Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

INDIA:

THE

PEARL OF PEARL RIVER.

BY

MRS. EMMA D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH.

AUTHOR OF “THE MISSING BRIDE,” “THE LOST HEIRESS,” “THE DESERTED WIFE,” “THE WIFE’S VICTORY,” ETC.

Complete in one large volume, neatly bound in cloth, for One Dollar and Twenty-five Cents; or in two volumes, paper cover, for One Dollar.

“‘INDIA: THE PEARL OF PEARL RIVER,’ taking it all in all, is the best work Mrs. Southworth has yet written. It is one great merit in her fictions, that they faithfully delineate life and manners, without entering on vexed social, religious, or political issues. In ‘India,’ the reader will find a vivid delineation of the South-West. But this is not all: the characters are boldly drawn, the incidents natural, and the action of the story rapid and absorbing. The two heroines are finely contrasted. The hero is a noble creation; strong of will, earnest in purpose, firm for the right, and persevering to the end in whatever he believes to be justice and truth. We cannot recall, in any late work, a character so ideally lofty, yet so faithful to reality. The heroic spirit in which he goes West, abandoning the luxuries he has been accustomed to, and settling down in his rude log hut, determined to conquer fortune with his own good right hand, is, indeed, the true type of a self-relying American. No fiction of Mrs. Southworth’s bears such proofs of careful finish. It ought, on these several accounts, to have a popularity unrivalled by any of her former works, spite of the immense circulation they have attained.”

☞ Copies of either edition of the above work will be sent to any part of the United States, free of postage, on the person wishing it remitting the price to the publisher, in a letter.

T. B. Peterson publishes a complete and uniform edition of Mrs. Southworth’s works, any one or all of which will be sent to any place in the United States, free of postage, on receipt of remittances. The following are their names:

THE LOST HEIRESS. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Being a splendid Picture of American Life; everybody admiring and applauding it as a master production. Complete in two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or in one volume, cloth, for One Dollar and Twenty-five cents.

THE MISSING BRIDE; OR, MIRIAM, THE AVENGER. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or bound in one volume, cloth, for $1.25.

THE WIFE’S VICTORY; AND NINE OTHER NOUVELLETTES. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. It is embellished with a view of Prospect Cottage, the residence of the author, as well as a view of Brotherton Hall. Complete in two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or bound in one volume, cloth, for $1.25.

THE CURSE OF CLIFTON. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Complete in two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or bound in one volume, cloth, for One Dollar and Twenty-five cents.

THE DISCARDED DAUGHTER. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Two volumes, paper cover, price One Dollar; or bound in one volume, cloth, for One Dollar and Twenty-five cents.

THE DESERTED WIFE. Complete in two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or bound in one volume, cloth, for $1.25.

IN PRESS, AND WILL BE SHORTLY PUBLISHED.

RETRIBUTION; OR, THE VALE OF SHADOWS. A Tale of Passion. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or bound in one volume, cloth, for $1.25.

THE MOTHER-IN-LAW; OR, THE ISLE OF RAYS. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Complete in two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or bound in one volume, cloth, for $1.25.

SHANNONDALE. By Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth. Complete in two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or bound in one volume, cloth, for One Dollar and Twenty-five cents.

VIRGINIA AND MAGDALENE: OR, THE FOSTER SISTERS. By Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth. Complete in two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or in one volume, cloth, for $1.25.

☞ Copies of either edition of any of the above works, will be sent to any person, to any part of the United States, free of postage, on their remitting the price of whatever works they may wish, to the publisher, in a letter post-paid.

Published and for Sale by T. B. PETERSON,

No. 102 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.

MOVING INTO WOLF GROVE

INDIA:
THE
PEARL OF PEARL RIVER.

BY

EMMA D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH.

AUTHOR OF “DESERTED WIFE,” “LOST HEIRESS,” “CURSE OF CLIFTON,” “DISCARDED DAUGHTER,” “MISSING BRIDE,” “WIFE’S VICTORY.”

