“Hark! I do believe he’s coming,” said Ada, as she heard approaching footsteps, and she had just time to adjust her skirts gracefully when there stood before her, not Mr. Delafield, but the servant to whom had been intrusted the note for Mrs. Lansing.
This the negro had entirely forgotten until it was recalled to his mind by the continued absence of his master, whose return they had confidently expected before night. Taking the note from his hand, Mrs. Lansing hastily glanced at its contents, and then, with an exclamation of surprise, handed it to Ada, who turned deathly pale as she saw her new-born hopes crushed at once and forever; and if now she clasped her hand upon her side, the action was not feigned, for a pain, which blistering could not heal, was indeed there—the pain of wounded pride at seeing a humble, obscure girl preferred to herself. For several minutes not a word was spoken, and then Mrs. Lansing, who knew it would not be politic to quarrel with her brother, said, “I am astonished at Richard’s proceedings, but I suppose there is no help for it, and we may as well make the best of it. Miss Lee ain’t the worst girl in the world. She had many friends in the village—was well educated, and with a few lessons from us on some points of etiquette she may do very well.”
“Us,” angrily retorted Ada. “When I teach Dick Delafield’s wife etiquette I shall be older than I am now.”
“And that you would not care to be;” said Mrs. Lansing, a little sarcastically.
She was a woman, who, if essential to her own interest, could turn with every breeze, and though she was not pleased with her brother’s choice, she did not deem it advisable to provoke his anger by quarrelling about it, for when once roused, but few could cope with his resolute, determined spirit. Then, too, Rosa Lee was yielding and generous, and would not object even if her husband should bestow half his fortune upon his sister; so after all it might be better to have her the mistress of Sunny Bank than one like Ada, who was more selfish and wanted everything for herself. Thus Mrs. Lansing reasoned, coming at last to feel quite amiably disposed towards Rosa Lee, whom she fully intended to manage in her own way, and she was about making up her mind to write a kind, sisterly letter to said Rosa, when her attention was attracted by a loud sobbing, and looking round she saw Ada weeping violently.
As well as she could love any one, Ada had loved her guardian, and the knowledge that he was now lost to her, overcame her for a time, and covering her face with her hands, she cried aloud. Mrs. Lansing had never really loved in her life, so she could not appreciate the feeling, and she made no effort to soothe the weeping girl who that night wet her pillow with bitter tears, and who next morning looked weary, pale and old, as she languidly took her seat at the breakfast table. Still Ada was not one to love very deeply, and as on this occasion her pride was touched rather than her heart, she ere long grew calm, and with Mrs. Lansing wisely resolved to make the best of it. Then, too, there arose the very natural desire to conceal from Richard that she had ever cared for him, and to do this she thought she must pretend to be pleased with his choice. Accordingly when Mrs. Lansing wrote to her brother, Ada inclosed a gilt-edged note, in which she congratulated him upon his intended marriage, telling him she had foreseen it from the first, and ended by sending her love to “Rose.” Thus, because she thought it would be for her interest, did Mrs. Lansing deem it best to change her tactics, while Ada was too proud to evince any open hostility, though in her heart she hated the future bride and lamented the fatality which had decreed that she should be rivalled by “both of those Lee girls.”
CHAPTER XXX.
“THE SOUTHERN PLANTER’S NORTHERN BRIDE.”
Over the New England hills the hazy light of a most glorious Indian Summer was shining, while the forest trees, in their gorgeous array of crimson and gold, lifted their tall heads as proudly as if they heard not in the distance the voice of coming sorrows, and the sighing of winter winds. The birds had flown to their southern home where I fondly hoped to meet them, for I was to be a bride—Richard’s bride—and the day for my bridal had come. We had been everywhere—Richard and I—all over the old Meadow Brook farm, sacred to me for the many hallowed associations which clustered around it, and very, very dear to him because it was my childhood’s home. So he told me when we stood for the last time beneath the spreading grape-vine, and I pointed out to him the place where years before I had lain in the long green grass and wept over the fickleness of one who was naught to me now, save a near friend.
Together we had sat in the old brown schoolhouse,—he in the big arm chair, and I—but no matter where I sat when I told him of the little romping girl with yellow hair, who had there first learned to con the alphabet and to trace on the gaily colored maps the boundary lines of Georgia, little dreaming that her home would one day be there. Then when I showed him the bench where I had lain when the faintness came over me, he wound his arm closer around me,—though wherefore I do not know. Together too, we had gone over the old farmhouse, he lingering longest in the room where I was born, and when he thought I didn’t see him, gathering a withered leaf from the rose bush which grew beneath the window, and which I told him I had planted when a little girl.
Every woman, young and old, in the neighborhood and in the village had seen him, either face to face or from behind the folds of a muslin curtain, some calling him “black and ugly,” while others pronounced him “splendid,” and all I believe united in saying that, “Rosa Lee had done wonders, considering she had no great amount of beauty to do it with!”