It did seem to Isabel that there was something familiar about the writing, particularly in the formation of the capitals, but she suspected no fraud, and accepted the whole as coming from Sarah Green.
“This is some new acquaintance Marian picked up,” she thought. “The woman speaks of having known her but a short time. Probably she left Mrs. Daniel Burt and stumbled upon Sarah Green,” and with an exultant smile upon her beautiful face, she put the letter down, and laying her hand very lightly on Frederic’s shoulder, said, “I am sorry for you, Frederic, though it is better, of course, to know just what did become of the poor girl.”
Frederic could not tell why it was that Isabel’s words of sympathy grated harshly on his ear. He only knew that they did, and he was glad when she left him alone, telling him she should not, of course, attend the party, and saying in reply to his question as to what ailed her ear, that Luce, who was curling her hair, carelessly burned it.
“By the way,” she continued, “when I felt the hot iron, I jumped and throwing out my hand accidentally hit Alice on her head, and, if you’ll believe me, the sensitive child thinks I intended it, and has almost cried herself sick.”
This falsehood she deemed necessary, in case the truth of the matter should ever reach Frederic through another channel, and feeling confident that she was safe in every respect, and that the prize she so much coveted was nearly won, she left him and sought her mother’s chamber.
In the kitchen, the news of Marian’s certain death was received with noisy demonstrations—old Dinah and Hetty trying hard to outdo each other, and see which should shed the most and the biggest tears. The woollen aprons of both were brought into constant requisition, while Hetty rang so many changes upon the virtues of the departed that Uncle Phil became disgusted, and said “for his part he’d hearn enough ’bout dead folks. He liked Miss Marian as well as anybody, but he did up his mournin’ them times that he wet hisself to the skin a tryin’ to fish her out of the river. He thought his heart would bust then, though he knew all the time she wasn’t thar, and he told ’em so, too. He knew she’d run away to New York, and he allus s’posed they’d hear she died summers at the South. He wan’t disappointed. He could tell by his feelin’s when anything was gwine to happen, and for more’n a week back he’d had it on his mind that Miss Marian was dead—they couldn’t fool him!” and satisfied that he had impressed his audience with a sense of his foreknowledge, Uncle Phil pulled off his boots and started for bed, leaving Dinah and Hetty to discuss the matter at their leisure and speculate upon the probable result.
“I can tell you,” said Dinah, “it won’t be no time at all afore Marster’ll be settin’ to that Isabel, and if he does, I ‘clar for’t I’ll run away, or hire out, see if I don’t. I ain’t a goin’ to be sassed by none of yer low flung truck and hev ’em carryin’ the keys. She may jest go back whar she come from, and I’ll tell her so, too. I’ll gin her a piece of my mind.”
“She is gwine back,” suggested Hetty, who, faithful to the memory of Miss Beatrice, admired Isabel on account of a fancied resemblance between the two. “Don’t you mind how Marster is a gwine to move up to somewhar?”
“That’s nothin’,” returned Dinah. “They’ll come back in the Fall, but I shan’t be here. I’ll hire myself out, and you kin be the head a spell.”
This prospect was not an unpleasant one to Hetty, who looked with a jealous eye upon Dinah’s rather superior position, and as a sure means of attaining the object of her ambition and becoming in turn the favorite, she warmly espoused the cause of Isabel, and waged many a battle of words with Dinah, who took no pains to conceal her dislike. Thus two or three weeks went by, and as nothing occurred to cause Dinah immediate alarm, her fears gradually subsided, until at last she forgot them altogether, while even Marian ceased to be a daily subject of conversation.