“Come, Margaret, come, my child, it is time to go home,” said Mrs.
Houston, gently trying to raise the orphan from her kneeling posture by
the grave--“come, dear Margaret.”
“Oh, I cannot! Oh, I cannot! Not yet! Not so soon!”
“My love, the boat is waiting and the rest of our friends are gone.”
“Oh, I cannot go so soon! I cannot hurry away and leave her here alone.”
“But, Margaret, it is late, and we have far to go.”
“Go then, dear Mrs. Houston, and leave me here with her. I cannot
forsake her so soon. Dr. Hartley will let me stay at his house a few
days to be near her, I know.”
“As long as you like, my dearest child! as if it were your own
house--as it is--and as if you were my own child,” said the
kind-hearted physician, laying his hand as in benediction upon the
bowed head of the kneeling girl.
“But, my child, think of Ralph! You have not spoken of him since--since
your hands were united. Consider now a little the feeling of Ralph, who
loves you so entirely,” whispered Mrs. Houston, stooping and caressing
her, and thinking that all good purposes must be served in drawing the
orphan girl from the last sleeping place of her mother.
“Oh, I cannot! I cannot! I cannot think of any living! I can think only
of her! of her! my mother! Oh, my mother!”
“What! not think of Ralph, who loves you so devotedly?”
“Not now! Oh, I cannot now! I should be most unworthy of any love if
I could turn from her grave, so soon, to meet it! Mr. Houston knows
that,” she passionately cried.
“I do, my Margaret! I feel and understand it all. I would not seek to
draw you from this place; but I would remain and mourn with you,” said
Ralph Houston, in a low and reverential tone, but not so low that the
good doctor did not overhear it, for he hastened to urge:
“Remain with her, then, Mr. Houston! there is no reason why you should
not, and every reason why you should.”
And so said Mrs. Houston, and so said all friends.
“But what says my Margaret?” inquired Ralph Houston, stooping and
speaking gently.
“No, Mr. Houston, do not stay, please; leave me here alone with
her--let her have me all to herself, for a little while,” whispered
Margaret. And Ralph arose up, thanked Dr. Hartley, and declined his
hospitality.
“Good-by, then, dear Margaret! I shall come to you in a day or two.”
“Good-by, Mrs. Houston.”
“But you must not call me Mrs. Houston now, my child. You must call me
mother. I have no other daughter, and you have no other mother now.
Besides, you are my daughter-in-law, you know. So you must call me
mother. Say--will you not?”
“Oh, I cannot! I cannot, Mrs. Houston! You are my mother’s friend, and
I love you very dearly; but I cannot give you her dear title. I had
but one mother in this world--in all eternity we can have but one; to
call another person so, however near and dear, would be vain and false;
excuse me, Mrs. Houston,” said the girl, gravely.
“As you please then, dear. You will get over these morbid feelings.
Good-night, God bless you,” said Mrs. Houston, stooping and pressing a
kiss upon the brow of her adopted daughter.
When every one else was gone, the old doctor lingered near Margaret.
“Will you come now, my child?” he asked, gently.
“Presently, dear doctor. Please go and leave me here a little while
alone with her.”
“If I do, will you come in before the dew begins to fall?”
“Yes, indeed I will.”
The doctor walked away through the woods in the direction of the house.
Let us also leave the orphan to her sacred grief, nor inquire whether
she spent the next hour in weeping or in prayer. The doctor kept on to
the house and told his daughter Clare to prepare the best bedchamber
for the accommodation of her friend Margaret.
And before the dew fell, true to her promise, Margaret came in.
Clare took charge of her. If ever there existed a perfectly sound mind
in a perfectly sound body, that body and mind was Clare Hartley’s.
She was “a queen of noble nature’s crowning.” She was a fine, tall,
well-developed girl, with a fresh and ruddy complexion, hair as black
as the black eagle’s crest, and eyes as bright and strong as his glance
when sailing toward the sun; with a cheerful smile, and a pleasant,
elastic voice. She took charge of Margaret, and in her wise, strong,
loving way, ministered to all her needs--knowing when to speak to her,
and better still, when to be silent--when to wait upon her, and best of
all, when to leave her alone. And Margaret was by her own desire very
much left alone.
