She took them and sat thinking a few moments silently.
"If I were a man, papa," she said at length, "I would try to learn business sense. It must be so respectable to live with one's mind able to help one's security and one's friends, and prepare for age or sickness while strong and healthy. Now, I think I will not let you burn these notes till you have paid the price of them! Please write a transfer of this house, servants, and your manor to me, Vesta——yes, Vesta Milburn!"
She blushed as she spoke for the first time her new-worn name.
"Alas!" sighed her father, "Vesta Custis no more. I begin to feel it. Well, Mrs. Milburn—I will give you the title—for what must I make over these old properties to you?"
"In consideration of my repayment of the sum of my mother's estate to you for her, for which you have given her no security whatever. It is not provided for by these notes. I have only Mr. Meshach Milburn's promise that he will pay her this money, risked and lost by you, father, I fear very heedlessly. Is it restitution, also, for Mr. Milburn to strip himself to pay your debts to mother?"
"No," said the Judge, guiltily, "that he pays on account of his passion for you. He may cheat you there."
"I do not believe it, because he has been faithful to me so many years before I knew he loved me. A man who keeps himself pure for a woman he has no vows to, will pay her father's debts of honor when he has promised."
Judge Custis found the issue quite too warm for his convenience, and blushing as much as Vesta, he sat down and drew up a conveyance of his property to Vesta Milburn, in her own right, and in consideration of twenty-five thousand dollars, paid to Mrs. Lucy Custis on account of judgment confessed to her by Daniel Custis.
"There, my dear," he said, passing it over, "what do you want with it? Are you not sure of a home here as long as you live, even with me as the proprietor?"
"No. The tragedy nearly finished here may be repeated, papa, and all of us be homeless if you can go in debt again. I shall not do that—not even for my husband, and here will stand Teackle Hall to protect you all from the cold if bad times ever come again."