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An hour later the master dismissed the slave, and sat down beside the

table to finish the wine and co to the great house, to be sent hoe

from the owner thereof that to-ro

woone; the noises fro ceased, and the house was very still In his rich,

figured Indian nightgown and his silken nightcap, Haward sat and drank his

wine, sloith long pauses between the elass A as open, and the wind blowing in

made the candles to flicker With the wind came a murmur of leaves and the

wash of the river,--stealthy and hted rooleeful lady and child above the e, and a week in that Virginia which, settled one hundred

and twenty years before, was yet largely forest and streaht, froht he ain When an owl hooted in the

walnut-tree outside his , and in the distance, as far away as the

creek quarter, a dog howled, and the silence closed in again, he rose, and

began to walk to and fro, slowly, thinking of the past and the future The

past had its ghosts,--not ht raise only

itself could tell So far as mortal vision went, it was a rose-colored

future; but on such a night of silence that was not silence, of