“Give her my love,” he said, “and tell her not to feel too badly. I’d like well enough to marry her, too, but under the present laws a man can’t have two wives, unless he joins the Mormons. Maybe I shall do that sometime, and then I’ll remember her!”
Of his mother he wrote differently, and though there was no cringing, no acknowledgment of wrong, he spoke of her kindly and respectfully, saying, “he hoped she would love his Anna for his sake.”
Of course I could not tell Ada what he said of her, neither was it necessary, for guessing the truth from my face, she came up softly behind me, and looking over my shoulder, read every word until she came to the message intended for her. Then stamping her little foot, she exclaimed passionately, “The villain, to insult me thus! As if I, sprung from the best blood in Georgia, would stoop to become a rival of that low-born country girl. No! By this act Herbert Langley has shown that he is all unworthy of me, and I rejoice in my escape, while I give him much joy with his highly refined and polished bride.”
All my Lee temper, which is considerable, was roused, and turning towards the lady, I exclaimed, “My sister, Miss Montrose, is as good as you, aye, or as Herbert Langley either, and the news of her marriage with him will carry sorrow to our home at Meadow Brook, where they will say she has literally thrown herself away.”
“Very likely,” returned Ada, sarcastically. “It is quite probable that a poor laborer will object to his daughter’s marrying into one of the first families in Boston.”
“He isn’t a poor laborer,” I replied, “and even if he were, he would object to his daughter’s marrying a drunkard, for such Herbert Langley has been and such he will be again.”
A deep groan came from the white lips of my aunt, and for the first time since Ada’s outbreak, I remembered that she was there. She did not reprove me angrily, but in trembling tones she said, “Rose, Herbert is my child, my boy, and it becomes not a girl of your age to speak thus of him in the presence of his mother.”
I was humbled, and winding my arms about her neck, I asked forgiveness for the harsh words I had spoken; and she forgave me, for she meant to do right, and if sometimes she erred, it was owing more to a weakness of the flesh than an unwillingness of the spirit. In the midst of our excitement Tom Wilson was ushered in. He had returned in the same train which brought the letter, and had come to give us any further information which we might be desirous of knowing.
“When will Herbert come home?” was my aunt’s first question, her whole manner indicating how much interest she felt in the answer.
“Not very soon,” returned Tom. “He is tired of the city, he says, and besides that he wishes to avoid the unpleasant remarks his elopement will necessarily occasion.”