Virginia required no sweet serenade to call her from her slumbers. She was already awake, as indeed she had been through most of the night. A feverish dread of undefined approaching evil, had dimly floated through her excited brain during her waking hours, and yet more shadowy horrors disturbed her partial and unrefreshing sleep. Her morning habiliments were donned earlier than usual, without the assistance of her Indian attendant; yet she marvelled at her unwonted absence. She usually slept in an adjoining apartment, and hither Virginia bent her steps to chide the tardy maiden for her strange neglect on so important an occasion. No little surprise was visible in her countenance, when she found not only the apartment untenanted, but that the bed upon which Wyanokee usually slept, was undisturbed, or that if used at all, it had been slightly disarranged, only as if with a deceptive purpose. She repeated her name throughout the house and garden, but no answer was returned. Her voice soon aroused her mother, who was no less surprised at the circumstances related by her daughter. Together they went to the apartment, and again examined the bed, which had evidently not been slept in. And now other appearances struck them, which had not before attracted their attention. The dress she had worn on the previous day, hung in a closet answering the purposes of a wardrobe, together with the whole of her apparel, the gift of Virginia or her mother. Not an article could be recollected of these, which was not there. They seemed, moreover, to have been studiously arranged so as to attract attention in this particular. On the other hand, every garment of Indian fabric which she had preserved through her captivity, was gone. The moccasins she had worn on the previous day--the Indian beads, wampum, and other ornaments of native origin, were nowhere to be seen. All the gifts of Bacon and Mr. Fairfax, some of which were of gold and silver, were conspicuously arranged upon a shelf in the same apartment. Many of these she had hitherto constantly worn in her ears, and upon her wrists and ankles.