“Are you moon-struck, then, Rosalie? Come in; you can safely view the scene from the house. Besides, coffee is about to be served.”
And the lady gave her hand to her step-daughter and assisted her to arise, and then tenderly drawing the girl’s arm within her own, turned to lead her into the house. And Mr. Bolling lifted himself up, and picking up his straw hat, said—
“And I must go down to the cotton-mills, and make Clement Sutherland come home to his supper. Heigh-ho! it’s an incontrovertible fact, that if I did not walk after that man and take care of him, he’d kill himself in the pursuit of gain in one month. Everything is forgotten—mental culture and bodily comfort. I have to bully him to his breakfast, and dragoon him to his dinner, and scare him to his supper. If things go on in this way, I shall have to cut up his food and place it to his lips. He is growing to be a monomaniac on the subject of money-getting. He is as thin as a whipping-post, and about as enlivening to look upon. He looks like a weasel in the winter time, all skin and hair, and cunning and care! He looks as if he felt poor in the midst of all his possessions, and I suppose he really does; while here am I, without a sous, cent, markee, happy as a king, and much more at leisure; eating hearty, and sleeping sound, and growing fat; ‘having nothing, yet possessing all things,’ according to Scripture, and without a care in life, except to keep Clement from sharing the fate of Midas, and starving in the midst of gold. And, by-the-by, that is another heathen myth, with an eternal, awful truth wrapped up in it. Heigh-ho!. Well, here’s to bring him home to his supper. And a hot time I shall have of it, between him and the infernal machinery! I shall not get the thunder of the mills out of my ears, or the shower of cotton-lint out of my eyes, nose, and throat, the whole night! Oriole, is that you? Do you go and tell the housekeeper, child, to have something comforting prepared for your poor master. He’s had nothing since breakfast; I couldn’t find him at dinner-time. He was gone, devil knows where, to inspect, devil knows what! He is the only southerner I ever did know to give himself up so entirely to the worship of Mammon, and the only one, I hope, I ever shall know!”
And, having eased his mind by this fit of grumbling, Uncle Billy waddled off on his benevolent errand to the mills.
In the meantime Mrs. Vivian conducted her step-daughter into the drawing-room communicating with Miss Sutherland’s boudoir. The room was now brilliantly lighted up, but vacant of the family. The broad doors were slidden back into the walls, revealing the boudoir in its rich-toned gloom and gleam of purple and gold; and India herself, standing in the midst, quite lost in thought, with one jewelled hand pressing back the amber ringlets from her forehead, and the other hanging down by her side, clasping the letter of Mr. Sutherland. So deeply troubled and perplexed was her look, that Valeria impulsively sprang to her side, exclaiming, “What grieves you, my dearest India? No evil news, I trust?”
Miss Sutherland burst into tears, and silently handed her the letter. But before Valeria had turned it about and found the commencement, India recovered her voice, and said in broken accents, “You know how closely I have kept his correspondence for the last few weeks. Alas! I have had reason for it, Valeria. Little do his uncles imagine what detains him at the North. But he conceals nothing from me, and he lays the heavy responsibility of his confidence upon me. For a month past it has been an onerous burden to my conscience.”
“My love! what has he been doing there? Has he killed his man in a duel, and got himself in trouble, in that frozen stiff North, where a gentleman cannot even shoot his rival in a generous quarrel, without being put to the inconvenience of a judicial investigation? I really do suppose that is it, now!”
“Oh, no! Would it were only that! That were no dishonour, at least. Oh, no! It is as much worse as it could possibly be!”
“I cannot believe that Mr. Sutherland would do aught unworthy of a man and a gentleman.”
“Woe to my lips that they should utter the charge. But read his letter, Valeria, and advise me, for I am deeply distressed,” said Miss Sutherland; and she threw herself back into a cushioned chair, and bowed her face upon her hands, until all the amber ringlets drooped and veiled them.