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As Winnie passed the door of Miss Mary Lester's room to reach her own,
she observed it standing wide open, and wondered to behold it thus, as
Miss Mary was accustomed to bar and bolt it close, for fear of thieves
and housebreakers. But, fatigued and sleepy, she passed on, and soon
forgot her surprise after gaining the privacy of her own apartment.
Early in the morning she was roused from slumber by a furious knocking
on her door. She sprang up and demanded, "Who is there?"

"Me, Miss Winnie, only me--Aunt Eunice; and do you know what is become
o' Missus Mary?" exclaimed an excited voice without; "her door is wide
open this morning, and nobody slept in her bed last night."

Winnie was by this time fairly roused, and, opening her door, the poor
servant-girl flounced into the room, the very picture of terror and
affright.

"Has your master risen, and does he know of his sister's absence?"
inquired Winnie.

"No, nobody is up but me, and Missus Mary always tells me to come right
to her room first thing with a pitcher o' cool water; so I went this
mornin', you see, and behold missus' door wide open and no missus thar!
O, Miss Winnie, I 'spect satin has sperritted off soul and body, 'deed I
does."

"O, no, Aunt Eunice, I think not!" said Winnie smiling; "but you had
better go to your master and inform him what has occurred."

"'Deed I will, Miss," said the black woman, disappearing.

Winnie proceeded to dress, in a strange perplexity of fear and
astonishment, while Aunt Eunice thumped long and loud on her master's
door.

"Who's there?" at last exclaimed a voice within.

"Me, Aunt Eunice," said the woman frantically, "O, massa, massa, missus
gone, and who's to pour the coffee for breakfast?"

"What are you raving about?" said the master, opening his door; "why are
you disturbing me at this early hour?"

"Missus gone; sperritted off soul and body, I 'spect."

"What are you talking about?" demanded Lester, not in the least
comprehending her words.

"O, just come up to her room and see for yourself."

"Why, what's to be seen there?" he asked.

"Nothin' at all, I tells ye. Missus clean gone. Her door wide open, and
she never slept in her bed last night, massa," said the woman, gasping
for breath, as she ceased speaking.

The unusual sounds aroused Wayland, who slept near, and flinging open
his door he demanded what was the matter.

"O, Master Morris!" said aunt Eunice, turning her discourse upon him,
"missus gone--clean gone."

"Come on, Morris," said Lester. "Eunice says her mistress is spirited
away. Let's dive into the mystery and see what we can bring to light."

Wayland followed Lester up the hall stairs, wondering what this strange
disturbance might import. They traversed the passage to Miss Mary's
apartment, when, sure enough, as Eunice had affirmed, they found the
door wide open, and, to appearance, no person had occupied the room the
previous night. Lester's quick eye instantly marked, what the servant in
her fright had failed to notice, the absence of two large trunks that
used to stand beside the bed, and the _presence_ of a small folded
billet on the dressing-table. He advanced with a hasty step, broke the
seal, and read.

"Ha, ha!" laughed he, as he run over the contents. "Eunice, go below and
light the fires."

The woman hastened away.

"Romance at thirty-seven! elopement extraordinary, Wayland!" he
continued. "Miss Mary Lester has become in due form Mrs. Col. Edmunds,
and 'fled,' as she expresses it--(now where was the use in _flying_, for
who would have objected to the marriage? But then 'twas romantic, of
course)--to the wilds of Texas; there to enjoy the sweets of domestic
felicity with her adored husband; to which fair land she hopes I'll some
day come to visit her, when I have regained possession of my senses, and
learnt the difference 'twixt canary-birds and wild-cats."

Wayland listened with amazement depicted on his features.

"Strange; all wonder, isn't it, Morris?" pursued Lester. "Let's go below
and discuss the matter."

The gentlemen descended to the parlor, where Aunt Eunice soon presented
herself, and, with rueful countenance, said:

"Please, massa, who is to pour the coffee this morning? Missus gone, you
know."

"Well, Eunice, suppose you run up stairs, and ask Miss Winnie if she
will not condescend to perform that office this morning, as we find
ourselves so suddenly bereft of a housekeeper?" said Lester, in a
mock-serious tone.

Winnie of course assented, and passed into the breakfast-room, where she
found her brother and Lester already seated at the table.

"Good-morning, Miss Morris," said the latter. "A romance, such as we
read of in old knights' tales, was enacted in our house last night, in
consequence of which a forlorn bachelor has to ask of you the favor to
preside at his desolate board this morning."

