“Miss Alice, no, ma’am; he didn’t come home at all. He didn’t even meet the carriage. He turned off ’fore he got to the porter’s lodge, and rode hard as he could down the path as leads down the Hollow. I ’spects how he had some ’litical business long o’ Mr. Hard’stle.” “Oh, thank Heaven!” said Alice, with a long-drawn sigh of relief, and rising, she hurried off to her own chamber. Not to sit down in faithless despair, but to write a letter to General Garnet, softly and meekly breaking to him the news of their daughter’s marriage, so that the first shock of astonishment and rage should be over before he should come home and she should have to meet him. She wrote this letter. It contained all that she had said in her letter to Elsie, and much more; besides, a meek, appealing spirit pervaded it, that few hearts could have resisted. She dispatched it by a servant to General Garnet at Hemlock Hollow. Then she lay down and tried to sleep. She was disturbed by the entrance of a servant bearing a letter. She raised up and took it. It was for General Garnet, and bore the post-mark of Huttontown. She regarded it attentively for an instant, for it was written in a coarse, schoolboy-like hand. Then she placed it on the dressing-table, and, dismissing the servant, lay down and closed her eyes again, with an effort to sleep. She could not do so for a long time. Emotion was busy in her heart, and thought in her brain. One, two, three hours passed; and then she prayed, prayed for the promised rest, and, praying, fell asleep. She did not know how long she had slept, when, waking, she perceived General Garnet in the room. He was sitting in the large armchair near the bed, and his attention riveted upon a letter he was reading. Alice glanced at the dressing-table. The letter she had placed there was gone. Yes, it was that letter which he was reading with such fixed interest. Alice lay quietly, yet anxiously watching him, until he finished reading, folded up the letter, and put it in his pocket. His attitude was one of deep, even intense, thought. In the crimson twilight of that closely curtained chamber she could not see the expression of his face. It was evident, she thought, that he had not seen her in the shadowy recess where her sofa stood. After thus watching a moment, breathing a prayer for mercy, she slowly arose, crossed the room, and sank upon the cushion near his feet, took his hand, and looked up pleadingly into his face. Alice was still a very beautiful woman, as I have told you, and never was a more beautiful picture than that kneeling figure, with the bright, flowing hair, flushed cheek, and upturned, pleading gaze with which she sought silently to deprecate the anger of her husband. She sought to read her fate in his countenance; but that high and haughty face was lifted and averted, and its features were stern, and calm, and impassible. Then she found words to speak, and inquired, softly: “You received my letter, General Garnet?”