Every morning she stole from the house, and went down through the woods
to sit beside her mother’s grave. For the first few days, the hours
passed there were spent in inconsolable grief. Then after a week she
would sit there quietly, tearlessly, in pensive thought.
In the second week of her stay, Mrs. Houston came and brought her
clothing from the island, and with it a large packet of linen cut out
and partly sewed. This was a set of shirts that Margaret and her mother
had been making up for her father the very day that Mrs. Helmstedt had
been struck with her death sickness.
“I thought that if she could be interested in any of her former
occupations, her spirits might sooner rally,” said Mrs. Houston to
Clare. And afterward, in delivering the parcel to Margaret, she said:
“You know, your father will be home soon, my dear, and will want these
to take back to camp with him. Will you not try to finish them all in
time?”
“Oh, yes! give them to me! how could I forget them. She was so anxious
they should be done,” said Margaret, with an eagerness strangely at
variance with her earnest, mournful countenance.
In unrolling the packet, she came upon the shirt-ruffles that she knew
her mother had been hemming. There were the very last stitches she had
set. There was the delicate needle just where she had stuck it when she
left her sewing to go out into the garden that fatal morning. Margaret
burst into tears and wept as if her heart would break, until she became
exhausted. Then she reverently rolled up that relic, saying:
“I cannot finish this ruffle. I would not draw out the needle her
fingers put there, for the world. I will keep this unchanged in
remembrance of her.”
“And when will you be willing to come home?” said Mrs. Houston.
“After my father comes and goes. I would rather stay here near her to
meet him.”
“And, when he goes, will you come?”
“Yes.”
After dinner Mrs. Houston left Plover’s Point.
Margaret remained, and, each morning after breakfast, took her little
workbasket and walked through the woods down beside the grave, and sat
sewing there all day.
One day while she sat thus a gentle footstep approached, a soft hand
was laid upon her shoulder and a loving voice murmured her name.
Margaret looked up to see the mild old minister, Mr. Wellworth,
standing near her.
“My child,” he said, “why do you sit here day after day to give way to
grief?”
“Oh, Mr. Wellworth, I do not sit here to give way to grief. I only sit
here to be near her,” pleaded Margaret.
“But, my child, do you know that you grieve as one without hope and
without God in the world?”
Margaret did not answer; she had never in her life received any
religious instruction, and scarcely understood the bearing of the
minister’s words.
“Shall I tell you, Margaret, of Him who came down from heaven to light
up the darkness of the grave?”
Margaret raised her eyes in a mute, appealing glance to his face.
“Shall I speak of Him, Margaret? Of Him, of whom, when his friends had
seen him dead and buried out of their sight, the angel of the sepulchre
said, ‘He is not here, but risen?’”
Still that uplifted, appealing gaze.
“Of Him, Margaret, who said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life?’”
“Oh, yes! yes! tell me of Him! tell me something to relieve this
dreadful sense of loss and death that is pressing all the life out of
my heart,” said Margaret, earnestly.
The old man took the seat beside her, held her hand in his own, and for
the first time opened to her vision the spiritual views of life, death
and immortality--of man, Christ and God.
Sorrow softens and never sears the heart of childhood and youth. Sorrow
had made very tender and impressible the heart of the orphan; its soil
was in a good state for the reception of the good seed.
To hear of God the Father, of Christ the Saviour, of the Holy Ghost the
Comforter--was to her thirsting and fainting spirit the very water of
life.
She followed where her pastor led--she sought the Saviour and found
Him not far off. Here Margaret received her first deep religious
impressions--impressions that not all the stormy waves that dashed
over her after-life were able to efface. In religion she found her
greatest, her sweetest, her only all-sufficient comfort. So it was in
following the strong attractions of her spirit that Margaret gradually
advanced until she became a fervent Christian.
It was on Monday of the third week of Margaret’s visit that, just at
sunset, Mr. Helmstedt arrived at Plover’s Point. And, reader, if you
had been, however justly, angry with Philip Helmstedt, you must still
have forgiven him that day, before the woe that was stamped upon his
brow.
