“Dear Fan-and-Ann. Veni, vidi, vici. Brush up your Latin and translate, but make it third person, with she, instead of first. To be brief: I called at the Spotswood this evening, and looking over the register, as I often do, saw in your father’s handwriting ‘Dr. Samuel Hathern and wife, Lovering, Va.’ In a jiff I sent up my card, and in another jiff I was shaking hands with Mrs. Hathern, who received me as if I were her son, or brother, and nearly looked me through with those eyes of hers which see everything. Whether they are black or blue, white or gray, I can’t tell, but I think they are black. You can’t get away from them; they follow you like the eyes of some portraits I have seen,—my grandmother’s for instance, which hangs in our dining-room. I never could steal a lump of sugar or poke my thumb into the honey pot because she was always looking at me. Just so with Mrs. Hathern. She lights on you and holds you and seems to be going clear down to a fellow’s boots and reading his inmost thoughts. She is handsome and stylish and had on the best fitting dress I ever saw. Looked as if she were run into it. I’ve no doubt she is a blood relation of Miles Standish and all the other chaps who came over in the Mayflower. She is very dignified but not exactly like our Southern ladies. Maybe it is her voice, which is strong and full and decided, and would make you jump if you were doing anything bad. To-morrow I am to have the honor of driving with her around the town and showing her the nakedness of the land, and I assure you it is very naked. I could shed buckets full of tears over the ruins of our once fair city, but it’s no good crying for spilt milk. Better go to work and get some more. She wishes to go first to Libby Prison. Think of it! I a Reb, and she a Fed, hob-nobbing in that place. She must have forgotten herself when she said to me with so much concern in her voice, ‘I trust you were never so unfortunate as to be a prisoner there.’
“I think even Fan would have been pleased with my dignified manner as I replied, ‘Madam, I had the honor to wear the grey, and there was no possibility of my being a prisoner in Libby.’
“‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ she said, with a look which made me feel like a cut-throat and murderer, and as if I ought to have been in Libby, or some worse place, all my life.
“Then her eyes lighted up and a most wonderful smile broke out over her face, changing its expression entirely. I think that smile must have won your father. It made even me feel kind of so-so,—queer-like, you know. He seems very proud and fond of her. Calls her ‘Matty,’ and once when she thought I did not hear her she called him ‘Sam’!”
“Disgusting!” Fan exclaimed. “Sam! our father, Dr. Hathern! Sam, indeed! I knew she was vulgar, with all of her Standish blood. Sam! The idea!”
After this Fan had scarcely patience to finish the letter, which had but little more in it of the bride.
The next morning the young ladies were up betimes. As a rule they were not early risers, especially when their father was away. Nine and even ten o’clock sometimes found them in bed, while Phyllis kept their breakfast warm and made no signs of protest, unless there was a greater amount of work than usual and she was very tired. Then to herself she would call them onery and shiffless, and wonder what their poor mother would say if she knew how no-count they were, lyin’ bed hours after sun up. The morning after the receipt of the telegram, however, they were up with the sun and found Phyllis preparing the most appetizing breakfast she could think of, and occasionally wiping away a big tear before it dropped from her nose.
“De po’ lambs should have one more meal in peace before the missus come,” she said, as she served her cream toast and corn muffins and urged them to eat.
Katy was the only one who did justice to the muffins and toast. Fanny and Annie could only make a pretense of eating, and when breakfast was over Fanny said with a hysterical laugh, “I am going to the graves to tell mother and Charlie and the boy who is coming to-day. I don’t believe they know.”
A moment later she was walking rapidly across the field to the hillside cemetery, where she staid for a long time.