“How changed since last her speaking eye

Glanced gladness round the glittering room,

Where high-born men were proud to wait—

Where beauty watched to imitate

Her gentle voice and lovely mien—

And gather from her air and gait

The graces of its queen!”—Byron.

Philadelphia:

T. B. PETERSON, NO. 102 CHESTNUT STREET.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by

T. B. PETERSON,

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

PRINTED BY KING & BAIRD.

TALMAGE BROTHERS, BOOKBINDERS.

TO

MRS. HELEN MOORE WALL,

OF PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA,

This Volume is most affectionately Dedicated,

BY HER FRIEND,

EMMA D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH.

Prospect Cottage,

February 16th, 1856.

PREFACE.

The leading incidents of the following story were suggested by circumstances in the life of a near relative, long since, we trust, in Heaven. I have used the novelist’s privilege in giving a happier termination to the fiction than is warranted by the facts.

E. D. E. N. S.

Prospect Cottage,

February 16th, 1856.

CONTENTS.

INDIA:

THE

PEARL OF PEARL RIVER.

CHAPTER I.
THE COLLEGIAN’S SUPPER.

“Filled is life’s goblet to the brim.”—Longfellow.

“India!” exclaimed Mark Sutherland, rising at the head of his table, and waving high the brimming glass, while his fine dark countenance lighted up with enthusiasm. A young Ajax in athletic beauty and strength, stood the Mississippian, until—

“India!” responded his friend Lauderdale, from the foot of the table.

“India!” echoed the young men around the board, as they all arose, and, standing, honoured the toast. Then the glasses jingled merrily down upon the table, and then—

“Now that in blind faith we have worshipped your goddess—who is India? Is it a woman or a quarter of the globe—your idolatry?”

“India!” ejaculated the young Southerner with fervor. “India!

“‘Oh! a woman! friend, a woman! Why, a beast had scarce been duller’

than to have harboured such a question! Fill high your glasses again, and

“‘’Twixt the red wine and the chalice’

let me breathe her beauty’s name. Gentlemen, are you ready?—The Pearl of Pearl River!”

“The Pearl of Pearl River!” responded Lauderdale.

“The Pearl of Pearl River!” re-echoed all those gay youths, as this toast was also quaffed standing, and the empty glasses rattled down upon the table.

This was the parting toast, and the company broke up to separate. The young guests all crowded around their youthful host with adieus, regrets, congratulations, and kind wishes; for all these opposite phrases were equally appropriate, as will be seen.

Mark Sutherland was the son and nephew of the celebrated Pearl River planters—the three brothers Sutherland. He was the prospective possessor of three immense estates—being the heir of the first, betrothed to the heiress of the second, and co-heir with her to the third extensive plantation. He had just concluded a brilliant collegiate course with distinguished honour; he was soon to return south, to enter upon his patrimony, and claim the hand of his affianced bride, before he set forth upon his European travels. And this was his valedictory entertainment, given to his classmates. For him, indeed—

“Filled was life’s goblet to the brim!”

No wonder those fine strong eyes danced with anticipation as he shook hands right and left. He was, up to this time, a frank, thoughtless, joyous, extravagant fellow—selfish because he knew nothing of sorrow, and wasteful because he knew nothing of want. Affluent in youth, health, and love—affluent in wealth, honour, and homage—he seemed to consider gold valueless as dust, and deference only his just due. He “the heir of all the ages” past of thought and toil, had entered upon his intellectual inheritance with great éclat; but as yet not one mite had he added to the store; not one thought had he bestowed upon the great subjects that now engross all earnest minds. Too full of youthful fire, vitality, love, hope, and joy, for any grave thought or feeling to find room in his brain or heart, was the planter’s son. How, indeed, could earnest thought find entrance through such a crowd of noisy joys to his heart? He stood upon the threshold of the past, indeed, and his face was set forward towards the future; but not one onward step had he taken. Why should he trouble himself? The bounteous future was advancing to him, smiling, and laden with all the riches of life and time.

