`In men's eyes I am a hunchback,
In God's thou!'

When Gardner Sears reached his chamber in the inn, before retiring
for the night, he trimmed his lamp and sat down to his table
to write to his confident in all matters, his mother.

Hillside Inn, Half past twelve—night.
My Dear Mother:

I have met her—spoken with her, and—but I will not anticipate.
I must forestal your opinion, at the first, that `she could not be a
discreet maiden to meet a stranger.' She got my note, but did not
meet me in consequence of it. So rigidly is she kept at labor that
she had no opportunity to learn its contents till the moon rose,
when she stole out by her mother's grave, to open it by moonlight.
I saw her graceful figure kneeling by the grave-side, for I had been
lingering near, with hope, and approached near enough to hear her
soliloquize upon the contents of my note. I heard her say, `no,
no, I may not meet him—kind, generous as he seems to be. No—
I cannot accede to his request!' I drew nearer, and she recognized
me, and would have fled. But I detained her with gentle
and eloquent appeal. She grew trusting and remained to listen to
me. I urged her to fly her bondage, and offered her, dear mother,
your protection. But she was firm—but finally promised, if some
evil which she did not name, but which she dreaded would come
upon her, should befal her, she would then avail herself of my
proffer of your roof, if you came for her; and this you must do.—
What propriety in all her conduct! But if I was charmed with her
sweet, maidenly modesty, I was enchanted with the character of
her lovely and natural mind. I wish you could have heard her
speak her thoughts. Her language is pure and singularly expressive
of every shade of feeling. She is an extraordinary character,
and I wish you to see and know her. The study—a brief but sweet
lesson it was—of her mind to-night, has opened to me a new world
of beauty. She is as pure and guileless as a child of seven—yet
she is seventeen or eighteen. She soon grew more confiding, and
opened her soul's treasures to me. What a mine of unworked
gold lay in the foundation of her being. She is a very gentle and
single spirit. She talked in a strange, sweet, low voice, like one
musing aloud, and I listened breathless, as to pure and spiritual
communication. Her words recalled the thoughts and hopes of
my early years, and such as I love to indulge when in my better
hours. I thought then, as I listened, 'tis for such thoughts as
these, alone, we exist. How wide the contrast of their singleness
with the double-minded wordiness of the cautious and courteous

[figure description] Page 017.[end figure description]

world. She is a wild, beautiful, gentle creature; for these opposite
terms just suit her. She is heart-aspiring, and loves to soar
into the new and the unrealized. She is full of fanciful memories,
and discourses sweetly and gravely of what she calls her `Fanciful
Life.' You should listen to her to know her. Blessings on her
generous and confiding heart; blessings on her delightful fancy,
which creates only to love. Let her trust in them to the end, and
without end, whilst they are so pure and hallowing. I have heard
that gigantic thinker, R. Waldo Emerson, say, `nothing is so natural
as the supernatural.' The body stands in the soul's light, and
casts a shadow upon it, and the world of minds is in twilight kept
out of its best powers and possessions. This pure, artless girl has
it always sunshine at her heart. One pure spirit broods over all
her thoughts. Her existence seems divine in human. She lives
in an ideal world of ever changing beauty, and every word she utters
enriches the soul of the listener. But most I value her for is
the loveliness of her piety. There is a holy and perpetual Sabbath
at her heart which is the house of peace. You will say, my dear
mother, that such a person may be a shrine fit, perhaps, to receive
the votaries of worshippers of the ideal and the beautiful, but not
a suitable friend and companion for common life. But this peace
and heart-spirituality is consistent with the most useful activity.—
Here is the piety of character, not of habit. I love the seclusion
of her spirit—the gentle fancies of her inner life—the fresh upspringings
of her untaught thoughts which come from unfathomed
fountains in her soul.

