As though one bade the birds cease singing. And Virginia bowed her head and obeyed.
We had our youthful sinners, of course, who wickedly refused to be content with Blind Man’s Buff and Who’s Got the Thimble? (just as His Holiness is bothered with his heretics). The Pope, however, wisely remembering that this is the nineteenth century, would probably leave it to the astronomers to say whether the earth revolves around its axis; but as to the exclusively physiological question whether it were injurious to dance a Virginia reel, no Virginian of those days ever dreamed of consulting his family physician.
Am I beyond the mark, reader, when I say that the papal infallibility pales in presence of the parsonic?
Can you wonder, then, that our poor little Mary was pale as ashes as she hurried home that day?
Her mother walked beside her in silence. That was bitter; for during these two months past Mrs. Rolfe had been more and more won over to the side of the Don by what she had heard, not only from Mrs. Carter and Alice, but from several of her acquaintance who had met him in Leicester during the winter; and the aggregate of her favorable impressions had been greatly strengthened by a little incident that had recently come to her ears.
It appears that Mrs. Poythress had been greatly interested in having a new roof and other repairs put upon the old church, and had succeeded in raising the whole amount, with the exception of eighty dollars. Now, one Sunday, as she was coming out of church with the congregation, a negro man, taking off his hat, handed her a small parcel, saying, “I were inquested to han’ you dis, ma’am,” and immediately bowed himself around the corner of the building and disappeared. When this was opened it was found to contain five twenty-dollar gold-pieces and a strip of paper on which was written the word roof in a disguised hand. The incident made some stir, as such things will, in a country neighborhood. Who was this, who was hiding from his left hand what his right hand did? The negro was hunted down by amateur female detectives, and proved to be none other than our friend Sam (who, it will be remembered, caught Charley and Alice at their love-making in the Argo). But nothing could be gotten out of honest Sam. “I was not to name no names,”—that was all he would say (adding thereunto, in the Elmington kitchen that night, that eff a five-dollar note wouldn’t shet a nigger mouf, twan’t no use to wase stickin’-plaster on him).
It was never discovered who had contributed the hundred dollars, but it was generally believed that it was the Don. As for Mrs. Rolfe, she never doubted for one moment that it was he, basing, too, upon this conclusion, half a dozen inferences, all favorable to the young man,—first, that his not going to church was a transient eccentricity; secondly, that he was a man of means; and, thirdly, that he was freehanded with the said means, etc., etc., etc.
This trait, as I presume everybody knows, is that which, next to personal courage, women most admire in a man. With what enthusiasm will a bevy of girls hail a bouquet, costly beyond the means of the giver, while the recipient of it, as she passes it from nose to nose, actually tosses hers with pride,—yes,—because her lover has not had the prudence to lay by what he gave for it against a rainy day and shoes for the children. Which is enough to make a philosopher rage; and it is all I can do to restrain my hand from levelling a sneer at the whole sex; and I’ll do it yet, one of these days, and come out as a wit,—one of these days when I can manage to forget that I once had a mother.
The more, therefore, Mrs. Rolfe heard of the Don, the more favorable she grew to his suit; and the more favorable she grew to his suit the more frequently did she allude to the absolute necessity of Mr. Rolfe’s seeing the young man and hearing his account of himself, before he could be allowed even to look at her Mary. It would be time enough, etc., etc.; but let a cloud appear on her daughter’s brow,—let her come down to breakfast pale and worn—
“I believe, Mary,” Alice used to say, “that you often assume a rueful countenance simply to lead your mother on to sing his praises.”