Twenty minutes passed, and then the streets were filled again; but now the people were going home, talking as they went of the beauty of the bride, and of the splendid-looking bridegroom, who looked so fondly at her as she murmured her responses, kissing her first himself when the ceremony was over, and letting his arm rest for a moment around her slender form. No one doubted its being a genuine love-match, and all rejoiced in the happiness of the newly married pair, who, at the village depot were waiting for the train which would take them on their way to Kentucky, for that was their destination. In the distracted condition of the country Hugh’s presence was needed there; for, taking advantage of his absence, and the thousand rumors afloat touching the Proclamation one of his negroes had already ran away in company with some half-dozen of the Colonel’s, who, in a terrible state of excitement, talked seriously of emigrating to Canada. Hugh’s timely arrival, however, quieted him somewhat, though he listened in sorrow, and almost with tears, to Hugh’s plan of selling the Spring Bank farm and removing with his negroes to some New England town, where Alice, he knew, would be happier than she had been in Kentucky. But a purchaser for Spring Bank was not so easily found in those dark days; and so, doing with his land the best he could, he called about him his negroes, and giving to each his freedom, proposed that they stay quietly where they were until Spring, when he hoped to find them all employment on the farm he was to buy in New England. Aunt Eunice who understood managing blacks better than his mother or his inexperienced wife, was to be his housekeeper in that new home of his, where the Colonel and his family would always be welcome; and having thus provided for those for whom it was his duty to care, he returned to Snowdon in time to join the Christmas party at Terrace Hill, where Irving Stanley was a guest, and where, in spite of the war clouds darkening our land, and in spite of the sad, haunting memories of the dead, there was much of hilarity and joy—reminding the villagers of the olden time when Terrace Hill was filled with gay revelers. Anna Millbrook was there, more beautiful than in her girlhood, and excessively fond of her missionary Charlie, who she laughingly declared was perfectly incorrigible on the subject of surplice and gown, adding that as “the mountain would not go to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain;” and so she was fast becoming an out-and-out Presbyterian of the very bluest stripe. Sweet Anna! None who looked into her truthful, loving face, or knew the consistency of her daily life, could doubt that whether Presbyterian or Episcopal in sentiment, the heart was right and the feet were treading the narrow path which leadeth unto life eternal.