Hope that blessed me, bliss that crowned,
Love that left me with a wound,
Life itself that turned around.”
—Mrs. Browning.
An evil fatality seemed to attend all events connected with Margaret Helmstedt. The letter mailed at midnight night, by being one minute too late for the post, was delayed a whole week, and until it could do no manner of good.
The little packet schooner, Canvas Back, Captain Miles Tawney, from Washington to Norfolk, on board which Ralph Houston, the next morning, embarked, when but thirty-six hours out got aground below Blackstone’s Island, where she remained fast for a week.
And thus it unhappily chanced that Major Helmstedt, who reached Washington, on his way home, a few days after the departure of the Houstons from the city, and took passage in the first packet for Buzzard’s Bluff, arrived thither the first of the returning soldiers.
Having no knowledge or suspicion of the important events that had occurred, he caused himself and his baggage to be landed upon the beach, below the mansion, in which he naturally expected to find his daughter dwelling in honor and security.
Leaving his trunks in charge of a loitering negro—whom he had found upon the sands, and who, to his hasty inquiries, had answered that all the family were well—he hurried up to the house.
He was met at the door by a servant, who, with ominous formality, ushered him into the parlor, and retreated to call his mistress.