"I shall be pleased to serve you," returned Winnie, assuming the head of
the table, and so prettily did she perform the duties of her new office,
that Lester forgot his muffins and sandwiches, in admiration of his
newly-installed housekeeper _pro tem_.

Miss Mary's elopement was a three days' wonder, and then the affair was
as if it had never been; save that the servants could not sufficiently
admire Miss Winnie, or sufficiently rejoice over Miss Mary's departure.
"O," said Aunt Eunice, "don't I wish massa would marry you, Miss Winnie,
and then the house would be like heaven--'deed it would!"

CHAPTER XIII.

"We've many things to say within the bounds
Of this good chapter, which is 'mong the last;
So be of better cheer; for we are well
Nigh done."

We will just step over to Texas this morning, dear reader, for well we
know the mocking-birds are singing sweetly, and the wild geese rise from
the placid bayous, and flap their broad, white wings over the bright
green prairies, on their inland flight, and the gentle breezes stir the
dark, luxuriant foliage of the wide, primeval forests, while all the air
is redolent with the odors of the ocean of flowers that cover the whole
sunny land with bloom and beauty.

It is something more than a year since we parted with Esq. Camford in
his new emigrant home, and now we have another party of friends arriving
in our young "Italy of America," even the romantic Miss Mary Lester, and
her John Falstaff husband; and Fred. Milder, too, has had time to wear
off the edge of his love disappointment on the ridgy hog-wallows of this
fair south-western land. For we don't believe there's another so
effectual antidote in the world for a fit of the blues or love dumps, as
a long day's ride in a Texan stage-coach, with three pair of wild
mustangs for horses, over these same hog-wallows; to say nothing of the
way they despatch jaundice, dyspepsia, and all the host of bilious
diseases. But don't you quite understand what hog-wallows are, reader?
Well, Heaven help you then, when you go out south or west, and pitch
into them for the first time! Invoke your patron saint to keep your soul
and body together, and prevent your limbs from flying off at tangents.

We will tell you how we once heard a Kentuckian (and God bless the
Kentucky boys in general, for they are a whole-souled race!) account for
these anomalous things. We were pitching through a group of them, some
dozen of us in a miserable wagon, when one "new comer" asked his
neighbor, "What is the cause of these confounded _humps_ in the roads?"

"They are hog-wallows," responded the one interrogated, in a pompous
tone, as if proud to display his superior knowledge of the land into
which both the speakers had but recently made their advent.

"Hog-wallows!" exclaimed the man, more in doubt than ever by his
newly-acquired knowledge, "what makes so many of them then?"

"Why, you see when the great rains come on," commenced the "wise 'un,"
"the country gets all afloat, and when it begins to dry off a little,
the wild hogs come by thousands, and roll and flop about in the mud, and
that makes all these pitch-holes, which they call hog-wallows."

"Why don't they kill the hogs and eat 'em, and not have 'em rooting up
the roads in this awful way?" asked greeny number one.

"Lord! they do kill and kill, I'm told," said greeny number two; "but
Texas is such an almighty rich country that all sorts o' critters and
things grow up spontaneously everywheres."

"Creation! but why don't they build fences alongside their roads then!"

"O, they never make fences in Texas; first you'd know a hurricane would
come tearing along, and land them all in the Gulf of Mexico, quicker
than you could say 'Old Kentuck.'"

"Stars and gaiters! what a dreadful dangerous country is this we have
got into!" said number two, with a frightened aspect, as they dropped
the subject and relapsed into silence, while it was evident, from their
anxious visages, that their minds were harassed and disturbed, by
visions of hog-wallows, hurricanes and spontaneous animals.

We have heard other and more philosophical hypotheses as to the origin
of these uneven roads. Some suppose the country was once an inland sea,
and these ridges were occasioned by the continuous action of the waves;
others suppose the intense heat of the sun on the soft, clayey soil,
caused it to crack and spread asunder, leaving the surface broken and
ridgy. This latter is the more generally received opinion, we believe.

