“I think it was there she was so very ill while still quite a little girl?”
“Yes; that was before my time, but when you visit us there, as I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you do next week, I will show you the room she occupied; no—I am forgetting that the house standing there then was afterward burned down; but it was rebuilt, that part of it being an exact reproduction of those rooms in the old house.”
“Burned down, did you say? How did that happen?”
“It was during the war,” he replied. “As I remember Roselands on my first sight of it, it was a most desolate place—only the ruins of a house there, the ground ploughed up by cannon, the grand old trees all cut down, the lawn changed to a muddy field, the gardens a desert, neither fences, hedgerows, nor shrubbery left, the fields overgrown with weeds—all the result of that dreadful civil war for which I now see there was no cause but the curse of slavery.
“But,” he continued, his voice taking on a more cheerful tone, “many years have passed since then; our dear Cousin Elsie furnished the necessary means for repairing damages so far as money could do it, the passing years have helped, and Roselands again deserves its name; in the eyes of its owners at least it is again a beautiful place, the fields are fertile and scarce anything is left that reminds us of its former desolation.”
“I am very glad indeed to hear that,” returned Mary, “and shall greatly enjoy seeing it in its renewed beauty. This place it would seem escaped better than Roselands?”
“Far better; indeed had, I believe, suffered only from some years of neglect. It was quite habitable; so uncle kindly gave us all shelter here for a time—that is, until Roselands was ready to receive us.”
“That was very kind,” responded Mary.
“It was indeed,” said Calhoun. “I cannot tell you how strongly I am attached to uncle, Aunt Rose, Cousin Elsie, and indeed the whole family.”
Just then a turn in the walk brought them face to face with another small party of young people—the Dinsmore girls, Rosie Travilla, Croly, Harold, and Herbert.