There was the sound of horn and harp and violin ringing through the long corridors of the Profile that evening; and many of those who had shared in the glory of the moonrise and the solemn levee of the Old Man of the Mountain were joining in the dance that went on in that parlor which appeared large enough for the drill evolutions of an entire regiment. But few of the new-comers joined the revel for that evening; most of them, fatigued at once with travel and excitement, crept away to early beds in order to refresh themselves against the morning; and nothing remained, of any interest to the progress of this narration, except Captain Hector Coles walking up and down the long piazza for more than an hour after Margaret Hayley had retired, his boot-heels ringing upon the planks with a somewhat ostentatious affectation of the military step, Mrs. Burton Hayley meanwhile leaning upon his arm, and the two holding in tones so low that no passer-by could catch them, a conversation which seemed to be peculiarly earnest and confidential. Yet there was still one occurrence of that night which cannot be passed over without serious injury to the character of this record for strict veracity. Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame, during a large part of the night, was in serious trouble which required the full exercise of her maternal vigilance--while Miss Marianna, deserted by her father who had surreptitiously smoked a short pipe in the edge of the woods and thence gone to bed and to sleep, wandered disconsolately round the parlor, dressed in more costly frippery than would have sufficed to establish two mantua-makers, unintroduced to any one, stared at with the naked eye and through eye-glasses, her freckles complimented in an undertone that she could not avoid hearing, the name of her dress-maker facetiously inquired after, and the poor girl, made miserable by being dragged by her silly parents to precisely the spot of all the world where she least belonged, suffering such torments as should only be inflicted upon the most unrepentant criminal.