"Mars jedge has yu dun und sassinated my yung missis in cold blood in dis heer great house? If yu has yu'l sho be swung on de gallus. Oh my lands sakes alive! Jerrusulum my king!" and the old negro ran frantically about the parlor, hither and thither, over turning tables and chairs and throwing info the face of her young mistress great clusters of flowers and water and rugs which had the happy effect of resuscitating the poor girl; and on regaining her senses she looked dazedly up and saw Clarissa coming with a teapot of boiling water, with which the old negro in her transport was about to parboil her young mistress. She motioned Clarissa away, and as soon as she could control her voice she said to the judge;
"Oh, how I must have alarmed you sir!"
"Ugh! My King!" interrupted Clarissa in her grave earnestness "Yu knows yu skeert us jamby to def; yu fokses aint fittin to stay in dis heer parlor by yoselves, ef dem is de shines yu is agwine to cut up; a little mo und yu mout been dead as a mackrel und den dat dar jedge mout be hung on de gallus;" and with this unparliamentary speech the old negro, decidedly out of temper with the situation of persons and things, strode out of the room muttering to herself as she closed the door, "I aint satisfied in my mind pine plank whedder Miss Alice had a sho nuff fit, or whedder she drapped down dat dar way jest to be kotched up by the jedge fo she hit de flo. Dese heer white gals is monstrous sateful dat day is."
"You don't understand our maid," Alice observed to her guest apologetically as Clarissa walked out of the room. "We have to make allowances for her." The judge could not speak for a while, for Clarissa's oddities had thrown him into a fit of laughter. After recovering himself he said argumentatively. "I think I can see that the civilization of the South will have lost much of its fragrance when the old negroes are dead. The history of your country has been refreshed by the charm they have brought to it; and I doubt not that despite their strong individuality, their crudities, they will be sadly missed one of these days."
"Now that I have survived those ridiculous sensations that quite overpowered me," Alice blushingly remarked "will you accompany me for a moment?" And the judge quietly assenting gave Alice his arm not knowing whither she was leading him. She paused before an exquisite painting partially veiled by drapery, and bade him look upon it. The judge obeying her command, saw upon the wall the faithful portraiture of the handsome young officer who was slain under his own eye at Manassas; and from whose hand he had taken the ring that had thrown Alice into the swoon.
"Ah!" he exclaimed emotionally "It is he, it is he, your lover, Alice, your brave soldier boy who died for his darling, ever so far away."
"You will pardon my tears will you not?" she asked entreatingly, "if I tell you that he was so true, so good, so brave, that I loved him so dearly?"
"Yes, I can freely pardon, since you confide your grief, your love to me. Take the ring Alice," he pleaded so eloquently, "Take it from Arthur Livingstone, who loves you with his whole heart; who has come to Ingleside, to your own sweet bower, to your own dear self, to proffer his life, his honor; to relight the candle upon the same altar, upon which your brave soldier boy first lighted it, when he proffered to you his life, his homage, his all. He who returns the ring to you that you gave Arthur Macrae, would take his place in your heart and guard its portal with his life, until the very stars shall pale their fires in the heavens above. God in Heaven will ratify the compact, and 'neither powers, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor life, nor death shall separate us from one another.'"
A smile of unutterable joy was the only answer she gave him.
"Now my darling," the judge pleaded passionately, "in the presence of the angels and of your own Arthur, let us plight our holy troth to one another."