His innocent daughter’s tempestuous sobs and tears had been healthful
and refreshing compared to the silent, dry, acrid, burning and
consuming grief that preyed upon the heart and conscience of this
stricken and remorseful man. Scarcely waiting to return the greeting
of the doctor and his family, Mr. Helmstedt, in a deep, husky voice,
whispered to his daughter:
“Come, Margaret, show me where they have laid her.”
She arose and went before, he following, through the deep woods, down
beside the grassy grave.
“Here is her resting place, my father.”
“Go and leave me here, my girl.”
“But, my father----”
“Obey me, Margaret.”
She reluctantly withdrew, and left the proud mourner, who could
not brook that even his child should look upon his bitter, sombre,
remorseful grief.
“I have killed her, I have killed her!” he groaned in the spirit. “I
have killed her as surely as if my dirk’s point had reached her breast!
I crushed that strong, high heart under the iron heel of my pride! I
have killed her! I have killed her! I have killed her in her glorious
prime, ere yet one silver thread had mingled with her ebon locks! And
I! What am I now? Ah, pride! Ah, devil pride! do you laugh now to see
to what you have driven me? Do you laugh to see that I have done to
death the noblest creature that ever stepped upon this earth? Yes,
laugh, pride! laugh Satan! for that is your other name.”
Oh! terrible is grief when it is mixed with remorse, and more terrible
are both when without hope--without God! They become despair--they may
become--madness!
It was late that evening when Mr. Helmstedt rejoined the family in
the drawing-room of Plover’s Point. And his sombre, reserved manner
repelled those kind friends who would otherwise have sought means to
console him.
The next day Mrs. Houston came to make another effort to recover her
adopted daughter.
Mr. Helmstedt met the bosom friend of his late wife with deep yet
well-controlled emotion.
He begged for a private interview, and, in the conversation that
ensued, apologized for the necessity, and questioned her closely as to
the details of his wife’s last illness.
Mrs. Houston told him that Marguerite’s health had steadily declined,
and that the proximate cause of her death was a trifle--the intrusion
of a fugitive British soldier whom she had relieved and dismissed; but
whose strange or rude behavior was supposed to have alarmed her and
accelerated and aggravated an attack of the heart to which she had of
late grown subject, and which, in this instance, proved fatal.
“An attack of the heart--yes, yes--that which is the most strained
the soonest breaks,” said Philip Helmstedt to himself, with a pang of
remorse.
Again and again begging pardon for his persistence, he inquired
concerning the last scenes of her life, hoping to hear some last charge
or message from her to himself. There was none, or, at least, none
trusted to Mrs. Houston’s delivery. Ah! Philip Helmstedt, could you
imagine that the last words of your dying wife to her absent husband
could be confided to any messenger less sacred than her child and
yours, when she was at hand to take charge of it?
The same morning, when Mr. Helmstedt walked through the woods down to
the grave, he found his daughter Margaret sitting sewing by the grassy
mound. She arose as her father approached, and stood waiting to retire
at his bidding.
“No, no, my child! you need not go now. Sit down here by me.” And
Philip Helmstedt took his seat and motioned Margaret to place herself
by his side.
“Now tell me about your mother, Margaret,” he said.
The poor girl controlled her feelings and obeyed--related how,
for months past, her mother’s life had steadily waned, how at
shorter and still shorter intervals those dreadful heart spasms had
occurred--how--though the narrator did not then know why--she had put
her house in order--how anxiously, feverishly she had looked and longed
for his return, until that fatal day when a sudden attack of the heart
had terminated her existence.
“But her last hours! her last hours, Margaret?”
“They were tranquil, my father. I spent the last night alone with
her--she talked to me of you. She bade me give you these farewell
kisses from her. She bade me tell you that her last love and thoughts
were all yours--and to beg you, with my arms around your neck and my
head on your bosom, to comfort yourself by loving her little, bereaved
daughter,” said the child, scarcely able to refrain from sobbing.
“And I will, my Margaret! I will be faithful to the charge,” replied
the proud man, more nearly humbled than he had ever before been in his
life.
“I passed the last two hours of her life alone with her. She died with
her head on my bosom, her hand over my shoulder. Her last sigh--I seem
to feel it now--was breathed on my forehead and through my hair.”
“Oh, Heaven! But yourself, my Margaret. What were her directions in
regard to your future?”
