Towards the middle of August, invitations came for us to attend a large wedding in Charleston. I was exceedingly anxious to go, having heard much of the bride, who was a distant relative of my husband, and though both he and Mrs. Lansing raised every conceivable objection to my leaving home, I adroitly put aside all their arguments, and ere Richard fully realized that he had been coaxed into doing something he had fully determined not to do, we were rattling along in a dusty Charleston omnibus towards one of the largest hotels, where rooms had been engaged for us. The morning after our arrival, I went into the public parlor, and as I seated myself at the piano I saw just across the room, near an open window, a quiet, intelligent-looking lady, apparently twenty-six or twenty-seven years of age, and near her sporting upon the carpet, was a beautiful little girl, with flowing curls and soft dark eyes, which instantly riveted my attention, they were so like something I had seen before.
At the sound of the music she came to my side, listening attentively, and when I had finished, she laid one white, chubby hand on my lap and the other on the keys, saying, “please play again, Rose like to hear you.”
“And so your name is Rose?” I answered, “Rose what?”
“Rosa Lee Clayton, and that’s my new ma,” she replied, pointing towards the lady, whose usually pale cheek was for an instant suffused with a blush such as brides only wear.
I knew now why I had felt interested in the child. It was the father which I saw looking at me through the eyes of brown, and taking the little creature in my arms, I was about to question her of her sire, when an increasing glow on the lady’s cheek and a footstep in the hall told me he was coming!
The next moment he stood before me, Dr. Clayton! his face perfectly unruffled and wearing an expression of content, at least, if not perfect happiness. I was conscious of a faintness stealing over me, but by a strong effort I shook it off, and rising to my feet, I offered him my hand, which he pressed, saying, “This is indeed a surprise, Rose—I beg your pardon, Mrs. Delafield, I suppose?”
I nodded in the affirmative, and was about to say something more, when another footstep approached, and my husband’s tall figure darkened the doorway. For an instant they both turned pale, and Dr. Clayton grasped the piano nervously; but the shock soon passed away, and then as friend meets friend after a brief separation, so met these two men, who but the year before had watched together over my pillow, praying, the one that I might live, and the other that I might die.
Wonderingly the little girl looked up into her father’s face, and pulling the skirt of my dress, said, “Who is the lady, pa? with the pretty curls so much like mine?”
Never before, I believe, did I like Dr. Clayton as I did at that moment when I saw the deep tenderness which broke over his features as he took his daughter in his arms, and pressing his lips to her forehead, answered, “It is Rosa Lee, my child, the lady for whom you were named.”
“Don’t you love her, pa? I do,” she asked, stretching her little fat arms towards me.