"Then why will you doubt that another woman--and she your own sister--may love as well, or that the man she intrusts her future to, may be as well able as you were to take care of it? Mr. Selby has a great many pupils, and can very well maintain a wife."
"A wife, I dare say, but not my sister. It is true my property which I intend you to have is far more than Jeanne had when she married me; but I was able to take care of her and of what she had, and the property throve in my hands. An organist is different. What could such as he do with a gang of unruly niggers? It needs a clear business head and a strong arm to make plantation property pay."
"He does not aspire to your property, Gerald. He does not know of it, and with his feelings I am not sure that he would consent to become a slave-owner."
"Not consent, eh? Never fear. His consent will not be asked, for mine shall never be given to his owning my negroes. Slave-owning forsooth! No. Let him manage his chest of whistles. I have no right and no wish to dictate to you, though I would dearly like to see you marry Considine; but at least I can make sure, and I will, that your insidious organ-grinder shall never benefit a cent by my money, I promise you that, and I shall alter my will accordingly."
CHAPTER III.
[LITTLE ARCADIA].
Four years later, and summer once more. Again it is in a suburban garden, not a very extensive one, but nicety kept; inclosed by tall trees and dense shrubbery on every side, and disclosing nothing of what may stand beyond, but here and there the corner of a chimney intruding its morsel of red amongst the sunny green of the tree-tops, and the golden cross on the neighbouring steeple soaring over all, and shining down its benediction on the peace below.
The grass is as short, soft, and green as constant mowing and sprinkling and warmth can make it. The flower-beds are masses of brilliant colour, and in the centre stands the house, a tin-roofed wooden cottage painted in the whitest white, relieved by vividly green Venetians; a broad verandah round the whole, windows descending to the floor, and above, small casements peering out through the shining tin, each with its Venetian thrown open to admit the breeze which comes up at the decline of day. The effect is cool, and home-like, notwithstanding the keenness of the colours, and quite other than that of the raw-toned packing-boxes in which so many an American is condemned to pass the night, and from which he is in so great a hurry to escape in the morning. It may be merely a peculiarity in the pitch of a French Canadian roof, or it may be some spiritual association which lingers about the work of these first settlers and oldest inhabitants; but there is a personality, permanence, and history about the newest and frailest of their structures which is wanting in the buildings of their English speaking neighbours, even when they give permanence to vulgar commonplace by embodying it in brick or stone.
The pillars of the verandah are garlanded with roses--pink, crimson, white, and creamy yellow--blooming profusely, but, to judge from the ruin of shed petals scattered on the ground, soon to cease. Already, however, clematis--white, purple, blue--has begun to appear and will be ready to catch up the song of the roses, though in a minor key, so soon as their colour harmonies shall fade out. Butterflies are fluttering in the scented air, and a humming bird flits here and there where the flowers are thickest.
In a garden seat is Mary--no longer Herkimer, but Selby, now--and at her feet is a child, something more than a year old, who rolls and kicks upon the grass, crowing and babbling the while in a language which only mothers understand. Mary looks no older than she did in her brother's sick-room; fresher, perhaps, and fuller of harmonious life, as well may happen where the desires were reasonable and are all fulfilled. She is mistress of her own life, and of his in whom she trusts, as well as of that other at her feet, in whom his and hers are united and bloom anew; and as for the life, she would not wish it to be other than it is, even if it were in her power to change it. She is at work upon some small matter of muslin and lace which busies her fingers, while it leaves her thoughts free to wander; and their wanderings are among pleasant places, to judge by her smile and the big full breath of utter content.