“She had received your letter, dear father, intrusting her with the
sole disposal of your daughter’s hand. And being so near dissolution,
she sent for Mr. Houston and joined our hands in betrothal at her
deathbed. Then she wished that after she had departed her orphan girl
should go home with Mr. Houston to wait your will and disposition, my
father.”
Mr. Helmstedt turned and looked upon his youthful daughter. He had
scarcely looked at her since his return. Although he had met her with
affection and kissed her with tenderness, so absorbed had he been in
his bitter, remorseful grief, that he scarcely fixed his eyes upon her,
or noticed that in his two years’ absence she had grown from childhood
into womanhood. But now, when without hesitating bashfulness, when with
serious self-possession, she spoke of her betrothal, he turned and
gazed upon her.
She was looking so grave and womanly in her deep mourning robe, her
plainly banded hair and her thoughtful, earnest, fervent countenance,
whence youthful lightness seemed banished forever. There was a
profounder depth of thought and feeling under that young face than her
great sorrow alone could have produced--as though strange suffering
and severe reflection, searching trial, and terrible struggle, and the
knowledge, experience and wisdom that they bring, had prematurely come
upon that young soul.
Her father contemplated her countenance with an increasing wonder and
interest. His voice, in addressing her, unconsciously assumed a tone of
respect; and when in rising to leave the spot he offered her his arm,
the deferential courtesy of the gentleman blended in his manner with
the tender affection of the father. And afterward, in the presence of
others, he always called her, or spoke of her, as Miss Helmstedt, an
example which all others were, of course, expected to follow.
The next day Mr. Helmstedt departed for the island. Margaret was
anxious to accompany her father thither, but he declined her offer,
expressing his desire and necessity to be alone. He went to the
island, to the scene of his high-spirited, broken-hearted wife’s long,
half-voluntary, half-enforced confinement; he went to indulge in
solitude his bitter, remorseful grief.
He remained there a fortnight, inhabiting the vacant rooms, wandering
about amid the deserted scenes, once so full, so insinct, so alive with
Marguerite De Lancie’s bright, animating and inspiring presence--now
only haunted by her memory. He seemed to derive a strange, morose
satisfaction in thus torturing his own conscience-stricken soul.
Once, from Marguerite’s favorite parlor, were heard the sounds of
deep, convulsive weeping and sobbing; and old Hapzibah, who was the
listener upon this occasion, fearing discovery, hurried away in no
less astonishment than consternation. And this was the only instance
in the whole course of his existence upon which Mr. Helmstedt was ever
suspected of such unbending.
At the end of a fortnight, having appointed an overseer to take charge
of the island plantation, Mr. Helmstedt returned to Plover’s Point.
This was on a Saturday.
The next day, Sunday, his young daughter Margaret formally united with
the Protestant Episcopal Church, over which Mr. Wellworth had charge,
and received her first communion from his venerable hands.
And on Monday morning Mr. Helmstedt conveyed his daughter to Buzzard’s
Bluff, where he placed her in charge of her prospective mother-in-law.
The same day, calling Margaret into an unoccupied parlor, he said to
her:
“My dear, since you are to remain here under the guardianship of your
future relatives, and as you are, though so youthful, a girl of unusual
discretion, and an affianced bride, I wish to place your maintenance
here upon the most liberal and independent footing. I have set apart
the rents of Plover’s Point, which is, indeed, your own property, to
your support. The rents of the house, farm and fisheries amount, in
all, to twelve hundred dollars a year. Enough for your incidental
expenses, Margaret?”
“Oh, amply, amply, my dear father.”
“I have requested Dr. Hartley to pay this over to you quarterly. In
addition to this, you will certainly need a maid of your own, my dear;
and it will also be more convenient for you to have a messenger of your
own, for there will be times when you may wish to send a letter to the
post office, or a note to some of your young friends, or even an errand
to the village shops, when you may not like to call upon the servants
of the family. I have, therefore, consulted Mrs. Houston, and with her
concurrence have directed Hildreth and Forrest to come over and remain
here in your service.”
“Are they willing to come, dear father?”
“What has that to do with it, my dear? But since you ask, I will inform
you they are very anxious to be near you.”
