The cold sweat stood on Maria’s fair forehead--and this dream, so fraught with terror, (and, as time proved, with reality,) lived in her heart. On awakening at the moment, though in a fright, she believed it to be a visitation of nightmare, and soon slept more quietly.
On the evening of the next day, the company reached Brunswick. Maria arrived at the apartments previously allotted to her, in cheerful spirits, and full of glowing hope. She did not know the feeling of homesickness. Her whole mind was wrapped up in the anticipation of great intellectual advancement. It was Saturday night. Every thing was new and interesting which greeted her eyes. Some of the students, to render her new abode more pleasing at the beginning, serenaded her with very sweet music, beneath her window, at midnight. When the music ceased, she noticed in it a resemblance to that which she had heard in her singular dream at the hotel in the Lucky Basin. As she heard the footsteps of the departing serenaders, she fell into a profound reverie, which was succeeded by a deep, dreamless sleep.
_Sleigh Rides--An Ardent Son of the South--The Author in the Pulpit--The Flash of First Love, and Love at First Sight--First Love Letters--Note of a Seedy Genius--Virtue with a Slaveholder--Evidence of Maria’s Seduction--Her Affecting Appeal to the Seducer--His Indifference and Inhumanity--The Evils of Imprudence stare Maria in the Face--The Spot upon the Soul--Her Promise Violated--The Words from the Crow Quill--She faints away._
Six months after the time which brought our last chapter to a close, Maria attended the church of which I was pastor, in Brunswick. It was on a Sabbath morning in midwinter. The snow lay deep on the ground, and the merry bells and the happy faces of that morning of gay sunlight and sparkling frost bespoke the pleasures to be anticipated from many a sleigh-ride. On this occasion Maria was accompanied by a young man who had arrived in the village the week previous, and entered the medical college as a student. He was from Georgia, and his manly bearing, brunette face, jet-black eyes, and curling ringlets, indicated his temperament to be as ardent as a Southern sun could make it. His name was Theodore Maxwell. His father trafficked in human flesh, and bartered virtue for a price; and the loose improvidence of the son told plainly of there being great wealth in the family. His demeanor indicated that he was on the best terms with himself, and, moreover, that he had a taste for licentious gratifications. He was rich, (no matter by what means,) and that was quite sufficient to place him in full favor with the women, and render him “a good fellow” with the men. Theodore and Maria entered the church, and seated themselves in a pew on the broad aisle.