object had half-unconsciously crossed her vision. Then for a single and a
fearful instant she paused, like one who debated on the course she ought
to follow. Maternal love prevailed, and the deer of her own woods scarcely
bounds with greater agility, than the mother of the sleeping and
defenceless family now fled towards the dwellings. Panting and breathless
she gained the postern, which was closed, with hands that performed their
office more by instinct than in obedience to thought, and doubly and
trebly barred.

For the, first time in some minutes, Ruth now breathed distinctly and
without pain. She strove to rally her thoughts, in order to deliberate on
the course that prudence and her duty to Content, who was still exposed to
the danger she had herself escaped, prescribed. Her first impulse was to
give the established signal that was to recall the laborers from the
field, or to awake the sleepers, in the event of an alarm; but better
reflection told her that such a step might prove fatal to him who balanced
in her affections against the rest of the world The struggle in her mind
only ended, as she clearly and unequivocally caught a view of her husband,
issuing from the forest, at the very point where he had entered. The
return path unfortunately led directly past the spot where such sudden
terror had seized her mind. She would have given worlds to have known how
to apprize him of a danger with which her own imagination was full,
without communicating the warning to other and terrible ears. The night
was still, and though the distance was considerable, it was not so great
as to render the chances of success desperate. Scarcely knowing what she
did, and yet preserving, by a sort of instinctive prudence, the caution
which constant exposure weaves into all our habits, the trembling woman
made the effort.

"Husband! husband!" she cried, commencing plaintively, but her voice