The messages I bore Ellen from Aunt Martha, when I rode to Mr. White's to bring her home, were ample in assurances of forgiveness and reconciliation, while Uncle Thomas' were full of affection and satisfaction at her return. Aunt Martha I found much changed; she looked not only older, but a new expression of meekness struggled with the habitual one of self-righteousness and indomitable will. Mother, ready as ever to make excuses for the faults of those she loved, declared that Aunt Martha's whole nature had been softened by recent chastenings, and that she had even lost her restless, bustling energy, so that one could spend, now, a peaceful afternoon with her and not be conscious of having interrupted a soap boiling, a candle molding, or a quilting. It was evident from my brief talk with her that Ellen's return was a great satisfaction; that she regarded it in some sense as a vindication in the eyes of husband, son, and neighbors. Thomas had just departed for Liberty Hall Academy to continue his ministerial studies, which was one reason, perhaps, that Aunt Martha could welcome Ellen sincerely. Especially had Thomas' full confession of all that had passed between Ellen and himself softened his mother's heart toward her, and increased her regret for past harshness.
Thomas, I found, had been most considerate, having given no hint to any one of my feelings toward Ellen. But I told my mother, as we sat talking, late into the night, and got her blessing, with a promise of profound secrecy, and whatever help she might find quiet opportunity to give me. All my own affairs were for the present as I would have them, and my heart would have been as light as thistledown but for the discouraging war news I had from my father.
The year that had given us such unbroken success, and such fruitful victories in the Northwest, had been one of disaster for the American cause in the East. The British still held New York; Fort Washington had been taken, Continental currency was depreciated in value till it was no longer possible to procure necessary army supplies; the troops had not been paid for months, and were ragged, poorly equipped, half starved, and mutinous. Georgia had fallen, and South Carolina sorely beset by home and foreign enemies, could not hope to hold out much longer unless strongly reënforced from without. Worse still, the gallant and patriotic Arnold had turned traitor, and a shuddering horror and apprehension was upon the land—since the noble and high-spirited Arnold could fall to such depths, might we not look for treason everywhere? On hearing all this discouraging news, I determined at once to visit Colonel Morgan, and to urge him, despite his physical infirmities and his justly wounded pride—for Congress had not yet raised him to the rank to which his past services had entitled him—to call together his scattered riflemen once more, and go to the help of the hard-pressed patriots of the sparsely settled South. And so I told Ellen as we rode together to Uncle Thomas'.
"Shall I feel as lonely, and as friendless when you are gone, I wonder, as I did the first time you left the valley with Morgan?" said Ellen with a light sigh.
"You were a child then," I answered, "and had few resources. Now you are sufficient to yourself. I fear you will not miss me half so much as you will the kindly Kaskaskians, and the good Father, and the faithful Angélique."
"Bless their memories! I shall miss them, and long for a sight of their kind faces. But, all the more, since they are so far away, I shall miss my one true and tried friend in the valley."
"Will you be very lonely and unhappy in the valley, Ellen? Would you have been far better contented had I left you in Kaskaskia?" I questioned anxiously.
"Father Gibault thought it my duty, Cousin Donald, and more and more I understand that it is the one right thing for me. I must find the way my God would have me walk by following the lowly path of duty, and by making reparation for past sins. Do you remember, Cousin, that night before you left the valley—when you found me star-gazing on the rock overhanging the spring?"
"Aye, Ellen! The vision of you, as you looked that night, has come back to me again and again—so often that I began to question, long before I knew I loved you, as man loves but one woman in his life, what import the vision might have, and to wonder if it foretold the crossing of our lives in some fateful way. That picture was the last that floated through my dream the day I slept in the forest, when you saved me from the Indian's tomahawk."
"Memory, it seems to me, has mysterious power,—beyond our will to guide, or our reason to explain," Ellen replied. "That night of our farewell at the spring, the first fibers of affection and sympathy reached out from your heart to mine, and through all these months have stretched and held till they have grown strong enough to bring me back to my duty."