The discarded daughter; or, The children of the isle

by Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

Mrs. Garnet remained at home to receive her, in fond, impatient expectation.

She had Elsie’s bed chamber decorated, and a fire made in it every day, and the parlors lighted and warmed, and the tea table set for the whole party every evening.

At last, one night,—a week after they had left home,—while she was standing before the parlor fire, trimming a lamp on the chimney-piece, and wondering sadly if she were not merely imagining that her long-lost daughter was expected home, a carriage drove rapidly up the shaded avenue, steps were let down, people came, a little bustle ensued, hasty steps and joyous voices were heard. Alice ran out, and, in an instant, the mother, weeping, laughing, exclaiming, had caught, and was hugging her daughter laughing to her bosom. Yes, Elsie herself!—Elsie, warm, alive, real, and such an armful of bright, rosy, joyous life, and love and reality! I leave you to imagine the joy of the party around the tea-table that night, where all were too joyful to eat—or the late hour at which they separated for the night and retired to their several rooms, where each one was too happy to sleep.

The next morning, happy, joyous Elsie had to hold a sort of levee for the benefit of the colored folks. Every negro in the house, or on the plantation, who had known her before she went away, had to come and shake hands with her, and welcome her back. And every little one that had grown from infancy to childhood during her absence, and to whom she was a sort of fabulous demigoddess, or, it might be, one of the angels, had to come and stare at her and be patted on the head, and get its paper of sugar-plums or its toy.

And then, later in the day, when her trunks and boxes arrived in the wagon, and were unpacked, she had to distribute her presents and tokens of remembrance to all and each of the colored people.

And in the course of the second day, when the news of her arrival began to be rumored about, the companions of her childhood, now grown up to be young men and women, flocked in to see her. And it was from their sly hints and innuendos that Elsie was taught that it was expected of her father to give a ball, and that, indeed, a great many people would be very greatly disappointed if he did not. And good-natured Elsie, in order to make so many young folks happy, named the matter to her father, and begged him, as a personal favor to herself, in consideration of her recent arrival home, to give a party. So General Garnet, willing to please his child, and believing, besides, that a large party might forward his electioneering prospects, gave his consent. He consulted Mrs. Garnet and Dr. Hardcastle, and fixed the time of the ball for that day two weeks. Magnus was with Elsie every day. She perfectly understood, though she could scarcely have told why, for no one had as yet hinted the subject to her, that she was at no very distant period of time to be married to Magnus. She considered her marriage, like her leaving school, her presentation at court, and her coming-out ball, a part of the programme of her happy drama of life, and was content. She loved Magnus. During her absence in England, she had remembered and loved him as she had remembered and loved her father and mother—as one of the elements of her life’s joy.

When she returned, she had met him with the fond and free affection of a sister for an only brother.

And when she had been at home a week, and Magnus had found opportunity and courage, and led the beautiful and happy girl to a shady nook in the twilight parlor, and told her with the burning eloquence of passion how long, how deeply, how greatly he had loved her; how she had been at once his one memory and his one hope—his incentive, his dream, his inspiration, his guiding star, Elsie heard him with undisguised astonishment at his earnestness and enthusiasm, and wondered to herself where it all came from. And when he, full of doubt and fear, for her free and unembarrassed manner discouraged him, begged her to give him answer, she replied, without the slightest hesitation or embarrassment—nay, even in her native, gladsome, confident manner—that he need not have given himself so much anxiety; that of course everybody knew they were going to be married; didn’t their lands join? and, of course, she had never even thought of retreating.

Now you may think from that speech that Elsie was a sadly heartless and mercenary and calculating little baggage. She was as far as possible from being that. She was a fresh, innocent, totally inexperienced girl, who repeated, parrot-like, the sentiments of those around her.

Magnus knew that, and caught her, strained her to his bosom, pressed kisses on her brow, her cheeks, her lips, in the delirious joy of “first and passionate love.” And Elsie broke from his arms and ran from the room suffused with blushes, trembling with a strange, painful, blissful tumult. All that evening Elsie wandered about upstairs, or sat dreaming, half in terror, half in joy, until her mother came in and asked of what she was thinking so deeply?