone, as being more nearly akin to the feeling of the scene, warbled in the boughs. But out of the silent gloom of the mist there sprang as by magic, a lovely illumination which lit the country far and wide, as with a thousand varicolored lamps. As a maiden who has tarried in her chamber, some hour the least expected appears before us, apparelled in all the pomp and hue of brilliant beauty, the fair country, flushed with innumerable tints of the changed autumn-trees, glided forth upon the Indian summer scene, and taught that when kindly nature seems all foregone and spent, she can rise from her couch fresher and more radiant than in her very prime. What wonder if with the peep of dawn the children leaped from bed, eager to have on their new clothes reserved for the day, and by times appeared before old Sylvester in proud array of little hats, new-brightened shoes and shining locks, span new as though they had just come from the mint; anxious to have his grandfatherly approval of their comeliness? Shortly after, the horses caught in the distant pastures, the Captain and Farmer Oliver having charge of them, were brought in and tied under the trees in the door-yard.