I closely studied her character, for it was like an open book to
my intellectual survey; fresh and unfolding to the view like that
oriental flower which opens and expands under the steady gaze of
the eye. I was struck with the solitude of her young spirit, the
attitude of which was one of lowliest aspiration, yet, evermore aspiration.
I shall see her again in a few days, for I shall return
from Boston purposely, and to visit you. I wish to establish a
plainer confidence between her and myself—to read more clearly
the delightful pages of her freshly written heart. There is much
`mere fancy, shining of sunlight upon flowers, glancing of fireflies
through the night,' to use the language written upon another
and similar mind, in her character; but it is because the tenderness
of her feelings makes her love all images associated with
them. The delicacy and purity of her feelings often gives grace
to her expression: but as yet she has no grasp of thought. This
is her dark side, and why should it not be? Shapeless mists float
around all of us; shall we not search into them? The child or
maiden who loves the bright yellow buttercup so dearly, must
be very positive to the gloomy and darker aspects of nature. But
darkness cannot long lie around such a spirit. It is only there because
her own life does not mingle with her daily life; because no
one receives her thoughts, and they return to haunt her. If she
could love in peace and joy, the sunlight would soon melt away
the shadows. It shall be mine, dear mother, to draw her spirit
forth from the ideal to daily intercourse with the beautiful and the
good, and the true of the real, to teach her to love in peace and
joy; all that is fair and lovely in nature, and let the sunlight of
friendship and truth disperse the shadows from her young heart.

A fortnight elapsed after this letter was penned, during which
Gardner Sears was perseveringly engaged in endeavoring to ascertain
the facts connected with the arrival of her parents during
the season of the cholera. After three days search and inquiry, he
learned that a packet ship called the `Ashton,' had arrived at Boston,
from the Thames, on the day harmonizing with the barber's
account of that on which the hackney coach had stopped at the
barrier; for the barber had said that the black coachman, Pompey
Slack, had reported that he took them directly from the vessel
through the city without stopping. Having ascertained this fact,
his next step was to find the owners, for he could discover no list
of the passengers on the files he searched. One of them he found
was dead, and the other had removed his business to Philadelphia.
Without hesitation he started the same evening for that city, and
appeared in his counting room. On referring to his files the bill
of lading, with the names of the passengers was found. There
were more than twenty. He carefully read them over, but
could fix on none of them positively. There were among them
three married gentlemen with `lady and child.' These names he
copied upon his tablets, inquired where the captain of the Ashton
then was, and learned that he was on a farm in New York, near
Geneva. He left Philadelphia, and with the persevering temper
of his character, at once directed his course to Geneva, resolved to
avail himself of every avenue of information at his command.

The retired sailor was seated in his verandah, after dinner, in a
white roundabout, quietly enjoying his cigar, when Gardner Sears
made his appearance in the walk to the farm cottage, and was at
the piazza before the captain—who had been watching him as he
was coming up the lane, just as he would inspect a ship just hove
in sight—could make out his colors. Gardner introduced himself,
and was received with a hearty shake of the hand by the farmersailor,
who frankly offered him both a cigar and chair at the same
time.

`I have intruded upon you, Captain Wallis,' said Gardner, `to
make some inquiries about some persons who came passengers in
the Ashton, which I believe you once commanded out of Boston.'

`Yes, sir; and a fine ship she was too, answered the captain
with animation; `but,' he added sadly, `her bones now lie at the
bottom of the sea. But what passage do you allude to?'

`The one before her shipwreck.'

`That was in thirty-two—in the cholera season. I remember it
well. We arrived in port in the midst of it.'

`Do you recollect particularly any of your passengers?'

`It is a long tack, beating ten years up to windward, sir, but if
you can give me any clue to what you desire—'

`Here is a list of some of your passengers, which, after great
difficulty, I obtained from the owner of the Ashton, now in Philadelphia.
'

The captain took it from him and glanced over it, and instantly
his eye lighted up, and Gardner, catching the intelligent working
of his bronzed countenance, bent with eagerness forward.

`Mr. Sears, here is indeed a name I have never forgotten. It is
that of Mr. Henry Léon. I have many a time thought of them—
of his lovely and accomplished wife, and sweet little girl, and wondered
at their mysterious disappearance.'

`What occurred to them?' questioned Gardner eagerly, feeling
almost assured of having at last found what he had sought with so
much diligence.

