“I—I don’t know. Yes I do. It was about a—about a—about somebody’s going to prison. Was it the murderer? Alas, that will not bring him back. Neither do I wish it. Not even _I_, who loved him so. I would not make any body suffer, for the world. Oh, no.” The beauty looked at the pale girl in deep perplexity a moment, and then said— “Zuleime, your _father_ is suffering! Let’s see if that will rouse you!” “My father? Oh, no, he mustn’t. Tell him not to mind it. _I_ do not, much, now. I know he is at rest. And we shall be, soon. Tell him not to mind it.” “Zuleime! Awake! Arouse yourself! Your father is in _danger_, I tell you!” “In danger—in danger. Tell me about it.” “Listen to me, then! Rouse your mind! and fix it upon what I am going to tell you about your father’s peril.” And the lady took her hands and looked into her eyes, watching their expression, and bringing back her wandering ideas every time they showed the least sign of flying, and rousing up her flagging intellect every time it betrayed a disposition to sink—and so repeated the whole history of the difficulty over again. But the distracted mind of the poor girl was scarcely able to follow the pains-taking narrator through the facts of the case. Passing her hand once or twice across her corrugated brow, she said— “What—what is it you say about father, and prisons, and Major Cabell? I—I am afraid my memory isn’t as good as it used to be—please tell me over again.” The beauty, with a shrug of her shoulders, reiterated the story, placing it in the fewest, simplest, and most direct words she could find. But the stricken girl only looked sorely distressed and perplexed, and said, plaintively— “Please forgive me, and tell me what it is that threatens father!” “An execution—that will sweep off all the furniture from the house, and all the negroes from the plantation; parting husbands and wives, and parents and children, and brothers and sisters, among those poor, faithful creatures who love you so well. And for your father’s person, a jail, where he may be for years, or until he dies.” “Oh, pray don’t talk to me any more, my head is so wild, so wandering, _it wants to go back to something_,” said the poor thing, pressing her temples, and strongly attracted to her one great wo. “But your father!” “Yes! Oh, only tell me what you want me to do!” “To marry Major Cabell, who will then have the disposal of your fortune, and can cover those notes and save your father.” “But—oh, yes! Now I remember. Father said there was no necessity! I needn’t do it!” said the girl, pressing her finger hard upon the centre of her forehead, and looking keen and old with the mental effort to bring memory, attention and understanding to bear upon the subject. “Yes, yes, yes, yes,—he said I should weep in peace.” “Yes, your poor old father loves you better than himself. And he said that sooner than you should marry a man you did not love, he would die in jail.”