"'Of course you don't know exactly what,' I interrupted. 'Come now, be a sensible little woman. You surely don't believe in presentiments. It is the heat; this sticky, Southern heat! I feel a little queer myself.'
"But nothing I could say quite banished the singular fancy which had taken possession of my young wife. Womenkind cling tenaciously to absurd ideas, especially when they are of the worrying kind; and Elizabeth looked so troubled and sad that I soon caught the feeling and became melancholy too.
"It was long past noon and intensely sultry, and we were sitting on the porch where occasionally the faintest shadow of a breeze made life more endurable. Our horses, maddened by the flies and heat, chafed and stamped restlessly out at the gate. Elizabeth tried to amuse herself with a huge album of daguerreotypes which occupied the place of honor in the cabin parlor, and I smoked and lounged about, wondering what had become of Ailsee.
"'Well,' said I at last, 'we can not wait here forever. If I am not greatly mistaken there will be a storm before night, and we had better get out of this at once. We can come down here some other day and renew our acquaintance with the mysterious child of the forest.' So back through the marsh we splashed our way, and arrived at Raven Hill barely in time to escape the storm, which broke with fury just as Uncle Ashby came around for our mud-bespattered steeds.
"Elizabeth went upstairs to change her dress and rest before dinner, and I settled down in the library with the Country Gentleman. There was a knock at the door, and Uncle Ashby came in.
"'Marse Livingstone,' he asked huskily, 'whar has you been wif de horses?'
"I told him; and during the brief account of our adventures his face grew ashen and his eyes seemed about to start out of his head. When I was through he tottered over to the window, muttering, 'Gawd help us! Gawd help us!'
"'What's the matter, Uncle Ashby?' I asked curiously. 'What on earth are you so excited about?'
"'Boss,' said he entreatingly, 'doan' make me tell you—you'll be sorry ef you do. 'Deed, Marster, I really mus' go now, sah; dey's waitin' fer me at de stables. And youse been down dar an' seen it! Oh, Lordy, Lordy!'
"'Come back here,' said I, my curiosity getting the better of me. 'Don't be a fool, old man; brace up. What's the trouble? You are not afraid to speak out, eh?'