`They were a noble pair,' said Captain Wallis, as if musing upon
the past, rather than heeding the question put to him. `He
was a chivalrous, high-souled fellow, that Henry Léon, and one of
the handsomest men I ever saw, before or since. His wife too;
she was unlike any woman I have met with. I never beheld a
more lovely, bewitching countenance, and to hear her talk was
like listening to music. They were formed for one another, if people
ever were, and were devoted to their beautiful intellectual
child. That child always came up to my ideas of an angel. I can
see her now, with her bright brown cluster of curls, leaning upon
my knee, for I was a great favorite of hers, and looking up into my
face, talk to me like some fairy thing, wildly and prettily about
flowers, and birds, and the far skies, and the solemn mysteries of
the deep sea. The child seemed to have a mind too vast for her
frame. I can recollect, as if it were yesterday, a pleasant story she
told me about the creation of flowers; she said that the great God
made the world large and round, with its ocean, its mountains and
deep rivers; but that he gave the making of the flowers and pearls
and diamonds, and beautiful sea-shells to the winged children of
the stars; and that was the cause of such a great and beautiful variety;
for each one formed, and shaped, and colored them as her
wayward fancy led. Her mother too, was full of such beautiful
poetry of the mind, and loved to teach her these things. But still
there was a cloud at her heart, and at his. I could never discover
what it was, though I would have given half my ship to know, for
I never had passengers I became so much interested in.'

`It must be that they are the ones I seek,' exclaimed Gardner
with a bounding heart, yet trembling lest he should be proved in
error. `Such is the child now!'

`What child? Is she alive? Do you know them, sir?' inquired
Captain Wallis with quick emotion. `I would give much to
know what became of them.'

`Will you be so kind as to tell me, before I explain, what you
mean by their mysterious fate. Your reply will settle the point I
aim at. God grant it be as I wish!'

`You see, they came on board after the ship had cleared, and
while I was anchored in the Thames twenty miles below London,
waiting for the ebb, having come down thus far with the last tide.
We lay directly abreast the Bishop's Palace, and as I was looking
at a herd of dear playng in the park, I saw a carriage driving along
the river road at great speed, stop suddenly, and a gentleman and
lady and a child get out of it, and hastening to the water side, hail

[figure description] Page 018.[end figure description]

a shore-boat and make for the ship, while the carriage drove back
the way it came. The gentleman, as the boat run under the quarter,
stood up and asked if the ship was the `Ashton,' and bound
to America, for we had the American ensign at the gaff. On receiving
my reply in the affirmative, he spoke a work to the two
Thames boatmen, when they pulled alongside, and the next moment
he was on the deck, and approached me. He addressed me
with great courtesy, and with that case of manner which always
indicates the true gentleman, yet with evident anxiety and agitation,
and asked me if I had accommodations for additional passengers.
I told him that I had one state-room, which had been engaged
under the name of Léon the day before I left London, and
that, as the person had not come in the ship, it was at his service.

`I am the person alluded to,' he instantly answered, `and rejoice
that I am not too late. I was delayed in reaching London till this
morning, when finding your ship had sailed, and being told that I
could probably overtake you before the next tide, I started in pursuit,
and congratulate myself in getting on board.'

`They came passengers with us, but, as I said, there was a cloud
upon them. They kept much to themselves, conversing little with
the other passengers, but with me were free and affable.'

`Do you know who engaged the passage in London?' asked
Gardner.

`No; the list was at the consignee's, and the state rooms were
taken there.'

`What was the firm?'

`Morton & Co.'

Gardner wrote the name of the firm down on his tablets, and
Captain Wallis continued:

`But the manner of their leaving the ship was as sudden and
mysterious as their coming on board. She had just hauled into
dock, notwithstanding the pilot had told us the cholera was in the
city, and I left for the Custom House. During my absence, I was
told on my return, Mr. Léon went ashore and soon returned with
a carriage, and getting into it with his lady and child, and one
trunk, drove rapidly off. I thought nothing of it for some days,
when the cholera subsiding, I thought I would call and see them,
supposing them to be at the Trement House, where he had told
me he should put up, as I had described the character of this hotel
to him. But he had not been there, nor, on inquiry, at any hotel
in the city. I could hear nothing from him, and finally concluded
that he had gone into the country without delaying in town. But
some weeks afterwards I was spoken to about some baggage, which
the custom house officer said belonged to some one of my passengers;
and on looking at it I saw it was Mr. Léon's. My interest
in him then revived, and I resolved to take steps to know what had
become of him. I put an advertisement in the paper, calling upon
the owner to remove his trunks, and describing them, one being
marked H. H., the other H. L.; for he came on board with three,
taking one with him, so the mate said. But all was unavailing,
and I sailed again without hearing from him, and from that day to
this I have known nothing about them.

