"Where does her aunt live?" asked the girl.
"I do not know," returned Mrs. Stanhope, "but I think at a considerable distance from this place."
The girl retired, and Mrs. Stanhope reëntered the breakfast room.
"Who was in the porch?" inquired Miss Pinkerton, as her sister assumed her place by the coffee urn.
"Mrs. Edson's servant," returned she, arranging the cups with an absent air.
"What did she want?" asked Miss Martha, opening her muffin and dropping a piece of golden butter on its smoking surface.
"She brought me a note from her mistress," said Mrs. Stanhope, "who has departed suddenly on a visit to her aunt, and wishes me to superintend the care of her mansion for a time."
"I guess she is coming out of her dumps," said Martha. "I always said there was no danger of her dying of grief for the loss of a husband. She'll come home one of these days a gay widow, and set her cap for Col. Malcome. I always thought she had a liking for him."
Mrs. Stanhope made no reply to this unfeeling speech. After breakfast the colonel chanced in to take the long-forgotten package away, when he learned of Louise's sudden departure, and went home in a state of increased anguish and despair.
"To the old forest home I hie me again; But I bring not the gladness My spirit knew when I roamed in my childhood Its wide-spreading bounds; For sorrows have pierced me, My soul wears the wounds."
The Hermit of the Cedars sat in his antique room alone, by a peat-wood fire. He appeared wrapt in moody thought and contemplation, though ever and anon, as the wintry blast gave a wilder sweep over the swaying roof above him, he turned and glanced uneasily toward the door, as though he wished and waited the appearance of some form over its threshold. But the hours passed on, and no one came to cheer his loneliness. So, heaping the ashes over the glowing embers, he betook himself to his lowly couch, but his head had hardly touched the pillow when a quick step crackling along the icy path struck his ear. Ere he could reach the door it was pushed open, and a voice called out hastily, "Uncle Ralph!"
"Edgar, my boy!" exclaimed the hermit, groping in the darkness to clasp him in his arms. "Are you returned at last?"
"Yes, dear uncle," answered the young man; "I reached the village by the evening stage, and hurried with all speed to my old forest home."