The influence of the night and the hushed landscape stole over him; his thoughts took a gentler turn; in that dim, mysterious horizon line before him, his future seemed to be dreamily peopled with airy, graceful shapes that more or less took the likeness of Susy.

She was bright, coquettish, romantic, as he had last seen her; she was older, graver, and thoughtfully welcome of him; or she was cold, distant, and severely forgetful of the past.

How would her adopted father and mother receive him?
Would they ever look upon him in the light of a suitor to the young girl?
He had no fear of Peyton,--he understood his own sex, and, young as he was, knew already how to make himself respected; but how could he overcome that instinctive aversion which Mrs.Peyton had so often made him feel he had provoked?
Yet in this dreamy hush of earth and sky, what was not possible?
His boyish heart beat high with daring visions.
He saw Mrs.Peyton in the porch, welcoming him with that maternal smile which his childish longing had so often craved to share with Susy.
Peyton would be there, too,--Peyton, who had once pushed back his torn straw hat to look approvingly in his boyish eyes; and Peyton, perhaps, might be proud of him.
Suddenly he started.

A voice in his very ear! "Bah! A yoke of vulgar cattle grazing on lands that were thine by right and law.

Neither more nor less than that.