`I can tell you,' answered Gardner, who had now no further doubt
as to the identity of these persons with the parents of Fanny.
He then briefly related what he had gathered respecting them, of
their arrival at the barrier, their death by the pestilence, and the
orphanage of the child. Captain Wallis listened with deep attention,
and jumping up from his chair when Gardner had ended, exclaimed
with an emphatic oath,

`It is the same. The child is my pretty Fanny.'

`That is the name! There can be no question of it,' said Gardner
firmly.

`Poor noble gentleman and sweet lady. Such then was your
sad fate—to find on this side the sea an untimely grave!' said the
Captain with emotion. `It is a great relief to me, at any rate, to
have this fog-bank cleared up. So they fell victims to the cholera
but twenty-four hours after landing from my ship. But there
was a cloud upon their hearts, as I told you, sir, and no doubt they
are in sunshine now aloft. But 'twas a pity!' and he dashed a
tear from his eyes, and hemmed very determinedly. `But the
pretty child! Have you seen her, sir?'

`It is on her account I came to see you.'

`Does she recollect me then? Did she send? you' asked the
Captain with a look of surprise and pleasure.

`No. I will explain to you. The child is now, or was ten days
since, in the Inn at Hillside, the generous landlord of which adopted
her; but his wife early took a dislike to the child, and made
her lot painful as possible, and after his death a year ago, she put
her to every menial office and treated her like a slave.'

`The internal hag!' exclaimed the Captain.

`I accidentally saw her, and struck with her grace and beauty,
which even her degrading condition had not impaired, I inquired
her history, and its recital at once enlisted every generous emotion
in my bosom.'

`There was some tenderer sentiments than generosity at the
bottom, if your heart was sounded with a deep sea-line,' said the
Captain with a finely playful smile. `But go on, Mr. Sears.'

`I fortunately succeeded in getting an interview with her, and
her conversation filled me with admiration for her intelligence,
purity and goodness of heart. A village school had done all it
could for a mind like hers, but nature, and thought, and the patient
schooling of the spirit under adversity had done more. I discovered,
in a word, that her mind was not less lovely than her person.'

`In a word, Mr. Sears, nay don't blush in anticipation, you fell
over head and ears in love with her. Well, I believe you to be a
young man worthy of her, if she were a queen's daughter. So
you at once started on this romantic expedition in search of information
touching her parents.'

`The favorable result, so far, divests it of all its romantic character,
' said Gardner. `I have been fully rewarded for what I
have done.'

`I am gratified that it has been in my power to serve your purpose.
It is a generous and noble one. But,' added Captain Wallis
gravely. `Suppose Fanny should prove to be a child of low
birth—or, pardon me sir, a child of shame. This is a queer world.'

`I cannot conceive it possible for either one or the other to be
true. Yet were it so—I should feel no less interested in her—nay,
her situation would take a deeper hold of my sympathies, and
more strongly enlist my regard.'

`You are a noble young man, and I honor you,' answered Captain
Wallis grasping his hand. `But you are not going to up anchor
and away without a shot in your locker. We must drink
Fanny's health, and you must dine with me.' Gardner yielded
to his cordial invitation, though impatient to be gone, for he had
been already ten days absent from Boston. At length he took
leave of Captain Wallis, who made him promise to write to him
whatever should transpire further in relation to Fanny's parentage,
which was still left in an impenetrable mystery. The subject ef
the trunks had been again alluded to while they were at dinner,
and the Captain wrote and delivered to him a note, directed to the
Head of the Custom House, briefly mentioning the facts of a passenger
having died of the cholera ten years before, leaving the
trunks there; and wishing him, if they were to be found, to deliver
them into the possession of the bearer of the letter. He also
recommended to Gardner, to ascertain what became of the trunks
they took away from the ship, adding, `It may afford a clue!
They were rich, it was very clear, and she had brilliant jewelry.
He had several hundred dollars in golden guineas and Bank of
England notes. I now recollect. Whatever become of them.
This landlord doubtless had good reason for taking the child in.'

Gardner thanked him for the suggestion, and taking a cordial
leave of him, they parted like old friends; so strong is the link of
a mutual interest in an absent friend to bund together two strangers.
Of how many persons, says an accurately observing writer,
do we only have notice of their existence, who yet certify us that
if we could see them nearly and daily and work with them, they
would be our dearest benefactors. And, so at least, are we apprized
of the richness and nobleness of the population of the
Universe, and may fairly infer the worth of those we have not
seen from the traits of those we have met.