But he stood, receiving the adieus of his young friends, and dealing out wholesale and retail invitations for all and each to come and visit him, for an indefinite length of time, or until they were tired. At last they were all gone, except Lauderdale, his chum, who was passing some days with him, as his guest, at the Minerva House.

“You are an enviable dog, Sutherland,” exclaimed the latter, clapping him sharply upon the shoulder. “You are a deuced enviable villain! By my soul, it is enough to make a poor man like me dissatisfied with his lot, or the present arrangements of society, which amounts to precisely the same thing, I suppose. Deuce take me, if it is not enough to make me turn Agrarian, Chartist, Radical, or whatever may be the new name for the old discontent! Just contrast our positions! Here are you, at one-and-twenty years of age, entirely free from all toil and care for the whole remainder of your life. You will now return to a sumptuous southern home, on a magnificent estate, where troops of friends wait to welcome you, and troops of slaves attend to serve you, and where your bride, the very pearl of beauty, dreams of and languishes for your presence; and, above all—yes, I speak reflectingly, above all—more than sumptuous home, and troops of friends, and trains of servants, and blushing bride—where, lying perdue at your service, is a plenty of the root of all evil—

‘Gold to save—gold to lend—

Gold to give—gold to spend.’

While I!—well, I shall just plod on in the old way, teaching school one half the year to pay my college expenses for the other, until I find myself in some lawyer’s shop, in arrears with my landlady, in debt to my washerwoman—detesting to walk up the street, because I should pass the tailor’s store—abhorring to walk down it, because I should be sure to see the shoemaker standing in his door. With no more comfort or convenience in my life than can be enjoyed between my little back-chamber, up four pair of stairs in a cheap boarding-house, and the straight-backed chair and high-topped desk of the law shop. And no more love, or hope, or poetry, in my life, than may be found bound up between the covers of Coke upon Lyttleton. Or perhaps I shall turn private tutor, and advertise, ‘A highly respectable young gentleman, a graduate of Yale College, wishes to obtain,’ &c.; and you, who will be by this time the grave head of a family, with several little domestic liabilities, will probably answer the advertisement; and I shall find myself teaching the names of the keys of knowledge to young Mark and his brothers. Oh!”——

“Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!” laughed Sutherland.

“Oh, you’ll patronise me, rather! You’ll be kind to me; for you’ll say to yourself and friends, ‘He was a college friend of mine, poor fellow.’ I fancy I hear and see you saying it now, with that careless, cordial, jolly condescension of yours.”

“Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! My dear Lincoln! My dear fellow, why should that be? Why should you be pettifogger or pedagogue, unless you have a vocation for it? Why should anybody do what they don’t want to do? Life is rich—full of wealth, and love, and joy, and glory. Enter and take possession.”

“Enter and take possession! Yes, that is what you can do. Life is full of wealth, and love, and joy, and glory, for you, indeed; and you can afford to mock me with those words! But, never mind, my fine flamingo! I have heard the wise say that happiness is not so unequally distributed, after all. And I, for one, don’t believe this cake of comfort is going to be so very unjustly divided between us, or that you will have all the white sugar on the top, and I all the burnt paper at the bottom.”

“See here, my friend, remember that we good-for-nothing Mississippians are not initiated into the mysteries of the kitchen, and therefore I don’t understand your culinary figure of speech at all.”

“Oh, go on! go on! You’re a young bear!”

“A young bear! Comrades! Oh, they are all gone! A young bear? Oh, I suppose he alludes to my black whiskers and hair, and my shag over coat!”

“I mean your trouble is all before you!”

