“You knew how proud my mother and sisters are, and it would surprise you to see them pet, and spoil, and fondle Willie, who rules the entire household; mother even allowing him to bring wheel-barrow, drum, and trumpet into the parlor, declaring that she likes the noise, as it stirs up her blood. Willie has made a vast change in our once quiet home, and I fear I shall meet with much opposition when I take him away, as I expect to do next month, for Lily gave him to me, and brother John has said that I may have him until the mother is found, while Charlie is perfectly willing; and thus, you see, my cup of joy is full.
“Brother is away now, searching for Adah, and I am wicked enough not to miss him, so busy am I in the few preparations needed by the wife of a poor missionary.”
Then, in a postscript, Anna added: “I forgot to tell you that Charlie and I are to be married some time in July, that the Presbyterian Society of Snowdon have given him a call to be their pastor, that he has accepted, and what is best of all, has actually rented your old home for us to live in. Oh, I am so happy; I do not feel like an old maid of thirty-three, and Charlie flatters me by saying I have certainly gone back in looks to twenty. Perhaps I have, but it all comes of happiness and a heart full of thankfulness to our good Father who has so greatly blessed me.”
With a smile, Alice finished the childlike letter, so much like Anna. Then feeling that Mrs. Worthington would be glad to hear from Willie, she went in quest of her, finding her at the end of the long piazza, listening while Hugh read the sympathetic letter received from Irving Stanley.
From the doctor, whom he accidentally met on Broadway, Irving had heard of ’Lina’s death, and he wrote at once to Mrs. Worthington, expressing his sympathy for her own and Hugh’s bereavement; thus showing that the Dr. had only told him a part of the sad story, withholding all that concerned Adah, who was evidently a stranger to Irving Stanley. His sister, Mrs. Ellsworth, was well, he wrote, though very busy with her preparations for going to Europe, whither he intended accompanying her, adding “it was not so much pleasure which was taking her there, as the hope that by some of the Paris physicians her little deformed Jennie might be benefitted. She had secured a gem of a governess for her daughter, a young lady whom he had not yet seen, but over whose beauty and accomplishments his staid sister Carrie had really waxed eloquent.” The letter closed by asking if Hugh were still at home or had he joined the army.
“Oh-h,” and Alice’s cheek grew pale at the very idea of Hugh’s putting himself in so much danger, for Hugh was very dear to her now. His noble, unselfish devotion to ’Lina had finished the work begun on that memorable night when she had said to him, “I may learn to love you,” and more than once as she watched with him by ’Lina’s bedside, she had been tempted to wind her arm around his neck and whisper in his ear,
“Hugh, I love you now, I will be your wife.”
But propriety had held her back and made her far more reserved towards him than she had ever been before. Terribly jealous where she was concerned, Hugh was quick to notice the change, and the gloomy shadow on his face was not caused wholly by ’Lina’s sad death, as many had supposed. Hugh was very unhappy. Instead of learning to love him, as he had sometimes hoped she might, Alice had come to dislike him, shunning his society, and always making some pretense to get away if by chance they were left alone, or if compelled to talk with him, chatting rapidly on the most indifferent topics. She never would love him, Hugh thought, and feeling that the sooner he left home the better, he had decided to start at once in quest of Adah. This decision he had not yet communicated to his mother, but as the closing of Irving Stanley’s letter seemed to open the way, he rather abruptly announced his intention of going immediately to New York. He did not however add that failing to find his sister, he might possibly join the Federal Army.
Ever since he had had time to think clearly upon the subject then agitating the public mind, Hugh had felt an intense desire to enroll himself with the patriotic men who would not sit idly down while their country was laying her dishonored head low in the dust. A Unionist to the heart’s core, he had already won some notoriety by his bitter denunciations against those men who, with Harney at their head, were advocating secession from the union. But his first duty was to Adah, and so he only talked of her and the probabilities of his finding her. He should start to-morrow, if possible, he said. He had made his arrangements to do so, and there was no longer an excuse for tarrying. They would get on well enough without him; they would not miss him much, and he stole a glance at Alice, who, fearful lest she might betray herself, framed some excuse for leaving her seat upon the piazza, and stole up to her room where she could be alone, to think how desolate Spring Bank would be when Hugh was really gone.
Once she thought to tell him all, thinking that a perfect understanding would make her so much happier while he was away, but maidenly modesty kept her back, and so the words which would have brought so much comfort to Hugh were to the last unspoken. Gentler, kinder, tenderer than a sister’s could have been, was her demeanor towards him during the whole of the next day, the last he spent at home. Once, emboldened by something she said, Hugh felt half tempted to sue again for the love so coveted, but depreciation of himself kept him silent, and when at last they parted, his manner towards her was so constrained and cold that even Mrs. Worthington observed it, wondering what had come between them. She wanted Alice to think well of Hugh, and by way of obliterating any unpleasant impression he might have left in her mind, she spent the morning after his departure in talking of him, telling how kind he had always been to her, and how kind he was to every body. Many acts were enumerated by the fond mother as proofs of his unselfishness, and among others she spoke of his heroic conduct years ago, when with his uncle he was on Lake Erie and the boat took fire. Had she never told Alice?