Leaving Gardner Sears on his return to Bosten, we will now
go back nearly three chapters, and resume our narrative, with the
arrival of the two young men, the exquisite and the hunchback at
the `General Warren' Inn; which event took place just a fortnight
after Fanny's interview with Gardner Sears and his departure
in search of facts touching her parentage. At the commencement
of our digression we had said that Fanny's lot for a
week or two past, had been made heavier by a certain occurence,
an account of which we proceeded to detail to the reader, and
which we have just now terminated. The widow indeed had not
discovered her interview with Gardner, but she had discovered
the note in her chamber. To all her interrogations Fanny was silent,
and the widow overwhelmed her with invectives, and from
that day made her sleep at the foot of her own bed, on a straw
mattress; and not satisfied with abusing her, and tasking her by
day, she scolded her half the night. Poor Fanny! How often
did your thoughts go out after the young man, whose kind and
tender voice yet lingered in the echoes of her heart.

The two young travelers, it has been seen, were both deeply interested
in the story which the widow Power told them of the
beautiful bar-maid. They were, however, differently and oppositely
affected, even as their characters were opposite. They were
twin brothers, and sons of a wealthy merchant of Boston, and
were both graduates of Harvard College. They were about twenty-four
or five years of age, and had no profession; the one passing
his time in a round of fashionable dissipation, and living an
idle and luxurious life, though a young man of talent and of
mind; the other spending his days in reading, in acquiring new
languages as the keys to new and vaster sciences, drinking into
his soul, with a passionate thirst, the waters of the intellectual
fountains — that for ages have been gushing from the human
mind. The accidental circumstance of physical formation, may
have been the true cause of this diversity of habits and pursuits.
Hammond Bramhall, was an elegant and exceedingly handsome

[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]

young man, with a noble, symmetrical person, and a striking air
of fashion about him. Brentnall Bramhall, in his third year, had
met with an accident by which his spine was injured and he grew
up a hunchback. Even when a boy, his pale face had that look
of moral suffering that sensitiveness of glance and manner, peculiar
to the unfortunate cripple. Early, very early in years, he
seemed to show that he keenly felt his misfortune, but he spoke
not of it. He saw his brother admired at the home-gathering's of
the young of both sexes and himself neglected, and he knew
wherefore it was so. And so he learned to retire within himself—
to bury himself in the deep arm-chair in the library, and learn to
love books instead of his fellows—for they opened their store or
knowledge and entertainment to him as readily as to his brother.
And there, while the shouts of the merriment reached him from
the hall, he would for hours, till twilight dimned the page,
exist among the creations of genius! As he read of gallant
knights, and their deeds of prowess, he was no longer the pale
lame boy, but with lance in rest and backing a mailed charger he
leaped into the lists. But these dreams passed and sadness hung
upon his soul. Yet there was one who shunned him not! a fair,
blue-eyed, gentle girl of twelve, four years younger than himself.
She loved most all that seemed most to want to be loved. She
saw how the pale intellectual boy was neglected, and his brother
courted, and her heart opened, and her spirit yearned, to tell him
he was not despised. And so one day she followed him into the
library; softly, and unheared, she glided to the chair in which he
was seated. A book was open before him, but he was weeping,
and the tears pattered like rain upon the leaves. She gently took
his thin hand, and with the other put aside the soft brown curls
from his large classic forehead and full-veined temples, and softly
whispered his name.

From that moment there was established a sweet community of
sympathy and gratitude between them, and the spirit of the lame
boy grew from that day lighter; the darkness rolled from his soul,
and he became patient and enduring; for he felt that he was not
despised—that he was not an out cast of his kind, if one so pure
and gentle and lovely, loved to commune with him. Do the careless
and the unfeeling and the heedless know what they do, when
they lightly wound the feelings of the lame? Do they know what
deep sensibilities they wound, what hallowed retreats of the shrinking
spirit they intrude upon. If they could know how a look—
a word from the careless or the cruel, pierced like arrows of steel
through the spirit that the neglect of the cold world has broken and
bruised, they would pause ere they swept with rude fingers, that
harp of a thousand sensitive strings trembling in his bosom. Nay,
they would love to heal where they would have wounded; study
to make him forget the accidental condition of his destiny; and,
with the gentle touches of the master-hand of universal love
strike the echoing harp of his soul, till it speaks forth its true in
harmony and beauty; for when there is such delicacy of perception,
such finely strung chords of feelings, there will be found
notes of deepest passion and tones of majesty and power, like
echoes from that spiritual world, in which the lame, as well as the
blind, love most to dwell.

