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About the middle of autumn one can find few climates more agreeable than that of the middle counties of Georgia and Alabama. During the day the air is warm and pleasant ; a soft, purplish haze hangs over the landscape; and the evenings are superb. Italy cannot boast of more gorgeous sunsets than those of the Georgian middle counties. The twilight is long, and blends slowly with the moonlight, which silvers the sandy soil and sets out the dark pines in bold relief. Fear the swamps which border upon some creek, there is a peculiar and indescribable charm in these moonlight evenings. The senses steeped in the perfume of roses, mingled with the rarer odor of magnolias ; while from the dark woods which skirt the silvered cotton-fields come the songs of the mocking-bird, as sweet and varied as those of the European nightingale. But here as elsewhere nature has various moods, 6 THE ILLEGAL MAHBIAGE. each producing its peculiar effect upon the mind of man—each having a marked influence upon even the beasts of the field. Sometimes the sun goes down a blood-red disk behind a vail of purplish-blue haze, in which, an hour later, hangs the somber new moon, slowly dipping its crescent down toward the pines. The air is heavy and still, thousands of frogs make the evening melodious with their pipings, while the song of the mocking-bird is exchanged for the plaintive notes of the whip-poor-will. This state of the atmosphere is particularly ob- served along the Echaconnee—a stream bordered with dank, heavy swamps, home of the alligator and deadly moccasin—which runs through, and forms a part of the dividing line between the counties of Bibb, Crawford, and Houston. At such times a presentiment of trouble, or a nameless feeling of coming ill, seems to pervade the atmosphere, having a wonderfully depressing effect upon the mind. On a night like this, some few years ago, Mr. William Stannard—a man of flve-and-thirty, and a large planter in the county of Houston—sat on the •veranda of his house, slowly puffing his Havana in the shadow of a largo magnolia. Very quiet he sat, moving only now and then when he indolently took the cigar from his mouth and blew out a long cloud of smoke. It was a calm and graceful picture which was there presented. Perhaps Mr. Stannard—or Colonel Stannard as he should be called—was not one who would be generally termed “a very handsome man,” yet there was something about him which never failed to attract a second glance. THE ILLEGAL MARRIAGE. 7 Tall and slight as he at first appeared, the idea of latent strength was suggested and as one looked ; more closely at his compact frame his shoulders seemed to grow in breadth, while a muscular power, concealed beneath the lazy grace of his manner, became apparent. The very idea of placidity seemed to lurk in his deep-blue, almost hazel eyes; and a dark-brown mustache and imperial covered all the defects of outline that there might have been about the lower part of his face. His well-shaped hand, small enough and white enough for a lady, was a strong point of beauty ; but it was muscular as well, and had held the sword with which he fought his way to a colonelcy and honor. As he sat thus, under his own vine and fig-tree, his fine appearance, his simple yet costly dress, and his placid manner, indicated a man of travel and culture as well as a wealthy planter ; and he looked like one well satisfied with himself and with the world. But though seemingly content on this particular evening he had to confess that his mind was ill at ease, and in vain he tried to assign some good reason for his unusual depression. A mist was gathering over the valley, and as his eyes turned toward the belt of woods which desig- nated the line of the Echaconnee, he saw the half obscured new moon slowly drooping down behind the pines. The stars were hidden, and as the feeble light of the moon grew dim the shadows deepened, and the fire on his cigar threw fitful circles of light around his chair. Presently even his cigar was forgotten, and the hand which held it fell lightly upon his knee, while 8 THE ILLEGAL MARRIAGE. his eyes looked vacantly out upon the indistinct garden. Fancy had carried away his soul. A vis- ion had come to him—a vision of the sweet girl he loved, whose lovely dark eyes seemed to be looking at him then, and whose fair face, surrounded by a halo of light, was perfectly visible to him. Cecilia Morgan ! Beautiful Cecy Morgan ! Why had she come to haunt him now, when nearly over- powered in his struggle to forget her? Had he not given her up to another? Had he not long known that his was a hopeless love? Had he not fought hard to crush the affection for her that he must not express? Of the love that nearly conquered him he was now thinking, and she was ever there to make his struggle all the harder. It was useless; he loved her still—loved her truly and fondly, but he could never call her—wife.