Phædra got up and attended to the arrangement of the house and the preparation of breakfast with her usual exactness. Mrs. Waring, suffering from the debilitating effects of the weather, indulged herself in the morning, and breakfasted in bed. No foreboding was felt by any one; no token in sky or air, or circumstances without, of presentiment within their hearts, warned them of calamity, crime and sudden death at hand. That morning, after breakfast, Valentine strolled listlessly out toward the public road leading to the town. It was his daily habit. It had been commenced in the hope of meeting some one from the city who might be able to give him news of Fannie and her little child. And though he never met with success, he still rambled thither every day, as well from force of habit as from the faint hope that he might yet hear of them. He strolled to the highway, met his usual ill-success, and, after lingering an hour or two, sauntered dejectedly toward home. When he reached a lane that separated his master's plantation on the right from Mr. Hewitt's on the left, his attention was arrested by the sound of a low voice. He listened. "Hish-sh! Walley, come here--here to the gap." The voice proceeded from behind the hedge, formed by a thick growth of Spanish daggers, that completely covered the fence on the left of the lane. There was a small broken place in it, toward which Valentine sauntered indifferently. He saw on the other side the huge head of a gigantic negro, a jet-black, lumbering, awkward, good-natured monster enough, who belonged to Mr. Hewitt, and who sported the imposing cognomen of "governor." "Well, Governor, is that you? What do you want with me?" "Hish-sh, Walley, don't talk so loud! our oberseer ain't far off. Brudder 'Lisha, he bin out from town." "Well!" exclaimed Valentine, with breathless interest, bending forward. "W'en you hear from Fannie las'?" "Not for two weeks. Why do you ask? Have you heard from her? Speak! oh, for Heaven's sake, speak!" exclaimed Valentine, breathlessly. "Fannie done got de feber." "Oh, God!" "Brudder 'Lisha, he done bin 'ere dis mornin' and tell we-dem." "Oh, Heaven! oh, when was she taken? Who is with her? Is she----" "Dunno nuffin 'tall 'bout it, 'cept 'tis she's got de feber. Brudder 'Lisha, he done bin dere to her place, an' heern it." "Where is Elisha?" "Done gone right straight back to town." "And that is all the satisfaction you can give me," cried Valentine, beside himself with distress. "Yaw, yaw! I trought how I'd watch arter you, and tell you--'long as you'd like to hear it. Hish-sh-sh! Walley, stoop down here close, till I whisper to you." "What now!" exclaimed Valentine, in new alarm, bending his ear to the huge negro's lips. "Hish-sh-sh! Walley, I wish how it wur my 'ooman as had de yaller feber!" "Wretch!" "An' wish we-dem's white nigger oberseer had it too!" "What do you mean?" "And I wish dey bofe might die long of it." "Wretch! I say again!"