“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.