The ADAMSES resided in one of the aristocratic by ways crossing Main
Street, and were directly descended from those distinguished and
chivalric _anciens pauvres_ of the Old Dominion, who boasted the blood
of the English cavaliers, and were a terror to their foes and
creditors. ADAMS, the husband and father, was a fine specimen of the
Southern gentleman in his day, possessing an estate in Louisa County,
so completely covered with mortgages that no heir could get to it, and
having won great fame by inventing an entirely new and singularly
humorous oath for the benefit of a Yankee governess, when that despised
hireling presumed to ask for a portion of her last year's salary. He
might have lived to a green old age, but for the extraordinary joy he
experienced at having negotiated a second mortgage on some property not
worth quite half the first, which filled this worthy man with such
exceeding great joy, that he drank rather more at a sitting than would
start an ordinary hotel-bar, and died soon after of _delirium tremens_,
as such noble and chivalric souls are very apt to do. The family left
by the lamented ADAMS, consisting of a wife and one child--a daughter,
at once assumed the most becoming style of mourning, moved in a funeral
procession through society for six months, and then resigned themselves
to the will of Providence with that beautiful cheerfulness which may
either denote a high order of Christianity, or a low order of memory,
as the case may be.
At the period of which the present veracious history treats, the
bereaved mother and daughter were living in subdued style in the
locality designated above. Among their most intimate associates were
the ORDETHS, between whose family and theirs there existed that
pleasing and kindly familiarity which permits the most open recognition
of mutual virtues in society and the most searching criticism of
individual weaknesses at home. The ADAMSES and ORDETHS met at each
other's houses with gushes of endearment that edified all beholders;
and if Miss EVE said to her mother on their way home from church that
LIBBY ORDETH looked like a perfect fright in that ridiculous new bonnet
of hers, it was only because her affectionate heart felt a pang at
seeing her bosom-friend appear to less advantage than her own
self-sacrificing self.
It is a touching peculiarity of this modern friendship, _mon ami_, that
a majority of the errors its fairest votaries detect in each other, are
those of the head--not of the heart. EVE ADAMS, whose diminutive size
had given occasion to the _mot_ by which she was denominated the
"Widow's Mite," was calling at the ORDETHS when Mr. BOB PETERS first
came in under a flag of truce from Fortress Monroe, and was witness to
the chivalric reception accorded to that gentleman by his relatives,
before his pecuniary mission was known. In the exuberance of his
nature, Mr. PETERS had kissed her with the rest of the family, and from
the moment of receiving that chaste salutation, EVE had selected the
Northern stranger as her hero in that ideal novel of spiritual
yellow-covers in which all maidens live, and move and have their beings
until stern reality bursts upon them in the shape of a husband or a
snub.
From thenceforth she was a frequent visitor at the ORDETHS, and laid
close siege to the gay ROBERT'S heart with all the languishment deemed
necessary in such cases, and a tremendous flirtation was going on
before the maiden discovered that the affections of the youth were
already given to another. Then came a revulsion of feeling, opening the
eyes of the Widow's Mite to the fact that Mr. BOB PETERS was a thieving
abolitionist, unworthy the toleration of any true daughter of the
South. After this overpowering revelation, it was the first thought of
EVE ADAMS to at once inform the festive PETERS of the utter detestation
in which she held him, and a favorable opportunity soon offered. At a
social gathering at the ORDETH'S, she had withdrawn for a moment to an
ante-room, for the purpose of drawing from her bosom an elegant silver
snuff-box, dipping therein a small brush, and subsequently applying the
same to her pearly teeth, when Mr. BOB PETERS entered unannounced, and
agreeably demanded a "pinch." The situation was favorable to an avowal
of enmity, and a suitable expression was rising to the lips of the
maiden, when the thought of a still keener revenge kept her silent, and
she contented herself with a temporary sneer and a majestic exit from
the apartment.
It was soon after this incident that Mr. BOB PETERS' presentation to
Mr. ORDETH of the bill for furniture which he had been empowered to
collect by a New York house, reminded the latter that it was his duty,
as a patriot, to sacrifice even his cousin's son for the good of the
Confederacy. With the stern self-devotion of an ancient Roman, Mr.
ORDETH not only accused his hapless relative of flagrant Abolitionism,
but at once made arrangements with the military authorities for that
relative's immediate incarceration as an enemy to the Commonwealth. An
enemy to the Commonwealth of Virginia must be indeed an unnatural
wretch; for no such wealth is known to be in existence just now, and
enmity to the dead is a thing inexcusable. It was a crime of which Mr.
BOB PETERS was incapable; yet would he have suffered for it, had not
the devoted LIBBY concealed him in the hour of danger.
Of this concealment, Miss EVE had learned from EFRUM, the son of JOCKO,
though she knew not how long it was to be continued.