That night when Mrs. Graham, who was naturally generous, returned from the city, she left at Maple Grove a large bundle for grandma, consisting of dresses, aprons, caps, and the like, which she had purchased as a sort or peace-offering, or reward, rather, for her having decamped so quietly from Woodlawn. But the poor old lady did not live to wear them. Both her mind and body were greatly impaired, and for two or three years she had been failing gradually. There was no particular disease, but a general breaking up of the springs of life, and a few weeks after ’Lena’s arrival at Woodlawn,, they made another grave on the sunny slope, and Mabel no longer slept alone. CHAPTER XXXVII. DURWARD. From place to place and from scene to scene Durward had hurried, caring nothing except to forget, if possible, the past, and knowing not where he was going, until he at last found himself in Richmond, Virginia. This was his mother’s birthplace, and as several of her more distant relatives were still living here, he determined to stop for awhile, hoping that new objects and new scenes would have some power to rouse him from the lethargy into which he had fallen. Constantly in terror lest he should hear of ’Lena’s disgrace, which he felt sure would be published to the world, he had, since his departure from Laurel Hill, resolutely refrained from looking in a newspaper, until one morning some weeks after his arrival at Richmond. Entering a reading-room, he caught up the Cincinnati Gazette, and after assuring himself by a hasty glance that it did not contain what he so much dreaded to see, he sat down to read it, paying no attention to the date, which was three or four weeks back. Accidentally he cast his eye over the list of arrivals at the Burnet House, seeing among them the names of “Mr. H. R. Graham, and Miss L. R. Graham, Woodford county, Kentucky!” “_Audacious_! How dare they be so bold!” he exclaimed, springing to his feet and tearing the paper in fragments, which he scattered upon the floor. “Considerable kind of uppish, ’pears to me,” said a strange voice, having in its tone the nasal twang peculiar to a certain class of Yankees. Looking up, Durward saw before him a young man in whose style of dress and freckled face we at once recognize Joel Slocum. Wearying of Cincinnati, as he had before done with Lexington, he had traveled at last to Virginia. Remembering to have heard that his grandmother’s aunt had married, died, and left a daughter in Richmond, he determined, if possible, to find some trace of her. Accordingly, he had come on to that city, making it the theater of his daguerrean operations. These alone not being sufficient to support him, he had latterly turned his attention to _literary pursuits_, being at present engaged in manufacturing a book after the Sam Slick order, which, to use his own expression, “he expected would have a thunderin’ sale.”