“My father was called the richest man in the county, and I was his only child.”
“Ah, yes, come to you that way,” answered Ben, continuing after a moment. “There’s a big house up on the Hudson—to Yonkers—that’s been shet up and rented at odd spells for a good while, and somebody told me it belonged to a Colonel Raymond, who lived South. Mabby that’s yourn?”
“It is,” returned Frederic, “and I expect now to go there in the Fall.”
“I want to know. I shouldn’t s’pose you could be hired to leave this place.”
“I couldn’t be hired to stay. There are too many sad memories connected with it,” was Frederic’s answer, and he paced the floor hurriedly, while Ben continued: “Mabby you’ll be takin’ a new wife there?”
Frederic’s cheek flushed as he replied:
“If I ever marry again, it will not be in years. Would you like to go to bed, sir?”
Ben took the hint and replying, “I don’t care if I dew,” followed the negro, who came at Frederic’s call, up to his room, a pleasant, comfortable chamber, overlooking the river and the surrounding country.
“Golly, this is grand!” said Ben, examining the different articles of furniture, as if he had never seen anything like it before.
The negro, who was Lyd’s husband, made no reply, but, hurrying down stairs to his mother-in-law, he told her, “Thar was somethin’ mighty queer about that man, and if they all found themselves alive in the mornin,’ he should be thankful.”