"This obstinate young lady is about to deprive us of the honour of her company. She is going back to Staunton to-morrow."
"To the Lunatic Hospital?" inquired Arthur, putting aside his book. "You are not in earnest, Ida? Are you tired of us; or do you dislike our sketched route? If the last, we will alter it."
"And if the first, we will alter ourselves," interposed Carry, laughingly.
"I would have you and your plans remain as they are. I am not well, and require rest—not change. My desire to see old Sunnybank is not a caprice, as Carry supposes; I have had it in contemplation for a long time. Mr. Read deterred me from it by representations of the discomfort I would encounter; the only white man left on the plantation being the overseer. This summer he has been removed, and his place given to a former tenant of mother's; a man of family; and the accommodations, which serve for them, will keep me from hardship."
"She is sick," said Carry, when Ida retired. "She has not been herself lately. Were it not that she is used to dissipation, I should think that the round of parties, after our wedding, overtasked her strength. Yet, she enjoyed them."
"Her malady may be of the mind," said Dr. Dana, thoughtfully. "Do you consider this probable?"
"Oh, no! she was well and happy when she came to us; and what can have occurred since to affect her?"
"You are right, I dare say;" returned he, absently. He was pondering upon her behaviour after Charley's departure.
Argument did not dissuade, and conjecture was baffled in the effort to explain this unexpected movement. They parted in Lexington—Ida to recross the mountains eastward; they, to travel north by way of Harper's Ferry.
If there is an enjoyment, which is purely of the intellect, its usurpation is man's high prerogative; the sticklers for woman's "equal rights" will never establish her title to it. The mind masculine may be nourished and exercised, and attain its full size, while the heart is dwarfed and sickly;—as with twin children, one sometimes grows to man's stature, healthy and strong; and the other pines and dies in childhood. In woman, intellect and the affections are united from their birth;—like the Siamese brothers, one refuses food, which is denied its companion; and who dare peril the life of both by severing the ligament which joins them?