“Zuleime, my darling, my love,” said Frank, dismounting in the path, and lifting her from her saddle. “I am about to raise ’an insurmountable obstacle’ to your marriage with the Major!” Zuleime turned deadly pale with surprise and terror, and glanced wildly around, while she fell upon his arm and seemed about to faint. “Why, Zuleime! Come, come. What is the matter? Don’t be afraid! What, afraid of _me_, of _Frank_, your playmate? Why, look up in my face and see! Come lift up your head! I want to talk to you! There! there! Why, what are you afraid of? I will take _no_ step without your consent, sweet Zuleime!” The infinite tenderness of his words, tones and manner, reassured the frightened girl, and she raised her face, now suffused with blushes. He supported her with his arm around her waist, while he pointed down into a narrow glen to the right, and said— “There! Look there, Zuleime. Do you see that little stone house—there in the bottom of the glen—there by the spring—but so much like the rocks, near it, and so deep in the shade, as hardly to be distinguishable! Do you see it?” “Yes,” breathed the maiden, very low. “Do you know who lives there?” “No.” “A good old man! A saintly old man! A poor Baptist missionary preacher, who lives in that hut quite alone, and _preaches_ there every Sunday to an humble congregation, composed of poor mountaineers and negroes. He has devoted his life to labor among the mountain people, and has done wonders in reforming them! Is it possible that _you_, living in the neighborhood, knew nothing of him?” “Oh, yes! I have heard a great deal about Mr. Saunders, only I did not know where exactly his hut was. There are so many of them, you know!” said the girl, somewhat recovered, and much interested. “My dearest Zuleime! we will go down to that hut! ‘I see by the smoke, that so gracefully curls,’ that the old man is at home. We will tell him the whole story, as far as we know it, and get him to raise that required insurmountable obstacle!” “Oh! Frank!” exclaimed Zuleime, shocked, delighted, terrified, overjoyed. “But, my dearest Zuleime! my dearest love! I have recorded an oath in Heaven, to save you from that marriage with Cabell! And I will never leave you until you are my wife. If you refuse NOW, I will throw up my commission in the army, and live there in that hut with the old parson, until you _do_ consent!” “But, my father, Frank! My dear father!”