In her evening dress of white, with her bands of glossy black hair bound like a coronet around her regal brow, Maude De Vere stood leaning upon the piano, her eyes shining like burning coals, and her lips slightly parted as she listened to the conversation, and then darted an anxious glance toward the spot where Hetty had been standing a moment before. But Hetty had disappeared, and under cover of darkness was running and rolling and slipping down the steep wet path, which led to her cabin door. Arrived there, she seized the sleeping Tom by the arm, and exclaimed: “Wake up, mars’r, for de dear lord’s sake! De Seshioners is come, and will be here in a minute! I’m mighty ’fraid even Miss Maude can’t save you!” Tom was awake in a moment and fully alive to the danger of his condition. From the house on the knoll, he could hear the excited voices of his pursuers, and the sound made every pulse throb with fear. “Tell me what to do,” he said, and Hetty replied, “Kin you bar smotherin’ for a spell? If you kin, git under de ole straw tick, and lie right still and flat, and you, Hal, buckle into marsr’s place, as if ’twas you who’ve been lyin’ here all the time.” Tom did not hesitate a moment, and had just straightened himself under the straw bed, and drawn a long breath as he felt Harry’s body settling down above him, when steps were heard coming down the path, and a young man’s voice asked of Hetty if she had any strangers there—“any Yankees, you know; because if you have—” the young man paused a moment and peered out into the night to make sure that no one was listening, then, in a whisper, he added, “Keep them safe, and remember, Fleetfoot knows all the passes of the mountains between here and Tennessee.” A suppressed “thank God!” might almost have been heard beneath the straw bed, while old Hetty exclaimed, “The Lord bless Mars’r Arthur, and Miss Maude, too! I know it is her doins.” And Hetty was right, for Tom Carleton owed his escape from that great peril, to Maude De Vere rather than to Lieutenant Arthur. “When the order was given to search the negro quarters, Arthur had seen that in Maude’s face which constrained him to follow her when she beckoned to him to come out upon the piazza. “Arthur,” she said, putting her lips to his ear, “remember the kind treatment you received from your enemies, and be merciful. Don’t let them find him, for there _is_ a Yankee soldier down in Hetty’s cabin. She told me to-night. Search her house yourself. Throw them off the track. Anything to mislead them. Be merciful. Do it, Arthur, for _my_ sake.” Always beautiful, Maude De Vere was dazzlingly so now, as she stood before the young officer pleading for Tom Carleton, and Arthur Tunbridge was more influenced by her beauty, than by any party feelings. Assuming a fierce, determined manner, he went back to the pursuers and said,