“Trouble? Oh, my dear boy, that is a word with out a meaning! Trouble? What is trouble? What idea is the word designed to represent? Trouble? Oh, my dear fellow, it is all a mistake, a mere notion, a superstition, a prejudice; a saying of old folks, who, being near the verge of departure from this bright, glad, joyous, jubilant world, vainly try to console themselves by slandering it as a world of trouble, and talk of a better one, to which they are progressing. If this world in itself is not ‘good,’ as the Creator pronounced it to be in the beginning, by all the rules of comparison, how can any other world be said to be better?”

“Well, I believe in the better world as much as they do; but look you! the pleasantest notion I have of Heaven is its being—being”——

“Oh, don’t let it go any further—as good as this world, and only better as far as it endures longer. This world is full of all that is great and glorious for enjoyment! And, Lincoln, my fine fellow, enter and take possession! Don’t teach or study law! Don’t plod; it is ungentlemanly. Somebody, I suppose, must teach and study law, and do such things—but don’t you. Do you leave it to those a—those persons a—those in fact who have the plebeian instinct of labor; you apprehend? They really enjoy work now! Just think of it! I suppose that gracious nature, intending them to carry on the work of the world, endowed them with a taste for it! Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! But I’ve no vocation for it! Neither have you, my dear boy. Don’t force your nature in an opposite direction to which it tends, therefore! Enter life, and take possession!”

“Humph! thank you! This is to say, ‘follow my attractions,’ and if they ‘attract’ me to lead an idle life, and live upon other people, why, so much the better—they are my attractions; and if they ‘attract’ me to pick my host’s pocket, or run away with his daughter, it is the same thing by the same law.”

“Ha! ha! ha! Oh, certainly; remembering that your host might experience an attraction to blow your brains out.”

“Pleasant points to be drawn to. I guess I shall not follow my attractions! I’ll stick to the little law shop, and relieve weariness by grumbling. Some distinguished men have emerged from those little law dens; and, by the way, seriously, my dear Mark, I think that I, that you, even you, possess those very qualities out of which really distinguished men are formed, and that if destiny had not ‘thrust’ a sort of moneyed and landed greatness upon you, that even you would ‘achieve’ some judicial, political, diplomatic, or intellectual greatness of some sort.”

“Ha! ha! ha! even I! Well, that is a stretch of possibility, indeed. Even I, humph! Mais à nos moutons. Will you come home with me? Do come and be my guest à éternité—or until you win some rich Mississippi beauty. Woo beauty, not Blackstone, for a fortune. You have so much more genius for the first than for the last, my fine fellow.”

“Oh, then you would have me turn fortune-hunter, and, under cover of your friendship and introduction, aim at some heiress, and bring her down, and so secure wealth?”

“Set fire to you, no! Whom do you take me for? Do you think that I would present an adventurer to Southern creoles? No, sir! But I do want you to fall in love with a Southern beauty, and fortune would follow, of course.”

“I do not see it at all. There are several links wanting in that chain of reasoning. But, apropos of beauty, love, and marriage. Tell me something more of Miss Sutherland, votre belle fiancée.”

“India! listen, you.” And he took Lauderdale’s arm, and turned to walk up and down the room for a confidential chat. “Listen, you! I named her just now over the wine. I regret to have done so. Would it were undone! But so it is; in some moment of excitement a word passes our lips, and it is unrecallable forever. She is so sacred to my heart, so divine to my soul! I often wonder if Helen of Argos were half as beautiful as she—my India.”

“What a strange, charming name that is for a woman!”

“Is it not? But, rich, luxurious, and gorgeous, in its associations, too—(and that is why it was given to her) it suits her. She is India. Her mother was like her—a beautiful, passionate Havanienne, rich in genius, poetry, song—luxuriating in the beautiful creations of others, yet far too indolent to create. More than all, she lost herself amid the oriental elysiums of Moore, and thence she named her only daughter Hinda. And as the maiden budded and bloomed into womanhood—well, yes, I believe, after all, it was I who softened down her name to India. It has the same derivation, it is the same name, in fact. Oh! and it suits her.”