Here's half a chapter on hog-wallows, the unpoetical things! but as
utilitarians maintain nothing is made but what subserves some purpose,
we premise these humpy roads were made for the benefit of gouty men,
dyspeptic women, and love-sick lads and lasses. Thus disposed of, "we
resume the thread of our narrative," as novel-writers say. Our pen waxes
wild and intractable, whenever we get safely over the stormy gulf, and
stand on the shores of bonny, bright Texas; for we feel at home there,
hog-wallows, musquitoes, Camanches and all. Let none dare gainsay Texas
in our ears, for it is the banner state of all the immaculate
thirty-one. Come on, reader, now we have had our say, straight up to the
thriving plantation of Esq. Camford, and behold the wonders this
wonderful land can produce upon the characters of nervous,
delicately-constituted ladies. That buxom, blooming-matron in the loose
gingham wrapper, and muslin morning-cap, who stands on the gallery of
that new and tastefully-built cottage, all overshaded by the boughs of
the majestic pecan trees, giving off orders to a brace of shiny-eyed
mulatto wenches, who listen with reverential awe and attention, is none
other than the hysterical, shaky-nerved Mrs. Camford, whom we beheld
some two years ago bewailing the fate which had brought her to this
awful place, to be poisoned by snakes, mangled by bears, and murdered by
Indians. Listen to her words:

"Thisbe, take the lunch I have placed in the market-basket down to the
cotton-field boys, and ask your master to come to the house soon as
convenient; some people from the States are come to visit us:--and you,
Hagar, go to the garden and gather a quantity of vegetables for dinner.
I will be in the kitchen to assist in their preparation."

The women bowed, and hastened away on their separate errands. Mrs.
Camford now turned to enter the house, when Josephine, her cheeks
blooming with health and happiness, came bounding to her mother's side.
"O, mamma, the young gentleman, Mr. Milder, knows all about cousin
Alice! he has come right from the place in which she resides. He says
she sent a great deal of love to us all, and desired me to write to her.
Perhaps, now we know she remembers us so kindly, you will let me go
north some time, and pay my long-promised visit. Susette and her husband
talk of travelling next season, you know."

All this was uttered in the most lively and animated tone conceivable,
and Mrs. Camford smiled, and answered cheerfully, as mother and daughter
reentered the neat, airy parlor, where our heroine of romance, Miss Mary
Lester, was sitting beside her portly, red-visaged husband, Col.
Edmunds, who had, in early life, been a Texan ranger, and acquired so
keen a relish for the wild, exciting scenes of a new country, that he
would not give his hand (his heart we suppose he could not control) to
the fair Mary, unless she would consent to forego the luxuries of
fashionable life, and follow his fortunes through the perils and
vicissitudes of an Indian frontier. She stood out to the last, hoping
the stalwart colonel would yield to her eloquent pleadings, and consent
to make his abode in New Orleans; for she conceived that brother
Augustus, having arrived at the sober age of thirty, would never marry,
and it would be the finest idea in the world for him to relinquish the
splendid estate he had acquired by his own untiring exertions, to the
hands of Col. Edmunds, while she, as the worthy colonel's most estimable
consort, would condescend to assume the direction of the servants and
household affairs, and Augustus could thus live wholly at his ease,
without a worldly care to distract his breast. What an affectionate,
self-sacrificing sister would she be, thus kindly to relieve her brother
at her own expense! But, just as this plan began to ripen for execution,
she was counter-plotted, or fancied herself to be, which led to the same
denouement. Winnie Morris came to pass a vacation with her brother,
Wayland, and the fore-doomed bachelor, Augustus Lester, most audaciously
dared to fall in love with the cackling girl. So Miss Mary declared; and
to remain in her brother's mansion, where she had hitherto exercised
unlimited sway, under such a little minx of a mistress, was too much for
human nature to endure; so, all on a sudden, she yielded in full to the
majestic colonel's wishes, and "cut sticks" for Texas, flying, as many
of us often do, from an imaginary evil, and leaving behind poor little
Winnie, innocent and unsuspecting as a lamb, with the great coffee-urn
in her trembling hand. How long the fair girl remained thus innocent and
unsuspecting, we are yet to know.

"So you are from New Orleans, Col. Edmunds," remarked Mrs. Camford. "I
do not recollect of ever having met you there; but to see any person
from our former home, though personally strangers, affords us pleasure
and gratification."

"I have only resided in New Orleans about six months, madam," returned
Col. Edmunds; "the most of my life has been spent in camp and field."

"My husband is a soldier," said Mrs. Edmunds, "and we are now on our way
to the Indian frontier."

"Indeed! and how do you think you will relish frontier life?" asked Mrs.
Camford.

"O, I shall be contented anywhere with my husband!"

"Just married, madam, and desperately in love yet," said the colonel.
"Always lived in the city, and thought it the greatest piece of audacity
in the world when I informed her I was going to stop at the residence of
a private gentleman with whom I was not in the least acquainted, to bait
my mules and get dinner. Not a bit acquainted with the Texan elephant,
you see, madam."