“I thank you earnestly, my dear father.”
“Forrest will bring over your riding horse and your own little
sailboat.”
“I thank you, sir.”
“And here, Margaret, it will be two months before the first quarter’s
rent is due on Plover’s Point, and you may need funds. Take this, my
dear.” And he placed in her hand a pocketbook containing a check for
five hundred dollars, and also several bank notes of smaller value.
Margaret, who did not as yet know what the book contained, received it
in the same meek, thankful spirit.
“And now let us rejoin Mrs. Houston and Ralph, who thinks it unkind
that I should thus, on the last day of our stay, keep his promised
bride away from him.”
The next morning Mr. Helmstedt and Ralph Houston took leave of their
friends and departed together for the Northern seat of war.
Margaret bore her trials with a fortitude and resignation wonderful
when found in one so young. The recent and sudden decease of her
idolized mother, the departure of her father and her lover to meet the
toils, privations, and dangers of a desperate war, and above all, the
undivided responsibility of a dread secret--a fatal secret, weighing
upon her bosom--were enough, combined, to crush the spirit of any human
being less firm, patient, and courageous than this young creature; and
even such as she was, the burden oppressed, overshadowed, and subdued
her soul to a seriousness almost falling to gloom.
Mrs. Houston, to do that superficial little lady justice, applied
herself with more earnestness than any one would have given her credit
for possessing, to the delicate and difficult task of consoling the
orphan. And her advantages for doing this were excellent.
Buzzard’s Bluff was a fine, pleasant, cheerful residence. It was, in
fact, a high, grassy, rolling hill, rising gradually from the water’s
edge, and, far behind, crowned with the dense primitive forest.
Upon the brow of this green hill, against the background of the green
forest, stood the white dwelling-house, fronting the water. It was a
large brick edifice covered with white stucco, relieved by many green
Venetian window-blinds, and presenting a very gay and bright aspect.
Its style of architecture was very simple, being that in which
ninety-nine out of a hundred of the better sort of country houses in
that neighborhood were then built. The mansion consisted of a square
central edifice, of two stories, with a wide hall running through the
middle of each story from front to back, and having four spacious rooms
on each floor. This main edifice was continued by a long back building.
And it was flanked on the right by a tasteful wing, having a peaked
roof with a gable-end front, one large, double window below, and a
fanlight above. There were also side windows and a side door opening
into a flower garden. The whole wing, walls, windows, and roof, was
completely covered with creeping vines, cape jessamine, clematis,
honeysuckles, running roses, etc., that gave portions of the mansion
the appearance of a beautiful summer house. This contained two large
rooms, divided by a short passage, and had been given up entirely
to the use of Ralph. The front room, with the large seaward window,
he had occupied as a private sitting, reading, writing and lounging
parlor; the back room was his sleeping chamber. A staircase in the
short dividing passage led up into the room in the roof, lighted by two
opposite gable fanlights, where he stowed his guns, game-bags, fishing
tackle, etc.
Now, during the month that Margaret had passed at the Point, Ralph
had gradually removed his personal effects from this wing, had caused
both parlor and chamber to be newly papered, painted, and furnished,
and then expressed his wish that upon his departure for the Northern
frontier the whole wing, as the most separated, beautiful and desirable
portion of the establishment, might be given up to the exclusive use of
his affianced bride.
Mrs. Houston consented, with the proviso that he should not vacate the
rooms until the hour of his departure for camp.
Accordingly, the first evening of Margaret’s arrival she had been
accommodated with a pleasant chamber on the second-floor front of the
main building.
But on Tuesday morning, after Mr. Helmstedt and Ralph Houston had
departed, Mrs. Houston and her maids went busily to work and refreshed
the two pretty rooms of the wing, hanging white lace curtains to the
windows, white lace valances to the toilet table and tester, etc.,
and transfiguring the neatly-kept bachelor’s apartments into a lady’s
charming little boudoir and bedchamber.
When all was arranged, even to the fresh flowers in the white vases
upon the front room mantelpiece, and the choice books from Mrs.
Houston’s own private library upon the center table, the busy little
lady, in her eagerness to surprise and please, hurried away to seek
Margaret and introduce her to her delightful apartments. She tripped
swiftly and softly up the stairs, and into the room, where she
surprised Margaret, quite absorbed in some work at her writing-desk.