It was, the accidental circumstance to which we have alluded,
that decided the habits of mind of Brentnal. He found himself
neglected by the world around him, and he sought companionship
with the generations past, who wounded him not with their prejudices
and neglect. So he loved books, and Hammond being
flattered by the world, loved the world. Their minds originally
were equally good; perhaps Brentnal had the most mind, Hammond
the most talent. The one was haughty by indulgence and
admiration; the other retiring from innate sensitiveness and his
habits of seclusion. Hammond had lost much of the purity of
his character by his mode of life, and in reference to woman was
almost destitute of principle. Brentnal was proud and honorable,
and possessed much dignity of character. Within a year a change
had come over his spirits, and it was darkening again. The little
maiden of twelve had grown to a beautiful woman of twenty two,
and still remained his friend; but to his surprise and mortification
she suddenly married, and he was alone. He did not love her—
he was happy in her presence, and she had become very dear to
him. But this event proved, as he imagined, in his sensative spirit,
that he had never been regarded by her as she would have regard any
other young man, and gloomy feelings possessed his soul. In the
depths of his being he vowed never again to seek the companionship
of women. But there came a few weeks before we met
him, a cousin an orphan with her widowed mother, on a visit to his
father's roof from Carolina; and she had not been many days
domesticated in the household, before her beauty and wit, the fascinations
of her mind and the gracess of her heart, made a deep
impression upon him. And as well, we may add, upon the handsome
roue his brother. At the time of their alighting at the Inn
they were on their way to join a trouting party at a lake a few
miles west from Hillside, from which village they intended to start
in a hired wagon early in the morning, and by a cross road proceed
to their destination. Trouting was the only recreation Brent
nal ever engaged in, and for this sport he was ever willing to
leave his books. Supper was now announced by the smiling
widow, and the brothers followed her into a neat dining room
where the cloth was laid. Hammond glanced round for Fanny,
and not seeing her looked out of humor. But the next moment
she entered becomingly dressed, and waited on the table, while the
widow took a chair at the backside of the room. In vain Hammond
tried to draw the maiden into conversation, or to get her to
raise her eyes to his handsome, assuming face. Her replies were
quiet and just what they should be to a word, and the widow approved.
Brentnal, admired the graceful girl not less than his
brother, but his observation was unobtrusive, and yet he watched
every movement of her face, every motion of her buoyant form as
she moved about the table. There was a manitest difference between
the manner of replying to him, and that towards his brother.
When he spoke she always lifted her eyes evenly to his and
betrayed no embarrassment; but it was the reverse with Hammond.

`Yes,' said Brentnal to himself with slight bitterness, `the
hunchback is nothing in her eyes. It will never be my happiness
to create that blushing timid emotion I behold and admire when
Hammond speaks to her, in any woman. My deformity were endurable
were man alone to be around me; but now that each day
shows me how necessary woman's admiration and regard is to
man's happiness, I begin to feel that I am accursed.'

The widow tried artfully to draw from the young men their
names and personal history, but neither felt in any mood to indulge
her curiosity, and they soon afterwards retired from the table
and were shown to seperate rooms for the night.

Brentnal remained up in his chamber, seated, brooding painfully
over his destiny as a hunchback surrounded with forms of the
beautiful, who sought affinity only with their kind. None had
smiled on him ever, but all had coldly and with a stare of surprise
and, he believed, contempt, passed him by to lean blandishingly
upon his brother's arm. There were his thoughts. The sight
of Fanny, so spiritually beautiful, and her seeming disregard of
his presence, and so full of maiden consciousness at his brother's,
had re-awakened these unpleasant emotions. His mind then reverted
to his fair peerless cousin, Gabriette, and in the bitterness
of his despair he cast himself in tears upon the outside of his bed.

Hammond in the meanwhile having closed his door, began to
deliberated upon some plan to get the beautiful orphan from beneath
the roof of the widow and into his own possession. He
waited until he thought his brother slept, and then opening his
door he stole silently down stairs into the bar-room, where a light
yet burned, for it was but a little after nine o'clock. The hostess
was not there, contrary to his expectations, and he looked around
for her. He discovered her through the half-open door seated
alone in her `Sanctus.'