Our travellers were now smoothly gliding over that most magnificent "meeting of the waters" of the Shenandoah and Potomack, which is usually known by the unpretending name of "Harper's Ferry." It was early morning; the moon was still visible above the horizon, and the sun had not yet risen above those stupendous fragments whose chaotic and irregular position gives token of the violence with which the mass of waters rent for themselves a passage through the mountains, when rushing on to meet that other congregation of rivers, with whose waters they unite to form the Bay of the Chesapeake. The black bituminous smoke from the hundred smithies of the United States' armory, had just begun to rise above the towering crags that seemed, at this early period, to battle with the vapours which are here sent up in thick volumes from the contest of rocks and rivers beneath. Old Cato had by this time assumed his post at the heads of the three horses, while our southerns stood with folded arms, each impressed with the scene according to his individual impulses. As they approached nearer to the northern shore, Chevillere, addressing Lamar, observed: "An unhappy young lady she must be who arrived at our hotel last evening. I could hear her weeping bitterly as she paced the floor, until a late hour of the night, when finally she seemed to throw herself upon the bed, and fall asleep from mere exhaustion;" and then, turning to the weather-beaten steersman, continued: "I suppose we are the first passengers in the 'flat' this morning?" "No, sir, you are not; a carriage from the same tavern went over half an hour ago. There was an old gray-headed man, and two young women in it, besides the driver, and the driver told me that they were all the way from York State,--the mail stage, too, went over." "The same party," said Chevillere, abstractedly; "Did you learn where they were to breakfast, boatman?" "About ten miles from this, I think I heard say." They were soon landed and mounted, and cantering away through the fog and vapours of the early morning. Nor were they long in overtaking a handsome travelling-carriage, which was moving at a brisk rate, in accordance with the exertions of two fine, evidently northern, horses. The carriage contained an elderly, grave, formal, and magisterial gentleman; his locks quite gray, and hanging loose upon the collar of his coat; his countenance harsh, austere, and forbidding in the extreme. By his side sat a youthful lady, so enveloped in a large black mantle, and travelling hat and veil, that but little of her form or features could be seen, except a pair of brilliant blue eyes.