“Describe your nonpareil to me.”

“I cannot. By my soul’s idolatry, I cannot. The best of beauty—the charm, the soul, the divine of beauty—can never be described or painted. It is spiritual, and can only be perceived.”

“Humph! is she fair?”

“No—yet radiant.”

“Dark?”

“No—yet shadowy.”

“Is she tall?”

“No.”

“Short?”

“No, no; nonsense!”

“What, neither tall nor short? Perhaps she is of medium height.”

“I do not know. I cannot tell, indeed. But oh! she is beautiful—she is glorious! My lady, my queen!”

“To come to something tangible, what is the colour of her eyes?”

“Oh! what is the colour of love, or joy, or heaven? for as soon could I tell you the colour of these as of her witching eyes. I only know they have light, softly thrilling all the chords of life, like music; and shadows, calming my spirit, like silence.”

“Well, I admit the hue of beautiful eyes to be a mysterious point; but hair, now, is a little more certain in that respect. Tell me the hue of your lady’s tresses.”

“I cannot. I only know they are rich, warm, and lustrous.”

“Humph! satisfactory portrait that. Oh! here is Flamingo. Come, Flame, and tell me what is the colour of your young mistress’s hair.”

The latter part of this speech was addressed to Mr. Sutherland’s valet, who had just entered. Flamingo was a character in his way; a handsome, bright mulatto, with quite a “wealth” of bushy black silky hair and whiskers. Very mercurial in temperament, and excessively fond of dress, he presented quite as gay and gorgeous an exterior as the famous feathered biped, his namesake. Flamingo stood for a moment in a quandary, at the suddenness and novelty of the question put to him.

“Oh, come, now; you are not poetically bewildered. Can’t you tell us the colour of the lady’s hair?”

“De colour o’ Miss Inda’s hair, sir—a—yes, sir—its—its—’bout de colour o’ ‘lasses taffy, when you’re ’bout half done pullin’ of it, an’ it’s shining.”

“Molasses taffy! Out, you wretch! It is amber-hued, Lauderdale—amber-hued, understand; the rich, warm, lustrous hue of amber. Molasses taffy! Oh, villain! To think I could not find a comparison in all nature precious enough for those precious tresses, and he should compare them to molasses taffy! Out of my sight, beast! Molasses taffy! Pah!” exclaimed Sutherland, in disgust, while Lauderdale laughed aloud, and Flamingo vanished into the adjoining chamber, where he turned on the gas, and busied himself in making the apartment comfortable for the night.

“Come, let’s get out of this mess before the waiters come to clear away the service. Look! This is one of the things that always make me melancholy,” said Sutherland, pointing to the disordered table.

Both young men were about to retire, when Sutherland again clasped the hand of his friend and said—“But you have not yet told me whether you will accompany me home. Come, laying all jesting and raillery aside, you know how happy I should be to have you.”

“And you know what I have told you before, my dear Sutherland, that I must go to New York for the anniversary week. And by the way, my dear Damon, why cannot you stop a few days before you go South, and attend some of these meetings?”

“Me! Heavens! You shock me! You deprive me of words—of breath! I! a Mississippian! Why, look you; if I were to attend one of those meetings, and if it should be known in my neighborhood, my friends would turn me off, my uncles disinherit me, and my father rise from his grave to reproach me. Sir, my friends and relatives are ‘of the most straitest sect of the Pharisees!’”

“And do you share their opinions?”

“Opinions? Opinions, my dear fellow! I have no opinions. Opinions, it appears to me, are the currency of—of—those who have nothing else to offer in exchange for a living.”

“Levity! Oh, Mark, how you sin against your own fine mind!”

“Oh! come, come, come, no more of that. ‘Sir, praise is very flat, except from the fair sex.’”

