"This news threw me into a brain-fever; and when I came to myself, eight weeks after, I was told how my mother had died of a heart disease at the shock of Florence's flight; how a letter had come from Germantown, saying how happy she was if only she knew her dear father had forgiven her; then another, full of grief at the death of her mother and my illness; how my father had sold the old house, and was waiting for my recovery to bury himself and his griefs in the far west. So the next fall saw us fixed out here; and Florence was told of the change, and that her father would never cross the mountains again. My father had not cast her off, as parents do in novels, but his displeasure and disappointment were very great, and he let her know it; his letters, few and seldom, were cold and formal, never again the fond, loving missives they had been during the short separation from him in her childhood. More than all, he grieved over the Protestant marriage; for it was a Presbyterian minister who had performed the ceremony, and Florence had never mentioned having had it performed by a priest. One day, the next summer, as I was sitting at the open door, I saw a carriage drive up to the gate, and a lady get out; in a moment I knew it was Florence, and calling Tamar, ran out to meet her, only to receive her fainting in my arms. Tamar helped to carry her in and lay her on the sofa. Father had gone to Hamilton; and before he returned, we had got her up-stairs, and all traces of her arrival done away with. I waited anxiously for him to come, and wondered how I should tell him; but my anxiety was useless, for he came in with a small glove in his hand, and his first question was, 'Where's Florence?' I had hardly time to tell him, when the door opened, and Florence herself was at his feet. "I left them alone together, and when I returned, he had placed her on the sofa, and was sitting close to her, holding her hand. "It was not till the next day that we asked about her journey, and then she told her story.