"Heaven save me, Samuel! do people in this country associate with
elephants?" exclaimed the bride, with the prettiest display of horrified
surprise.

"To be sure; I had one for a bed-fellow six or eight months when I first
came out here," returned the husband, with perfect serenity.

"O, my soul, I hope I shall never see one!" said the young wife,
nestling closer to her husband's side.

The colonel laughed heartily, and all joined in his merriment.

"You should not alarm new-comers by such bug-bear tales," remarked Mrs.
Camford, at length. "This young gentleman, Mr. Milder, is just from the
north."

"Indeed! well, he looks as if he might soon learn how to grapple with
elephants and tigers both," said the colonel, glancing on the young
man's countenance.

"Tigers!" exclaimed Mrs. Edmunds, taking fresh alarm; "do those
ferocious creatures grow here too?"

"Yes, everything grows here, Mary, about five times as large as anywhere
else," answered the bluff colonel. "But what say, young man, to going up
on the frontier with me, and seeing a bit of soldier life? You'd get to
see the whole elephant there, teeth, trunk and all."

"Why will you keep talking about that dreadful monster?" said the young
wife, who had brought a few nerves along with her. "You'll terrify me to
death, Samuel."

"You must get used to the critters, Mary, and the quicker the better, is
all I have to say," returned the husband, patting her cheek.

Esquire Camford now entered, dinner was served, and the conversation
took a higher tone. Esquire C. spoke of the country, its fertility,
rapid improvement, and exhaustless resources. Fred. Milder began to feel
an interest in a land with prospects so brilliant, and accepted with
pleasure Col. Edmunds' invitation to travel on westward in company with
him. The travellers were persuaded to pass the night; and during the
visit Mrs. Camford came to know that Mrs. Edmunds was a sister of the
Mr. Lester who had purchased her former sumptuous residence from the
hands of the creditors, at the time of their failure in New Orleans.
Still the knowledge did not waken regretful feelings, or excite a pang
of envy in her breast; for she had learned to regard a cottage with
content as better than wealth and pomp with pride and misery to distract
the spirit.

The morrow dawned beautifully. Round and red the sun arose beyond the
far, green prairie, when the mules and carriages were brought to the
door, and the little party of travellers recommenced their journey.
Fred. Milder cast a lingering glance after the pretty Josephine, as she
wished him a delightful tour up the country, and bade him not forget to
call and give her an account of all his adventures on his return. He
promised faithfully not to forget, and, with kind adieus, the party
moved on their way.

Josephine sat down after her usual morning tasks were completed, and
indited a long epistle to her cousin Alice; giving a general description
of her Texan home; not failing to mention her mother's happy recovery
from nerves, and Susette's marriage with a promising young planter; also
the pleasant visit they had enjoyed from Mr. Milder; and ended by saying
she hoped another season, when papa was a little richer, to make her
long-contemplated visit to the north.

CHAPTER XIV.

"Youth, love and beauty, all were hers,
Why should she not be happy?"

Where would you like to go now, reader? We are desirous to take you by
the path that will lead through this story by the shortest cut, and, as
we dare not doubt but that will be the course of all others most
grateful to your tastes and feelings, we'll clear Texas at a bound, for
there'll blow a whistling "Norther" there soon, we apprehend, and that
would tangle our hair worse than it is tangled now, and we have not had
time to comb it since this story commenced. So, imagine "Effie," dear
reader, with her brown locks wisped up in the most unbecoming manner
possible, a calico morning-gown wrapped loosely about her, and not over
clean, her fingers grimmed with pencil-dust, and her nose too,
perhaps--for she has a fashion of rubbing that useful organ, for ideas,
or something else, we know not what.

Just imagine this, reader, and if you don't throw down the story in
actual disgust, you'll be more anxious to get through it than we are
even.

Now away with episode, and here are we in the fair "Crescent City"
again, at the palace-like residence of Augustus Lester, Esq. The lord of
the mansion is at home, reclining on a silken sofa, which is drawn
before one of the deep, bloom-shaded windows of the elegant
drawing-room. He is in genial, after-dinner mood, and that fairy-looking
being, sitting by his side on a low ottoman, is our former friend,
Winnie Morris. But she bears another name now, for she has been three
months a wife--Augustus Lester's girl-bride!