“Ah! I see you are hopelessly flighty to-night. Good night.”

“Good night. Stay; you will go with me?”

“No; unless you first accompany me to New York, and remain through the anniversary week, and attend the meetings.”

“And hear myself traduced, slandered, abused, cursed! A pleasant invitation—thank you.”

“And get yourself disabused of many things, you should rather say. See here, Mark, my proposition is perfectly fair and reasonable, and has a meaning in it. Observe: you invite me to the South, and laughingly promise that an actual acquaintance with the patriarchal system shall cool what you call my fever; and that a Southern bride with two hundred negroes, shall completely cure it. Well, I am reasonable. I am open to conviction. I am willing to try it—to examine the ‘peculiar institution’ with the utmost impartiality. Nor do I fear or doubt the result. But observe further. Both of us, it seems, have heard but one side of this great question. I therefore consent to go with you to the South, and spend some weeks on a cotton plantation, only on condition that you accompany me to New York, and attend the anniversary meetings. In a word, I will see your side of the question, if you will hear ours.”

“I’ll do it, I’ll go,” exclaimed Sutherland, laughing, and clapping his hand cordially into that of Lauderdale. “I’ll go, nor have I any doubt or fear as to the result.”

CHAPTER II.
A SOUTHERN HOME.

“——A villa beautiful to see;

Marble-porched and cedar-chambered,

Hung with silken drapery;

Bossed with ornaments of silver,

Interlaid with gems and gold;

Filled with carvings from cathedrals,

Rescued in the days of old;

Eloquent with books and pictures,

All that luxury can afford;

Warm with statues that Pygmalion

Might have fashioned and adored.

In the forest glades and vistas,

Lovely are the light and gloom:

Fountains sparkle in the gardens,

And exotics breathe perfume.”—Mackay.

The sun shines on no more beautiful and entrancing region than the vale of Pearl river. It is the Elysium of the sunny south, reposing between the rich alluvial lands of the Mississippi, and the fragrant[^[1]] pine forests of the Pascagoula. The green land of the valley seems to roll in gentle undulations, like the waves of a calm sea. Between the swelling hills, or rather waves of verdure, flow crystal streams towards the bosom of the Pearl. These lovely hills are capped with groves of the most beautiful and odoriferous of the southern flowering trees. These charming streams are shaded with the most fragrant and delightful of the flowering shrubs and vines. Here nature throws around her riches with an unsparing hand and a wonderful exuberance of luxury. Birds of the most brilliant plumage and enchanting melody fill all the summer groves, at early morn and eve, with their perfect music. Flowers of countless varieties, and most beautiful forms and hues, laden all the air with their ambrosial perfume. The breeze is charged with music and fragrance, as from the spicy groves of Araby the Blest.

[1]. All who have travelled through or near the pine woods of Mississippi know the effect of the southern sun upon these trees, ripening and rarefying from them a most grateful and salubrious fragrance, called the “terebinthine odour.” The effect of the climate is still more obvious upon ornamental trees and flowers. Those that lose much of their luxuriant beauty and fragrance in the North, attain in the South their utmost perfection.

If in this garden—this conservatory of Nature, where all her choicest luxuries are assembled—there is one spot more favoured than all the rest, it is “Cashmere,” the beautiful seat of Clement Sutherland.

The brothers Sutherland emigrated from the old dominion, and settled on the Pearl river, in those palmy days of cotton-planting, when every planter seemed a very Midas, turning all he touched to gold, and when the foundations were laid of some of the present enormous southern fortunes. It was no love for the land of sun that brought the Sutherlands there. They had heard that the common annual profits of the cotton crops were from ten to eighty thousand dollars; and they had sold their tobacco plantation on the Potomac, and emigrated to the valley of the Pearl. The spot selected by the brothers was that Eden of the valley where the Pearl river turns with a serpentine bend in the form of an S with an additional curve, shaping the land into two round points to the west, and one—the largest and loveliest—to the east. The east point had been taken up by Clement Sutherland, the eldest of the brothers, and the west points by the two others. Thus Clement Sutherland’s plantation lay embosomed between those of his brethren. On the upper side lay that of Mark, the second brother, and on the lower, that of Paul, the third and bachelor brother.

