"No, I have only looked: I know Aunt Patty's petting ways when she means to ruin, and watch her black flashes of cunning between: she is no cousin of Levin; he is Joe's gentle prisoner; his very name she made him hide when she saw you coming this morning."

"Creo que si: Hulda, let me kiss you!"

"Yes, if you dare."

She gave him that pure, soul-driven, child's strong look again, exerting all the influence she had ever felt she exercised over him.

Nevertheless he kissed her for the first time:

"To-day, bonito, I dare to kiss thee. Believe me, my kiss is a tender one."

"Yes, sir. There is something like a father in it. Oh, my father, art thou in heaven?"

"If there be such a place, wild-flower, I think he is."

"Oh, thank you, Captain Van Dorn. There may you also be and find the faith I feel in my one day's love on earth. I pray for you every day."

"Ayme, poor weakling! Pray now for thyself: if thou canst save thyself sinless a brief day or two, it may be well for thee and Levin. Thy grandmother is dreadful in her joys this night."

"I can die," said Hulda, "if Levin be saved."

He kissed her again, and something wet dropped down his blushes.

"Eternal love!" he sighed; "I've lost it."

CHAPTER XXX.

AFRICA.

The Captain took his place at the reins, his picturesque velvet jacket, wide hat, bright hair, and gay shirt, thighings, belt, and boots, deserving all Patty Cannon's encomiums as he made a polite adieu and threw his whip like a thunderbolt, and a cheer rose from the discarded volunteers loitering about the tavern as he drove Joe Johnson and Levin away.

The road was nearly dead level for five miles, but, being the old travelled road from Laurel and the south to Easton, and pointing towards Baltimore, numerous farms and clearings were seen, and tobacco-fields alternated with the dry corn and new-ploughed wheat patches. Here and there, like a measure of gold poured upon the ground, the yellow ears lay in the gaunt corn-rows, to become the ground meal of the slave and the cattle's winter substance. Joe Johnson's popularity was everywhere apparent, and many a shout was given of, "Good luck to ye, Joe!" "Tote us a nigger back from Delaway, Joe!" "Don't be too hard on them ar black Blue Hen's chickens, Joe!"

Van Dorn was too far above the comprehension of his neighbors, or, indeed, of anybody, to be familiarly addressed, but "Patty Cannon's man" was the term of injured inferiority towards him after he had passed.

At Federalsburg they crossed the branch of the Nanticoke piercing to the centre of Delaware state, and saw one large brick house of colonial appearance dominating the little wooden hamlet, and here, as generally within the Maryland line, hunting negroes was the "lark" or the serious occupation of many an idle or enterprising fellow, who trained his negro scouts like a setter, or more often like a spaniel, and crossed the line on appointed nights as ardently and warily as the white trader in Africa takes to the trails of the interior for human prey.