“Oh, you are busy! Whom are you writing to, my dear?” she inquired
eagerly, hastening to the side of the girl and looking over her
shoulder.
She meant nothing, or next to nothing--it was her heedless, impulsive
way. She was in a hurry, and did not stop to remember that the question
was rude, even when Margaret, with a sudden blush, reversed her
sheet of paper, and, keeping her hand pressed down upon it, arose in
agitation.
“Why, how startled you are, my dear! How nervous you must be! I ought
not to have come upon you so suddenly. But to whom are you writing, my
dear?”
“To--a--correspondent, Mrs. Houston.”
“Why, just look there now! See what a good hand I am at guessing, for I
even judged as much! But who is your correspondent then, my dear?”
“A--friend! Mrs. Houston.”
“Good, again! I had imagined so, since you have no enemies, my child.
But who then is this friend, you little rustic? You have not even
acquaintances to write letters to, much less friends, unless it is
Franky! Ah, by the way, don’t write to Franky, Margaret! He could not
bear it now.”
Margaret made no comment, and Mrs. Houston, growing uneasy upon the
subject of Franky, said:
“I hope you are not writing to Franky, Margaret!”
“No, Mrs. Houston, I am not.”
“If not to Franky, to whom then? It cannot be to your father or Ralph,
for they have just left you. Come! this is getting interesting! Who is
your correspondent, little one? Your old duenna insists upon knowing.”
Margaret turned pale, but remained silent.
“Dear me, how mysterious you are! My curiosity is growing irresistible!
Who is it?”
Margaret suddenly burst into tears.
This brought the heedless little lady to her senses. She hastened to
soothe and apologize.
“Why, Margaret, my dear child! Why, Margaret! Dear me, how sorry I am!
I am very sorry, Margaret! What a thoughtless chatterbox I am of my
age! But then I was only teazing you to rouse you a little, my dear! I
did not mean to hurt you! And then I had such a pleasant surprise for
you. Forgive me.”
Margaret slipped her left hand into Mrs. Houston’s (her right was still
pressed upon the letter), and said:
“Forgive me. It is I who am nervous and irritable and require
sufferance. You are very, very kind to me in all things, and I feel it.”
The little lady stooped and kissed her, saying:
“Such words are absurd between you and me, Maggie. Come, I will leave
you now to finish your letter, and return to you by and by.”
And then she left the room, thinking within herself: “The sensitive
little creature! Who would have thought my heedless words would have
distressed her so? I did not care about knowing to whom the letter
was written, I am sure. But, by the way, to whom could she have been
writing? And, now I reflect, it was very strange that she should have
been so exceedingly distressed by my questionings! It never occurred
to me before, but it really was rather mysterious! I must try to
find out what it all means! I ought to do so! I am her guardian, her
mother-in-law. I am responsible for her to her father and to her
betrothed husband.”
Meanwhile Margaret Helmstedt had started up, closed the door and turned
the key, and clasping her pale face between her hands, began pacing the
floor and exclaiming at intervals:
“Oh, Heaven of heavens, how nearly all had been lost! Oh, I am unfit,
I am unfit for this dreadful trust! To think I should have set down to
write to him, and left the door unfastened! Farewell to liberty and
frankness! I am given over to bonds, to vigilance and secretiveness
forever! Oh, mother! my mother! I will be true to you! Oh, our Father
who art in heaven, help me to be firm and wise and true!”
She came back at last, and sat down to her writing-desk, and finished
her letter. Then opening her pocketbook, she took out the check for
five hundred dollars, drawn by her father, in her favor, on a Baltimore
bank, inclosed it in the letter, sealed and directed it, and placed it
in the sanctity of her bosom.
Then folding her arms upon her writing-desk, she dropped her head upon
them, and in that attitude of dejection remained until the ringing of
the supper bell aroused her.
Colonel Houston, who was waiting for her in the hall, received her with
his old-school courtesy, drew her hand within his arm and led her out
upon the lawn, where, under the shade of a gigantic chestnut tree, the
tea table was set--its snowy drapery and glistening service making a
pleasant contrast to the vivid green verdure of the lawn upon which it
stood. Old Colonel and Mrs. Compton and Nellie formed a pleasing group
around the table. Colonel Houston handed Margaret to her place, and
took his own seat.
