She took a strand or two of his hair between her little fingers and plucked them out. Edward would not have flinched had there been fifty. "Now something you have worn--what can it be? Oh, a button." She took his penknife and cut from his coat sleeve one of its buttons. "There, Aunt Sylla, if you are not successful with them I shall never forgive you." The old woman took the hair and the button and relapsed into silent smoking. "I am a little curious to know what she is going to do with those things," said Edward. Mary looked at him shyly. "She is going to protect you," she said. "She will mix a little ground glass and a drop of chicken blood with them, and sew all in a tiny bag. No negro alive or dead would touch you then for the universe, and should you touch one of them with that charm it would give them catalepsy. You will get it to-morrow." "She is arming me with a terrible power at small cost," he replied, dryly. "Old Sylla is a prophetess," said the girl, "as well as a voodoo, and there is with us a tradition that death in the family will follow her every visit to the house. It is strange, but within our memory it has proved true. My infant brother, my only sister, mamma's brother, papa's sister, an invalid northern cousin spending the winter here--all their deaths were preceded by the appearance of old Sylla." "And is her success in prophecy as marked?" "Yes, so far as I know." She hesitated a moment. "Her prediction as to myself has not had time to mature." "And what was the prediction?" "That some day a stranger would carry me into a strange land," she said, smiling; "and--break my heart." They had reached the gate; except where the one light burned in the sitting-room all was darkness and silence. Edward said gently, as he stood holding open the gate: "I am a stranger and shortly I will take you into a strange land, but may God forget me if I break your heart." She did not reply, but with face averted passed in. The household was asleep. She carried the lamp to his door and opened it. He took it and then her hand. For a moment they looked into each other's eyes; then, gravely lifting the little hand, he kissed it. "May God forget me," he said again, "if I break your heart." He held the door open until she had passed down the stairs, her flushed face never lifted again to his. And then with the shutting of the door came darkness. But in the gloom a white figure came from the front doorway, stood listening at the stairs and then as noiseless as a sunbeam glided down into the hall below. CHAPTER XXXIX. BARKSDALE'S WARNING.