They have now been married several years, and have several children—boys and girls. Frank Howard now holds a "high official" position in the present administration. And old Mr. Legare is justly proud of his gifted son-in-law. As Mathilde is too much of a Creole to bear the rigor of a New England climate they divide the year, spending the summer in Massachusetts and the winter in Virginia "with the old folks at home."
And year after year I have visited them there, and slept in the haunted chamber, but never, since the locks were mended, have I been troubled by an opening door, or a midnight ghost!
THE PRESENTIMENT.
CHAPTER I.
THE QUADROON.
Oh! yet we hope that, somehow, good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt and taints of blood.—Tennyson.
There was an account of an execution item that met my eyes in glancing over the columns of a newspaper. It made no more impression upon me at the time than such paragraphs make upon you or any of us. My glance slided over that to the next items, chronicling in order the success of a benevolent ball, the arrival of a popular singer, etc.; and I should have forgotten all about it had not the execution occurred near the plantation of a dear friend, with whom I was accustomed to pass a part of every year. From that friend I heard the story—a domestic tragedy, which, for its inspirations of pity and terror equaled any old Greek drama that I ever read. I know not if I can do anything like justice to the subject by giving the story in my own words.
Near the city of M——, on the A—— river, stood the plantation of Red Hill. It was one of the largest cotton plantations in the South, covering several square miles, but it was ill-cultivated and unprofitable.