630 THE LIVING AND THE DEAD. 



his usual plea for avoiding parties of pleasure. The same excuse, 

 however, did not prevent him from attending to a subsequent pressing 

 request on the part of Colonel Ashe, the afternoon previous to the 

 entertainment, that he would immediately visit his youngest child, 

 who had been suddenly taken ill. 



On Clinton's arrival, he was received, in the absence of the Colonel, 

 who had ridden out with his overseer, by an old grey-headed negro, 

 who immediately conducted him to the door of the nursery, into 

 which he was ushered by a mulatto matron, who, with a young negro 

 wench, immediately retired. 



The sun had recently set, and the glow of the evening was just 

 sufficiently excluded from the chamber by the muslin curtains as to 

 shed a soft and mellowed light around. Mrs. Ashe was leaning over 

 the bed, watching the countenance of the little sufferer; but, on 

 hearing the Doctor announced, turned round, and advanced towards 

 him, with her hand extended, to welcome him, for the first time, in 

 her own person, to her husband's mansion. The moment Clinton 

 caught a glimpse of her features, and heard her voice, he started 

 back in consternation, and wildly exclaiming, te God of heaven ! 

 Caroline ! and alive !" staggered a few paces, and would have fallen 

 to the ground but for the intervention of a couch, upon which he 

 sank, with his hands convulsively pressed over his eyes and brow. 



Mrs. Ashe was petrified for, although her name was indeed 

 Caroline, she had no recollection of ever having seen Mr. Clinton 

 before in her life. The allusion to her being alive, too, was likewise 

 remarkable ; as, when about fifteen, in one of her botanical rides, 

 she had been separated from her groom, and, missing her way, was 

 lost in the woods for nearly two days, when she was discovered by 

 her father and his friends. But how this could have so intensely 

 interested a perfect stranger, as she felt Mr. Clinton to be, as to 

 betray him, and at this period, into so strong an expression of feel- 

 ing, was to her an impenetrable mystery. These reflections passed 

 through her mind like lightning, and were as quickly succeeded by 

 vague feelings that her own destiny, if it had not hitherto been, was 

 about to be, somehow mingled with that of the unhappy and interest- 

 ing stranger, whose first introduction to her was attended with cir- 

 cumstances so singular and mysterious. For the first time, too, since 

 her marriage, she felt not only the propriety, but the absolute neces- 

 sity, of concealment from her husband, the propriety, from a sense 

 of delicacy towards the unhappy gentleman who had thus been, to 

 her, unaccountably led, by her own appearance, into a betrayal of 

 feelings that she understood had been studiously concealed by him 

 from all around him, and which she felt, under the circumstances, 

 ought to be held sacred by her, the necessity, from a fearful pre- 

 sentiment that the common-place feelings, and rude and irascible 

 temper of the Colonel, would torture the occurrence into a criminal 

 understanding, either past or present, and thereby place both Mr. 

 Clinton and herself in a position of great delicacy, if not danger. 

 Fortunately, for this purpose, her own old nurse, and that of the 

 child, had immediately retired on the entrance of Clinton, and she 

 had been the sole witness to his exclamation and his agony. These 



