This is the riddle thou hast life to solve;
But in the task thou shalt not work alone,
For while the worlds about the sun revolve,
God’s heart and mind are ever with His own.
—J. Monckton Milnes.
It is now twelve years since the marriage of Alice Chester and General Garnet, and six months since the departure of Hugh Hutton and Agnes upon their sea voyage.
General Garnet is absent on an electioneering tour, but daily expected back.
It is June, and the scene is the terrace in front of Mount Calm. There are four persons upon the terrace.
Alice occupies a rustic seat under the shadow of a locust tree. She is still a most beautiful woman, very delicate, almost sylph-like, with her fair, blond beauty and airy, white muslin wrapper. She is calmly pursuing a piece of fine, white, knitting-work—that favorite busy idleness of all Maryland ladies. At her feet is a very small basket, containing her keys and the ball of lamb’s wool yarn from which she knits. Near her stands a young mulatto hand-maid of about ten years of age.
Lower down upon a step of the terrace sits her daughter Alice, or Elsie, as she was called for distinction’s sake. Elsie is now a very beautiful child, promising to be much more beautiful than her mother had ever been. She strangely united the most beautiful features of both parents. She had the delicate, Grecian features, fair, roseate complexion, golden hair, and blue eyes of her mother, with the passionate, veiled gaze and bewildering smile of her father. She had a finer vital and sanguine temperament than either could have possessed; a more rounded form, more elastic motion, a more joyous expression, a more gladsome cadence in her speech and in her laughter. Elsie sat sketching an elm tree from nature—the tree stood before her, at some distance on the lawn. She was bending over her drawing-board, that rested on her lap, until her fair ringlets almost concealed her rosy cheeks. She, also, wore a simple white muslin dress that harmonized well with her blooming beauty. Behind her, bending over her, stood a youth of sixteen; but for height, for breadth of shoulders and depth of chest, and manly and athletic proportions generally he might have been taken for twenty years of age. He was a very handsome boy, with bright chestnut hair, waving around a massive brow and relieving and beautifying its heavy strength, gracefully as foliage shades rock. He seemed to have just returned from gunning, for he wore a dress of forest green, his cap lay at his feet, his pointers were near, and one hand rested upon a fowling-piece, while with the other he pointed alternately to the elm tree and the drawing, giving Elsie some instruction in her work. His dark gray eyes, full of thought, truth, and affection, were fixed upon her.