The old Colonel and his daughter rode back to their home perhaps for the last time. One of the blood-red stars had been blotted out of the tyrants' calendar. Two more like the painted dolphins in the circus at Antioch remained to be taken down, one by one. The search for the missing document was renewed when they reached home, but unavailingly. Alice however discovered in an old ash barrel in a neatly folded package, two papers signed by Abram Laflin to her father; one a note for five thousand dollars, the other a mortgage securing the payment of the note. No trace however, of the twenty-five thousand dollar mortgage. Alice carried the Laflin note to her father whose mind for a moment appeared a complete blank; he then remembered the transaction circumstantially. "Yes, Yes," he exclaimed reminiscently; "the note was executed to me as a fee, when he was indicted and acquitted for murder in 1866. Now he may let slip the dogs of war, and 'damned be he who first cries hold! Enough!'" It was painful to observe that Mr. Seymour had become so injuriously affected by the exciting events transpiring from day to day, that his mind upon matters of business was almost inert. Certainly his memory was fast failing; a giving away of the mental poise; and in consequence thereof, poor Alice was picking up here and there great bits of trouble, with as much freedom as the washwoman gathers sticks for her fire. "Tomorrow she exclaimed will be the Sabbath. Blessed day will it bring surcease from sorrow, a moment's respite from the maelstrom of trouble?" she asked, "I can only hope. I feel sometimes like crying aloud, 'What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue'!" When the morning broke tranquilly upon the old home, the little birds were caroling in the trees, and the poor girl felt that her care worn spirit should rest this holy Sabbath day. After the morning meal, her father perturbed and dejected walked along the river's bank, and she retired to the parlor where she sang and played. In the evening old Ned came to express again his sense of gratitude to his young mistress and his old master, and observed among other things, remorsefully, how foolish he had been to take up with the vagaries of the negroes, who were fomenting so much trouble. "And mars John," he continued, "I seed where I was agwine rong, und I knowed yu wud fetch me outen de miry clay. Times is er gitten so mistrustful dat I cum ter ax yu und yung missis mouten me und Clarissa stay wid yu in de grate house? Whar we kin run on urrans fo yu nite und day."