CHAPTER VII
Ethan was not allowed to repeat his visit, and life went on for several years without incident at the old Fort. Yet, since "it is in the soul that things happen," these were stirring times. One shrinks from inquiring too closely into what the years held for the two eager-hearted women shut up there with those perilous companions, thwarted hope, stunted ambition, and pent-up energy. Well had it been for Valeria had she not possessed that small, cramped competency. If the girl had had to earn her living, she might have found peace, if not great gladness, in wholesome grappling with the material things of life. But in saying so one forgets that all this was thirty years ago, when a penniless Southern woman who had a brother, or even some distant relation, to support her, no more dreamed of getting her own bread than she does to-day of going before the mast.
Meantime, with John Gano things for a while went better. At the end of four years of uninterrupted toil, such years of all work and no play as only an American will put up with, he was able to offer his cousin the kind of home he had set his heart on. They were married in the South, and after a brief visit to Mrs. Gano, John took his bride to New York. Ten months' happiness, followed by the birth of a daughter, whom they named Valeria, and called Val; then protracted ill-health and a yearly baby for the young mother, money troubles and killing work for John Gano.
The distance between New York and New Plymouth was too great to admit of much visiting back and forth on trivial grounds for people of limited means. But young Mrs. Gano was not expected to live after the birth of her fourth child, and her "aunt-mother-in-law" was sent for. The elder Mrs. Gano stayed till the danger was past, and, as she wrote home to her daughter, "to relieve Virginia a little of the pressure of existence," she had made up her mind to bring back Emmeline with her to the Fort. Emmeline was the younger of the two little girls, and that was the reason given for her having been chosen instead of Val, since, with a new baby in the house, a child of fourteen months was more of a charge on its mother's mind even than an enterprising young person of four. But it was presently revealed that Emmeline was by far the more attractive child, gentle, charming, and very beautiful to look upon; rather like her cousin Ethan, whose loss was still mourned silently at the old Fort. There was no further visiting between the two houses until the following winter, when Valeria's health broke down. Mrs. Gano would not hear it said that her daughter was dying of consumption.
"I've had a cough myself for half a century. Consumption? Nonsense! Valeria had undermined her constitution by too much study and a too sedentary life. What was to be expected when one remembered the hours she kept! But there! no Gano could ever do anything with moderation."
However, the jealous mother was alarmed at last, and admitted that what Valeria needed was a change.
"No," said the old-young woman; "I have reached the end."
A journey to the Adirondacks was proposed. Valeria refused to fall in with the plan.