Rosalie did not wish to sleep. The not unpleasant restlessness, induced by a new and strange position, drove sleep for a time from her eyes. She drew the chest to the only window in her part of the room, and sat down, and opened it, and looked out upon the dark green prairie, that seemed to roll out like the ocean to meet the eastern horizon, where the harvest moon was just rising. The full moon! It was the only familiar object that met her eyes in all the strange, wild, lonely, beautiful scene—the only old acquaintance—the only thing she had known at home! Tears—but not of sadness—rushed to her eyes. And then she thought of the vicissitudes of the last two years, and especially of the last two months; of her life of almost oriental luxury in the valley of the Pearl; of her home in the mountains of Virginia, where she was surrounded by all the advantages of wealth, taste, elegance, and comfort—where the eyes of affection watched her motions all day long, and many servants waited on her lightest bidding; and then of the roughness and ruggedness of her present lot. But not in repining, and not in regret did she compare these various phases of her life. She was happy if ever young wife was so. She looked upon the prairie, bathed in the silvery splendour of moonlight, with its mystic boundaries lost under the horizon, and its vastness and vagueness cast a glamour over her imagination, and charmed her with the fancy of wandering on and on in quest of its unknown limits, or as far as the vanishing boundaries might entice her. In the midst of these eyrie reveries sleep surprised her, and her fair head sank upon her folded hands on the window-sill. She was awakened by a gentle clasp around her waist and a gentle voice in her ear, saying— “My Rosalie—asleep at the window with the night dews falling on your head?” She started, blushed, smiled, and exclaimed, “O, Mark, is it you? I am so glad that you have come!” He let down the window, and placed his hand upon her head to see if it was damp, and asked— “Why did you not go to rest, Rosalie?” “Why, at first I was not sleepy; and I heard that there were strangers in the next room—or, rather, on the other side of the blankets—and it seemed so odd. I could not get used to the thought in a minute, Mark.” He answered with a laugh and said, as he looked around— “Yes, it is rather a rude place, with rather primitive accommodations, for the first and best hotel in the great city of Shelton. But, never mind; wait a bit. In a year or two you shall see this house well and completely finished, within and without, and the rooms all properly and comfortably fitted up and furnished, and the establishment provided with suitable waiters and chamber-maids; and in half-a-dozen years the host will probably have made his fortune.” “Well, Mark, and what success have you had this afternoon?”