and the lank Tim was ordered to drive faster, or the excited woman,
perched on one of her traveling-trunks, would be obliged to foot it! A
few vigorous strokes of the whip set the sorrel horse into a canter,
and as the night was dark, and the road wound round among the trees,
it is not at all surprising that Madam Conway, with her eye still on
the beacon light, found herself seated rather unceremoniously in the
midst of a brush heap, her goods and chattels rolling promiscuously
around her, while lying across a log, her right hand clutching at the
bird-cage, and her left grasping the shaggy hide of Lottie, who yelled
most furiously, was Anna Jeffrey, half blinded with mud, and bitterly
denouncing American drivers and Yankee roads! To gather themselves
together was not an easy matter, but the ten pieces were at last all
told, and then, holding up her skirts, bedraggled with dew, Madam
Conway resumed her seat in the wagon, which was this time driven in
safety to her door. Giving orders for her numerous boxes to be safely
bestowed, she hastened forward and soon stood upon the threshold.

"Great Heaven!" she exclaimed, starting backward so suddenly that she
trod upon the foot of Lottie, who again sent forth an outcry, which
Anna Jeffrey managed to choke down. "Is this bedlam, or what?" And
stepping out upon the piazza, she looked to see if the blundering
driver had made a mistake. But no; it was the same old gray stone
house she had left some months before; and again pressing boldly
forward, she took the lamp from the sideboard and commenced to
reconnoiter. "My mother's wedding dress, as I live! and her scarlet
broadcloth, too!" she cried, holding to view the garments which
Henry Warner had thrown upon the arm of the long settee. A turban or
cushion, which she recognized as belonging to her grandmother, next
caught her view, together with the smallclothes of her sire.