Stuart, as briefly as possible, gave him the later family history.
“What a fatality! All these fine boys to pass away in early manhood! And the son of Cuthbert, the second brother, you say, inherits the manor. I remember Cuthbert well. He was intended for the church. They called him Cuddie. Now, tell me how you came to meet Palma. She was the daughter of the youngest brother, James, you say.”
“Yes; and after the death of her parents she was adopted by Judge and Mrs. Barrn, who were my guardians. I met Palma in their house when I first went there to live, and so knew her from her infancy up. I won her pure affection then, and never afterward lost it, thank Heaven.”
“An excellent knowledge and a blessed beginning. Now, tell me how it was you lost your Mississippi plantation.”
“I have not lost it. It is legally mine, but of no more use to me than would be so many acres of waste land in the Sahara. The land is, indeed, a desert, and the buildings a mass of charred ruins.”
“Through the war?”
“Yes, of course. Mansion house, stables, barns, mills, negroes’ quarters fired and burned to the ground; stock all driven off; negroes conscripted. The place is a ruin and a wilderness; it would take many thousand dollars to reclaim it.”
The old man sighed, but made no reply.
Then Stuart told him frankly of the desperate straits to which he had been reduced at the time when his uncle’s letter came to him so opportunely.
Mr. Cleve was shocked.