"The fiduciary obligations imposed on me by the death of my friend Mr. Heath, are very great—very great indeed, and onerous (with a sigh). Still it is a duty I must perform; a sacred trust and burden I must accept. We must all bow to the decrees of Providence;" and Mr. Mumbie, to console himself, cast up mentally the fees the executorship was likely to bring him, which completed and perfected his reconcilement to the decrees of Providence.
To do him justice, he was a faithful guardian and trustee; and as for his wife, she outdid herself in motherly solicitude for the young heiress, whom she immediately took under her protecting wing.
Edna, Mrs. Mumbie insisted, must come and live with her. She must be removed at once from the painful associations connected with her old home, as Mrs. Applegate had very wisely advised, and her guardian's family was the place for her. Edna complied, and the Mumbies treated her like a favorite child. The best room in the house was allotted to her, and nothing was considered too good for dear Edna. So the stately dwelling of the late Mr. Heath was abandoned, and given over to the care of the gardener, as Mrs. Applegate, who had been handsomely provided for in her brother's will, departed to take up her residence in Philadelphia with an aged relative.
Mrs. Mumbie had ulterior views in regard to Edna. The desirableness of securing that young lady as a helpmeet for her son Bob, had not escaped the attention of this sagacious and good mother, and she decided to bring it about. Let us add, too, that whatever Mrs. Mumbie determined to do she generally accomplished, as her husband had discovered at the outset of his connubial life. Mr. Mumbie had a very high opinion of his spouse's ability, and no little dread of her temper. She came of one of the very first of the celebrated first-families of Virginia, the Skinners, and was connected, moreover, on her mother's side with the Yallabushas of Mississippi. Everybody had heard of her father, Colonel Roger Skinner, of Pokomoke, one of the first poker-players of his day, whose true Southern hospitality and peach-brandy were the themes of universal commendation. Mumbie met the fascinating Miss Sallie Skinner first at Saratoga, where he at once succumbed to the potent bewitchment of her raven hair and brilliant eyes. He ventured, after many misgivings, to propose, and was accepted, much to his surprise and delight, as he had hardly dared to hope that such a divinity would link herself with an ordinary mortal. Other people, who had heard the vivacious belle ridicule poor Mumbie's large ears and amorphous feet, marvelled too; but the truth was she had accepted him in a fit of spite at some recreant lover's desertion. Of course the marriage was considered a mésalliance in the aristocratic circles of Pokomoke, and the bride's relatives for a while treated the paper-maker rather contemptuously, but as poker and peach-brandy had seriously impaired the substance of the Skinner family, they gradually became reconciled to the match, and condescended to accept largess from the wealthy manufacturer. Mr. Mumbie had a heart corresponding in size to his ears and feet, and proved a perfect dove and treasure of a husband. Malicious tongues said he dared not be otherwise, for the first and only time he attempted to cross his wife, she simply flung herself on the carpet, and beat a tattoo with her heels, screeching terribly the while, until Mumbie, frightened and subjected, promised anything and everything to avoid a repetition of the scene. This, to be sure, was in the early period of their union. Now Mr. Mumbie, through long servitude, was so thoroughly broken to harness and under control, and Mrs. Mumbie had gained such undisputed and serene ascendancy, that stratagems were unnecessary, and she ruled through superior force of character.
This was the energetic and ingenious lady who determined to direct the destiny of her husband's ward, and relieve her from the trouble and difficulty of selecting a husband. To gain her ends, she surrounded Edna with every attention, and was more than a mother to her in fact, pending the time when she would be one in law. The young heiress began to find herself installed as a being of immense importance, and was much surprised at the vast amount of consideration shown to her by her elders. She was shrewd enough to suspect that much of it was due to her wealth, and despised it accordingly; for there was too much good sense in the girl, and her character was too frank and independent to yield readily to the pernicious influence of parasitism.
The correspondence which had been kept up with regularity between Edna and her soldier-lover was interrupted by the death of her father, Mark's intuitive delicacy forbidding him for a time from intruding on the grief of a mourning daughter, further than in sending a formal letter of condolence. It must be admitted, too, that Edna in her grief had but few thoughts to bestow on the suitor who was serving another mistress in the swamps of the Chickahominy. At length, to make amends for her negligence, she wrote him a long epistle, the superscription of which happened to meet Miss Ada Mumbie's eye. Notwithstanding the intimacy existing between the two young ladies, and contrary to the usual custom in such cases, Miss Heath had never confided her tender regard for Mark Gildersleeve to her friend Miss Mumbie. The latter, anxious to know if any such feeling existed, taxed Edna with it, and affected pique at her want of confidence. That young lady at once, with a blush, admitted the soft impeachment. Ada Mumbie was an outspoken young lady, and took after her mamma in respect to having an opinion of her own. She raised her eyebrows very significantly at Edna's confession, saying: "Why—Ed-na Heath, the i-dea! I declare, I am surprised beyond anything. I never would have thought it. He may be a very industrious, excellent young man, but so very much your inferior in every way. Why, he's not even a person you could flirt with, much less correspond. His brother is an exceedingly common man—exceedingly so. Why, what can you be thinking of?"
Edna, nettled at this, bridled up and answered, "I don't know what you mean by so much my inferior. He's far cleverer than I am, or you either, Ada. He's very refined and polite and gentlemanly, I'm sure; and just as good as gold."
"Mercy on us, Edna! I declare I didn't know you were so very much interested in him, or I wouldn't have ventured to say a word. To be sure, my acquaintance with the gentleman is so very slight that I am hardly competent to judge of him. I expressed myself as I did solely out of friendship for you. You know very well that the position you occupy in society, and your large fortune—"
"Ada, you might have spared me that last remark," interrupted Edna in a vexed tone. "I hear so much about my fortune—my wealth, that I detest the very mention of it. Oblige me, please, by never again alluding to it in my presence."