“I wrote down your name, and where you lived, though why I did not know, and I forgot where I put it, but as if God really were helping me I found it in my old portfolio, and something bade me come, for you perhaps would know if it was true. It was sometime before I could fully decide to come, and in that time I hardly know how I lived, or where. George left me money, and sent more, but it’s most gone now. But I must not stay. I can take care of myself.
“What can you do?” Hugh asked, and Adah replied, sadly,
“I don’t know, but God will find me something. I never worked much, but I can learn, and I can already sew neatly, too; besides that, a few days before I decided to come here, I advertised in the Herald for some place as governess or ladies’ waiting-maid. Perhaps I’ll hear from that.”
“It’s hardly possible. Such advertisements are thick as blackberries,” Hugh said, and then in a few brief words, he marked out Adah’s future course.
George Hastings might or might not return to claim her, and whether he did or didn’t, she must live meantime, and where so well as at Spring Bank.
“I do not like women much,” he said, “but something makes me like you, pity, I reckon, and I’m going to take care of you until that scoundrel turns up; then, if you say so, I’ll surrender you to his care, or better yet, I’ll shoot him and keep you to myself. Not as a sweetheart, or anything of that kind,” he hastened to add, as he saw the flush on Adah’s cheek. “Hugh Worthington has nothing to do with that species of the animal kingdom, but as my sister Adah!” and as Hugh repeated that name, there arose in his great heart an undefinable wish that the gentle girl beside him had been his sister instead of the high tempered Adaline, who never tried to conciliate or understand him, and whom Hugh could not love as brothers should love sisters.
He knew how impatiently she was waiting now to know the result of that interview, and just how much opposition he should meet when he announced his intention of keeping Adah. But Hugh was master of Spring Bank; his will was all powerful, and not an entire world could move him when once he was determined. Still contention was not agreeable, and he oftentimes yielded a point rather than dispute. But this time he was firm. Without any intention of wronging Adah, he still felt as if in some way he had been instrumental to her ruin, and now when she came to him for help, he would not cast her off, though the keeping her would subject him to a multitude of unpleasant remarks, surmises and suspicions from the people of Glen’s Creek, to say nothing of his mother’s and ’Lina’s displeasure. Added to this was another objection, a serious one, which most men would have weighed carefully before deciding to burden themselves with two additional individuals. Though the owner of Spring Bank, Hugh was far from being rich, and many were the shifts and self denials he was obliged to make to meet the increased expense entailed upon him by his mother and sister. John Stanley had been accounted wealthy, but at his death there was nothing left, save a few acres of nearly worn out land, the old dilapidated house, and a dozen or more negroes. With good management this was amply sufficient to supply Hugh’s limited wants, and he was looking forward to a life of careless ease, when his mother from New England wrote, asking for a home. Hugh did not know then as well as he did now what it would cost to keep a young lady of his sister’s habits. He only knew that his home was far different from the New England one he remembered so well, but such as it was he would share it with his mother and sister, and so he had bidden them welcome, concealing from them as far as possible the trouble he oftentimes had to meet the increased demand for money which their presence brought. This to a certain extent was the secret of his patched boots, his threadbare coat and coarse pants, with which ’Lina so often taunted him, saying he wore them just to be stingy and mortify her, when in fact necessity rather than choice was the cause of his shabby appearance. He had never told her so, however, never said that the unfashionable coat so offensive to her fastidious vision was worn that she might be the better clothed and fed. Yet such was the case, and now he was deliberately adding to his already heavy burden. But Hugh was capable of great self sacrifices. He could manage somehow, and Adah should stay. He would say that she was a friend whom he had known in New York; that her husband had deserted her, and in her distress she had come to him for aid; for the rest he trusted that time and her own appearance would wear away any unpleasant impressions which her presence might create.
All this he explained to Adah, who assented tacitly thinking within herself that she should not long remain at Spring Bank, a dependant upon one on whom she had no claim. She was too weak now, however, to oppose him, and merely nodding to his suggestions laid her head upon the arm of the lounge with a low cry that she was sick and warm. Stepping to the door Hugh turned the key and summoning the group waiting anxiously in the adjoining room, bade them come at once, as Mrs. Hastings appeared to be fainting. Great emphasis he laid upon the Mrs. and catching it up at once ’Lina repeated, “Mrs. Hastings! So am I just as much.”
“Ad,” and the eyes which shone so softly on poor Adah flashed with gleams of fire as Hugh said to his sister, “not another word against that girl if you wish to remain here longer. She has been unfortunate.”
“I guessed as much,” sneeringly interrupted ’Lina.