While she spoke so wildly, she pressed and rubbed her hand spasmodically against her heart. And her pale brow was corrugated, and her intense black eyes strained and sharpened as by mental and physical pain. She gasped for breath, and began again. “I do not know—I am sure—I cannot tell—whether, after all, we will ever mar—” What she was about to say was cut short by the entrance of Mrs. Clifton, of Hardbargain, who came in, with her shawl and bonnet on, to take leave of Zuleime and Major Cabell, and invite them to join the rest of the family in coming to dine and spend the evening at Hardbargain the next day. Major Cabell accepted the invitation for himself and Zuleime, and the lady took her departure. The next day was Saturday. The family set out on their visit at an early hour of the day, as is the social custom of country neighbors. Old Mr. Clifton, his wife, and his eldest daughter, rode in his carry-all. Mrs. Cabell and her three daughters went in that lady’s carriage. Zuleime rode on horseback, attended by Major Cabell. It was a glorious Indian summer day, when the splendor of the autumnal sunlight would be too dazzling, but for the soft, warm mist spread veil-like over it. At another time, Zuleime, true worshiper of nature, might have drawn deep draughts of pleasure from the beauty of the scene. But now the gorgeous magnificence of the forests, in their many colored foliage—the misty mountain steeps softening the glory—the fine transparent neutral tint of the heavens leading the eye and mind up through infinite heights of ether—the glowing clouds reposing along the horizon—all were lost upon her. An hour’s ride by the carriage road brought the party to Hardbargain. Mrs. Clifton received them with her usual quiet cordiality. There was something very composing in that calm, kind, self-possessed woman’s manner. There was something very sedative also in the air of her home. In her company and in her house the restless became quiet, the anxious easy, the desponding cheerful, even the despairing mourners over some great heart-wreck, grew languidly aware of how much good was left them in the comforts of daily domestic life, and the amenities of social intercourse.