Ida's route was through the garden-spot of our State—the magnificent Valley, with its heaven-bathed, impregnable eyries, among which our country's Father selected a resting-place for Freedom's standard—America's Thermopylæ, should the invader's power drive him from every other hold;—where one may travel for days, encircled by the Briarean arms, the sister ridges stretch, in amity, towards each other—each rolling its streams and clouds down to the verdant plains between;—where morning and evening, the sun marshals his crimson and gold-colored array upon the purple heights, which are coeval with him and Time; and flings shadows and hues athwart them, in his day's march, he never vouchsafes to Lowland countries;—and this region was traversed with not a thought beyond a feverish wish to be at her journey's end and rest. She stopped in Richmond but one night. Mr. Read and his daughter were out of town, and she went to a hotel. At dawn she was upon the road, with no attendant but the driver of her hack. Rachel had gone to Sunnybank a month before, to see her relations, little expecting her mistress to come for her. Ida's spirits and health declined alarmingly, now that the necessity of eluding suspicion was over. She had never been sick a day in her life; but she began to feel that mental ills may be aggravated by bodily disease. The unnatural tension had been maintained too long. When Sunnybank appeared, she was unable to raise her head to look at it. The negroes flocked out at the phenomenon of a travelling carriage in the disused avenue; and loud were their astonishment and compassion, as they recognised its occupant.
"I have come home to die, mother," said she, as they lifted her out, and fainted in their arms. In the midst of their consternation, the family pride of the faithful underlings was stubborn. "Their young mistress should not be carried to the overseer's;" and Aunt Judy, the keeper of the keys, hurried off to unlock the house doors. Ida had a cloudy remembrance of awakening in her mother's chamber, and of a gleaming fancy, that she was once more a child, aroused from a horrid, horrid dream, then her senses forsook her, and there was a wide hiatus in memory. It was night when she awoke again; she was in the same room;—a fire burned in the chimney, and cast fantastic shapes upon the ceiling. Crouched in the corner of the fire-place, was a dusky figure, whose audible breathing sounded loudly through the apartment. Her slumbers were not very profound, however, for she sprang up at the feeble call—"Rachel!"
"Miss Ida! honey! what do you want?"
"How long have I slept? my head feels so strange!"
"That's because you've been sick, honey."
"What is the matter with me?"
"Fever, dear—you caught it in them dreadful mountains, and have been laid up for four weeks. But you'll git well, now—you were out of your head 'most all the time—and the doctor says you mustn't talk."
Ida desisted, too weak to disobey. With vague curiosity, she followed her with her eyes, as she smoothed the counterpane, pushed up the bed on one side, and patted it down on the other; then she put the "chunks" together upon the hearth, and there was the clinking of spoons and glasses at a table.
"Here's your drink, Miss Ida," she said, lifting her head with a care that proved her a practised nurse. It was cool and palatable, and the heavy lids sank in natural slumber.