“Look you, Miss Weems, you have insulted me with your proud ways time and time again, and I have borne it tamely, because I loved you, and because I’ve sworn that I shall have you.  It’s that puppy, Harold Hare, that has stepped in between you and me.  Now mark you,” and he raised his finger threateningly, “I won’t be so meek with him as I’ve been with you.”

The girl shuddered slightly, but recovering, walked forward with a step so stately and commanding, that Rawbon, bold and angry as he was, involuntarily made way for her, and she sprang up the steps of the veranda and passed into the hall.  He stood gazing after her for a moment, nervously switching the rosebush at his side with his heavy horsewhip; then, with a muttered curse, he strode hastily away, and leaping upon his horse, galloped furiously down the road.

Seth Rawbon was a native of Massachusetts, but for some ten years previously to the date at which our tale commences, he had been mostly a resident of Richmond, where his acuteness and active business habits had enabled him to accumulate an independent fortune.  His wealth and vigorous progressive spirit had given him a certain degree of influence among the middle classes of the community, but his uncouth manner, and a suspicion that he was not altogether free from the degradation of slave-dealing, had, to his great mortification and in spite of his persistent efforts, excluded him from social intercourse with the aristocracy of the Old Dominion.  He was not a man, however, to give way to obstacles, and with characteristic vanity and self-reliance, he had, shortly after her return from school, greatly astonished the proud Oriana with a bold declaration of love and an offer of his hand and fortune.  Not intimidated by a sharp and decidedly ungracious refusal, he had at every opportunity advocated his hopeless suit, and with so much persistence and effrontery, that the object of his unwelcome passion had been goaded from indifference to repugnance and absolute loathing.  Harold Hare, whose name he had mentioned with so much bitterness in the course of the interview we have represented, was a young Rhode Islander, who had, upon her brother’s invitation, sojourned a few weeks at the mansion some six months previously, while on his way to engage in a surveying expedition in Western Virginia.  He had promised to return in good time, to join Beverly and his guest, Arthur Wayne, at the close of their academic labors.

A few moments after Rawbon’s angry departure, the family carriage drove rapidly up to the hall door, and the next instant Beverly was in his sister’s arms, and had been affectionately welcomed by his old-fashioned, kindly looking aunt.  As he turned to introduce his friend, Arthur, the latter was gazing with an air of absent admiration upon the kindled features of Oriana.  The two young men were of the same age, apparently about one-and-twenty; but in character and appearance they were widely different.