Is it not so ?" Alice would not deceive him, and she answered, frankly: "It is," while Irving replied: "I approve your choice, although it makes me very wretched.

You will be happy with him.

Heaven bless you both." He dared not trust himself to say another word, but hurrying from her presence, sought the shelter of the woods, where alone he could school himself to bear this terrible disappointment.
Hugh did not return until evening, and the first object he saw distinctly as he galloped to the house, was Alice, sitting near to Irving upon the pleasant piazza, just as it was natural that she should sit.

He did not observe that his mother was there with them; he did not think of anything as he rode past them with nod and smile, save that life henceforth was but a dreary, hopeless blank to him.
Leaving Rocket in Claib's care, he sauntered to the back piazza, where Sam was sitting, and taking a seat beside him startled him by saying that he should start on the morrow in quest of his missing sister.
"Yes, massah," was Sam's quiet reply, for he understood the reason of this sudden journey.
Old Sam pitied Hugh, and after a moment's silence his pity expressed itself in words.

Laying his dark hand on Hugh's bowed head, he said: "Poor Massah Hugh.