"There, now, that's Anne Clayton! It's just like you, sister, and I couldn't say anything better than that. You have unburdened your conscience, you have done all you can for me, and now very properly yield to the inevitation. Nina, I know, will love you; and, if you never try to advise her and influence her, you will influence her very much. Good people are a long while learning that, Anne. They think to do good to others, by interfering and advising. They don't know that all they have to do is to live. When I first knew Nina, I was silly enough to try my hand that way, myself; but I've learned better. Now, when Nina comes to us, all that you and mamma have got to do is just to be kind to her, and live as you always have lived; and whatever needs to be altered in her, she will alter herself."
"Well," said Anne, "I wish, as it is so, that I could see her."
"Suppose you write a few lines to her in this letter that I am going to write; and then that will lead in due time to a visit."
"Anything in the world, Edward, that you say."
CHAPTER IV. THE GORDON FAMILY.
A week or two had passed over the head of Nina Gordon since she was first introduced to our readers, and during this time she had become familiar with the details of her home life. Nominally, she stood at the head of her plantation, as mistress and queen in her own right of all, both in doors and out; but, really, she found herself, by her own youth and inexperience, her ignorance of practical details, very much in the hands of those she professed to govern.
The duties of a southern housekeeper, on a plantation, are onerous beyond any amount of northern conception. Every article wanted for daily consumption must be kept under lock and key, and doled out as need arises. For the most part, the servants are only grown-up children, without consideration, forethought, or self-control, quarrelling with each other, and divided into parties and factions, hopeless of any reasonable control. Every article of wear, for some hundreds of people, must be thought of, purchased, cut and made, under the direction of the mistress; and add to this the care of young children, whose childish mothers are totally unfit to govern or care for them, and we have some slight idea of what devolves on southern housekeepers.
Our reader has seen what Nina was on her return from New York, and can easily imagine that she had no idea of embracing, in good earnest, the hard duties of such a life.