“My dear, I am going to send Lemuel to Heathville to-morrow, and if you
like to leave your letter with me, I will give it to him to put in the
post office,” said Mrs. Houston.
“I thank you, Mrs. Houston,” said Margaret.
“Ah! that is what kept you in your room all the afternoon, my dear. You
were writing a letter; whom were you writing to, my child?” said old
Mrs. Compton.
“Pray excuse me,” said Margaret, embarrassed.
This answer surprised the family group, who had, however, the tact to
withdraw their attention and change the subject.
After tea, an hour or two was spent upon the pleasant lawn, strolling
through the groves, or down to the silvery beach, and watching the
monotonous motion of the sea, the occasional leap and plunge of the
fish, the solitary flight of a laggard water fowl, and perhaps the
distant appearance of a sail.
At last, when the full moon was high in the heavens, the family
returned to the house.
Mrs. Houston took Margaret’s arm, and saying:
“I have a little surprise for you, my love,” led her into the pretty
wing appropriated to her.
The rooms were illumined by a shaded alabaster lamp that diffused a
sort of tender moonlight tone over the bright carpet and chairs and
sofa covers, and the marble-topped tables, and white lace window
curtains of the boudoir, and fell softly upon the pure white draperies
of the sleeping-room beyond.
Hildreth, in her neat, sober gown of gray stuff, and her apron,
neckhandkerchief and turban of white linen, stood in attendance.
Margaret had not seen her faithful nurse for a month--that is, not
since her mother’s decease--and now she sprang to greet her, scarcely
able to refrain from bursting into tears.
Mrs. Houston interfered.
“Now, my dear Margaret, here are your apartments--a sweet little
boudoir and chamber, I flatter myself, as can be found in
Maryland--connected with the house, yet entirely separate and private.
And here are your servants; Hildreth will occupy the room in the roof
above, and Forrest has a quarter in the grove there, within easy sound
of your bell. Your boat is secure in the boathouse below, and your
horse is in the best stall in the stable.”
“I thank you, dear Mrs. Houston.”
“I understand, also, that your father has assigned you a very liberal
income. Consequently, my dear, you are in all things as independent as
a little queen in her palace. Consider also, dear Margaret, that it
is a great accession of happiness to us all to have you here, and we
should wish to have as much of your company as possible. Therefore,
when you are inclined to society, come among us; at all other times,
you can retire to this, your castle. And at all times and seasons our
house and servants are at your orders, Margaret; for you know that
as the bride of our eldest son and heir, you are in some sort our
Princess of Wales,” she concluded, playfully.
“I thank you, dear Mrs. Houston,” again said the young girl. Her
thoughts were too gravely preoccupied to give much attention to the
prattle of the lady.
“And by the way, Margaret, where is your letter, my dear? I shall
dispatch Lemuel early in the morning.”
“You are very considerate, Mrs. Houston, but I do not purpose to send
it by Lemuel.”
“As you please, my dear. Good-night,” she said, kissing the maiden with
sincere affection, notwithstanding that, as she left the room, her
baffled curiosity induced her to murmur:
“There is some ill mystery, that I am constrained to discover,
connected with that letter.”
Miss Helmstedt, left to herself, directed Hildreth to secure the doors
communicating with the main building, and then go and call Forrest to
her presence.
“I shall not tax you much, Forrest,” she said, “though to-night I have
to require rather an arduous service of you.”
“Nothing is hard that I do for you, Miss Margaret,” replied Forrest.
“Listen then--to-night, after you are sure that all the family are
retired, and there is no possibility of your being observed, take my
horse from the stable, and ride, as for your life, to Belleview, and
put this carefully in the post office,” she said, drawing the letter
from her bosom and placing it in the hand of Forrest.
The old man looked at her wistfully, uneasily, drew a deep sigh, bowed
reverently, put the letter in his pocket, and, at a sign from his
mistress, left the room.
But that night at eleven o’clock, Nellie, watching from her window,
saw Miss Helmstedt’s messenger ride away over the hills through the
moonlight.