CHAPTER XI
Julia slept soundly and sweetly, but awoke early and arose at once. It was an awful thing—this sudden transition from carefree, blissful girlhood into woman's estate, with the attending hardships and strange trials which she had to face. Her plan of action for that morning was not at all clear. She merely knew that she was going to face a desperate and wicked man who had wofully mistreated her and her father. She conceived this to be her duty, and there was no shrinking or hanging back in her soul when she thought of it. But as she combed her hair into place and put on a flowered muslin—she could not wear her riding habit, because her expedition must be kept from her father—she did not know what she would do, or say, when she came before Devil Marston. Her face grew hot as she thought of the swiftly approaching encounter, but this only heightened her unusual beauty. That moment, for the first time in her life, she wished that she was plain. Her beauty had not brought her love or happiness, but had cursed her instead with the obnoxious attentions of a beast in the shape of a man. Concealing the revolver in the folds of a light wrap, she went down stairs. The Major had not risen. Swiftly she passed through the library and dining-room, and entered the kitchen. Aunt Frances' fat person was bustling about, and breakfast was in preparation.
"Good morning, Aunt Frances!" said Julia, cheerily; "where's Uncle Peter?"
"Mawnin', missus—whar he allus is 'cep'n' w'en he's sleepin'—foolin' roun' dat colt ob a Prince!"
There was a degree of asperity in the old colored lady's speech, coupled with an ominous shake of the head. But Julia had been accustomed to the family difficulties upon which Peter and Aunt Frances throve, since infancy, and she paid no heed to the present demonstration of a ruffled temper.
"Thank you," she answered, sweetly. "I want to see him, so I'll run down to the smoke-house."
She passed onto the small kitchen porch as she said this, and here the old negress' voice halted her. There was a protesting, plaintive, sad inflection in the one word—
"Missus?"
Julia stopped and turned abruptly, vaguely alarmed.