I know she thinks Lucy is an angel, while I suspect I am thought to be exactly the reverse, judging by the disagreeable, reluctant way she has of serving me. A woman who had been teaching the freedmen down in South Carolina came here last week to collect money for them. Everybody went to hear her speak, and Lucy just went along with the rest. It was a highly improper thing for a Southern girl to do. I knew it, but could not put my veto on it and make myself odious to the family, so I held my peace and let her go, though I should have been ashamed to be seen in such a place. She told me all about it, however, and you have a right to be proud of your noble sister. She conquered her nerves and sat perched on a front seat and listened with great attention, and almost repeated the whole thing for me when she came home.
The woman dilated eloquently upon the awful sin of caste prejudice existing among the abominable South Carolina aristocrats, who, while they would accost and speak to the colored pupils, were so stuck up that they regarded the white teachers as no better than the dirt under their feet. After the speech was over, they took up a collection, and when my sister told me she saw Lucy put in five dollars, I was just too provoked to say a word. To do this foolish thing after all our losses was too much—when she has ordered a new pelisse from New York, too! I could scarcely sleep for thinking of this folly. The cold weather gives me a despondency anyhow. It makes me think of my own home in the South, with all its comforts and the beautiful wood fires, now mine no longer. True, the house is mine, the dear Colonel gave me that, and the land, and the stock. There is the old family carriage and the horses; but it is bitter as wormwood and gall to have no one here to drive me out or do the smallest thing for me unless I pay out money which I no longer possess. It was a wicked thing to ruin and break up our homes like this, but, my dear boy, we must try to be content with what God sends. Our portion is not money, but water; an overflow of it in the river, and too many caterpillars in the cotton fields eating up our crops. You must be prepared to suffer poverty and affliction without slaves to polish your boots and rub down your horses. You may even be obliged to chop kindling for me to cook with, before you are done.
The old purposes, habits and customs cannot be carried out any longer. You must not think of matrimony. You ought now to wait until you are thirty years old before you attempt to make a shipwreck of your life by marriage. But I do know a perfect Hebe who would suit you exactly. She comes here often. Oh! she is a dainty warbler, not quite full-fledged, but superior, noble, magnificent in design, able to soar higher than any of those finiky, twittering little canaries you love to play with. A splendid ancestry, too, as ever lived, solid, wealthy men, though some of them are deteriorated by having married wives who were nobody. Some women dwarf men’s souls by their own littleness. I hope you will not fall a victim to any such.
You must keep up the family prestige; your talents and associations demand a foremost place, and you must refuse to commonize yourself with that low, ignorant, profane, dram-drinking set of young men around you. I do heartily despise them all, and have never received them in my house when I could help it. They would gladly drag you down to their own level if they could.
How these good New Englanders rejoice in the emancipation of the slaves! All my friends and relations chuckle over it, so that it looks to me like malice triumphant. Lucy came out last Sunday in a beautiful new hat and pelisse from New York, looking like the daughter of a duchess; and old cousin Althea said that she did not look that day as much like ruin as she had expected when she saw me and Lucy getting out of the carriage in our shabby old war clothes. That old thing is perfectly hateful and always was.
If our old servants are still with you, say “howdie” to them for me. I hope Chloe has not run off with her freedom anywhere. She does make such nice waffles and French rolls. You must contrive some way to keep Chloe if I am expected to spend much time with you.
Your loving aunt,
Columbiana.
Number 2.
My dear Harry,—Lucy has a beau. She denies the fact, but there is a gentleman here from New York who is an intimate friend of my brother, and he looks at your sister and watches her so eagerly, and does so many things to please her and to promote my comfort, that I am dead sure it is an elaborate case of love. I do not think him a suitable match for Lucy in every respect, but he is very useful to accompany us on excursions and he manages a pair of horses admirably, and it is convenient to have such a man around. We went to cousin Sabina Suns’ yesterday, where we were all invited to dine and to meet the Bishop and Prof. Elliott. I made occasion to pass through the dining-room. Heaps of red currants in lovely cut-glass bowls, golden cream in abundance, white mountain cake and luscious peaches were set out for dessert, instead of the everlasting doughnuts and perpetual pie which you see everywhere. Not that I care for dessert. I knew we should have oyster soup and a pair of roasted fowls and all accompaniments of a regular dinner, for Sabina Suns’ girl is the best cook I have found anywhere.