The eye of the youth danced with a playful light, as if a new thought,
and not a disagreeable one, had suddenly broken in upon his brain; but
the expression lasted but for an instant He overruled all the hopes and
wishes of the sturdy black, who, at length, with a manner the most
desponding, proceeded to the performance of the required duty. A few
moments sufficed, and with a single look to the window of his mistress,
which spoke unseen volumes of love, leaving an explanatory letter for
the perusal of father and daughter, though addressed only to the
latter--he gave the rough hand of his sable friend a cordial pressure,
and was soon hidden from sight by the thickly-spreading foliage of the
long avenue. The reader has been already apprized that the youth, whose
escape in a preceding chapter we have already narrated, and Ralph
Colleton, are one and the same person.

He had set forth, as we have seen, under the excitation of feelings
strictly natural; but which, subtracting from the strong common sense
belonging to his character, had led him prematurely into an adventure,
having no distinct purposes, and promising largely of difficulty. What
were his thoughts of the future, what his designs, we are not prepared
to say. His character was of a firm and independent kind; and the
probability is, that, looking to the profession of the law, in the study
of which noble science his mind had been for some time occupied, he had
contemplated its future practice in those portions of Tennessee in which
his father had been known, and where he himself had passed some very
pleasant years of his own life. With economy, a moderate talent, and
habits of industry, he was well aware that, in those regions, the means
of life are with little difficulty attainable by those who are worthy
and will adventure. Let us now return to the wayfarer, whom we have left
in that wildest region of the then little-settled state of