Were that affectionate sister's misgivings of her bachelor brother's
intentions toward that wild-cat girl altogether chimerical, then?
Present appearances would indicate them not to have been altogether
groundless; but really, when the fair Mary fled so precipitately, the
idea of making Winnie Morris his bride had never entered her brother's
cranium. He had regarded her as a pretty child, and delighted in her
sunshiny, buoyant spirit, and felt he would like to keep her near to
cheer and enliven his mansion; but from the moment he saw her presiding
with so much quiet dignity and grace at his table, on that eventful
morning, he resolved to win her heart if possible. The task was by no
means difficult, for an object to which we look up with gratitude and
reverence, 'tis next to impossible not to love. She forgot, in her
devotion to the lofty, high-souled man, her childish fancy for the
frivolous-minded boy, and when Wayland, on her bridal morning, asked
mischievously, "Where was Jack Camford vanished?" she replied, "In a
gold mine beyond the seas, I suppose, brother; but why mention his name
to make discord on this happy hour?"

"It is strange Wayland does not return," remarked Augustus, at length,
rousing from a light doze, and drawing his young wife close to his side.

"I thought you were fast asleep, Auguste," said she; "and here I have
been fanning you so attentively, to keep the mosquitoes away. Well, it
is time for Wayland to come, isn't it? He has been absent more than two
months. You know how he chided me for breaking the promise I made to be
mistress of that pretty cottage he proposed to build up in Tennessee.
Perhaps he is erecting it, and intends to dwell there in proud,
regretful solitude."

"Or, perhaps he is in search of some fair lady to be its mistress, who
may prove less recreant to her promise," suggested Lester.

"May be so," returned Winnie, laughing.

"I look for a letter from him every day," remarked the husband; "there
was a mail-boat in when I came up to dinner. I'll call at the
post-office this evening; very possibly one has arrived."

"I hope so," answered Winnie.

The bell now rang, and company was announced. Leaving the young couple
to entertain their guests, we have stolen away in search of the absent
Wayland, and bring him once more on the tapis, to give some account of
his protracted wanderings, and learn what are his hopes and prospects
for the future. By what devious track we shall be pleased to pursue the
rover, our next chapter will reveal.

CHAPTER XV.

"O, Charity, what art thou? Mystic thing!"

Being rather benevolently inclined ourselves, we feel a desire to look
in once more upon the "Ladies Literary Benevolent Combination for
Foreign Aid," which is to-day congregated at the residence of Mrs.
Rachel Stebbins, president of this humane and Christian body. She is
sitting in majestic presence on her throne of office, with her
gold-bowed spectacles astride her stately nose, and her devoted subjects
clustering around her, their tongues and fingers nimble as ever in the
good cause of universal philanthropy. Prominent in the ranks is Mrs.
Sykes, while ever following her, like a shadow, is her bosom friend,
Miss Jerusha Sharpwell. Mrs. Fleetfoot also appears in the rear; a sort
of shadow of a shade, or refrain to the song. Little Miss Gaddie
composes and sings alone now; her sister, Miss Pamela, having
accompanied her missionary husband to the shores of benighted Bengal, to
aid in his labors for the conversion of the heathen world.

"Well," said Miss Jerusha, as she sank down in a soft-cushioned chair
beside Mrs. Sykes, with a pair of checked muslin night-caps in her hand;
"what's the good word with you, sister, these suffocating days?"

"La! nothing, sister Jerusha, as I know of. My girl, Hannah, has gone
off and left me, so I have to keep close at home and slave myself with
hard work all the time, and have no opportunity to learn what's going on
about town," answered Mrs. Sykes, in a doleful voice.

"Why, where has your girl, Hannah, gone?" asked Miss Jerusha,
sympathetically; "I never heard a word about her leaving your service."

"She didn't leave me of her own free will;--catch Hannah to go away from
this roof, unless she was bejuggled by other folks. But she'll repent
her rashness when 'tis too late, I'm afeard," said Mrs. Sykes.

"Why, didn't you know Hannah Smith had gone to work for the widow
Orville?" inquired Mrs. Fleetfoot, looking up from the blue yarn sock
she was knitting, which was destined, no doubt, to convert some
half-naked Burman boy from the errors of paganism. "La, I heard of it a
fortnight ago!"

"You did,--did you, Mrs. Fleetfoot?" exclaimed Mrs. Sykes, in rather a
hasty tone; for a mild-hearted Christian; "well, she hasn't been gone
from me a week yet."

"Do tell! Well, I heard she thought of going, then, or something like
it, I can't exactly remember what," drawled Mrs. Feetfoot, not a whit
disconcerted by the contradiction her words had received.

"So Mrs. Orville coaxed Hannah away from you?" said Miss Jerusha.

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