never hesitated to obey his faithful wife withdrew within the shelter of
the wooden defences. More in compliance with a precaution that was become
habitual, than from any present causes of suspicion, she drew a single
bolt and remained at the postern, anxiously awaiting the result of a
movement that was as unaccountable as it was extraordinary.




Chapter IV.



"I' the name of something holy, sir, why stand you
In this strange stare?"

Tempest.


As a girl, Ruth Harding had been one of the mildest and gentlest of the
human race. Though new impulses had been given to her naturally kind
affections by the attachments of a wife and mother, her disposition
suffered no change by marriage. Obedient, disinterested, and devoted to
those she loved, as her parents had known her, so, by the experience of
many years, had she proved to Content. In the midst of the utmost
equanimity of temper and of deportment, her watchful solicitude in behalf
of the few who formed the limited circle of her existence, never
slumbered. It dwelt unpretendingly but active in her gentle bosom, like a
great and moving principle of life. Though circumstances had placed her
on a remote and exposed frontier, where time had not been given for the