Very early in life, and some years previous to their emigration, Mark Sutherland had been united in marriage to a lady of St. Mary’s—one of the noblest of Maryland’s noble daughters. From her, their only son, Mark Sutherland, the younger, inherited a strong mind, warm heart, and high spirit; from his father he took the stalwart form, athletic strength, and dark and sometimes terrible beauty, that marked the race of Sutherland.

Clement Sutherland had remained unmarried until long after his settlement upon the Pearl. But one autumn, while on a visit to New Orleans, to negotiate the sale of his cotton, he chanced to meet a beautiful West Indian girl, whom he afterwards wooed and won for his bride. Whether the sweet Havanienne, or the large fortune of which she was the sole heiress, was the object of his worship, was a mooted point by those who knew him best. It is probable he adored both. Certainly no slightest wish or whim of the lovely Creole remained unsatisfied. It was she who gave the charming scene of his home the appropriate name of Cashmere. She it was who persuaded him to pause in his incessant, exclusive thinking, talking, and acting, about cotton-growing, and his mad pursuit of gain, to build and adorn an elegant villa upon the site of the temporary framed house to which he had brought the beautiful épicurienne. Her rare artistic taste presided over the architecture and embellishment of the mansion, and the laying out and ornamenting of the grounds. But here the evanescent energy of the indolent West Indian died out. She was, at best, but a lovely and fragile spring flower, that faded and fell ere the summer of her life had come. She left a child of perfect beauty—a little girl—who inherited her mother’s graceful harmony of form and complexion, and her father’s strength and vigour of constitution.

Immediately after the death of her mother, the orphaned infant had been taken home by her aunt, Mrs. Mark Sutherland, to share the maternal cares bestowed upon her only son. The lady gave herself up to the rearing and education of these children. And not the noble mother of the Gracchi was prouder of her “jewels” than Mrs. Sutherland of hers. Thus the infancy and childhood of Mark and Hinda were passed together—the same mother’s heart, the same nursery, the same school-room, nay, the same book, with their heads together, and their black and golden locks mingled, were shared by the children. And no Guinea mice or turtle doves were ever fonder of each other than our boy and girl.

It was a woful day when they were first separated—Mark to enter college, and Hinda to be placed at a fashionable boarding-school. Tears fell on both sides, like spring showers. Young Mark, when laughed at for his girlish tears, angrily rejoined, that it was no shame to weep; that the renowned hero, Achilles, had wept when they took Briseis away from him, also when his friend Patroclus was slain.

Paul Sutherland, the third brother, had remained up to the present time unmarried, with the determination to continue so until the end of his life. He bestowed his affections with paternal pride and devotion upon his niece and nephew, resolving to make them his joint heirs, and with his own large property swell the enormous bulk of theirs. Just two years previous to the opening of our story, the Pearl river trio had been broken by the death of Mark Sutherland, the elder. Young Sutherland had hastened home to console his widowed mother, but not long did the widow permit him to remain. The lady sent him back at the commencement of the next following term.

But it is time to describe more particularly Cashmere, the charming seat of Clement Sutherland, and the principal scene of our drama. The estate itself was a very extensive one, comprising several thousand acres of the richest land in the vale. That part of the plantation on which the villa had been erected lay in a bend of the Pearl river, surrounded on three sides—north, east, and south—by its pellucid waters. The whole of this area is occupied by the mansion and ornamental grounds.

The villa itself is a very elegant edifice of white freestone, fronting the river. The building is long and broad, in proportion to its height—this being the necessary plan of all southern mansions, to save them from the effects of the terrible tornadoes that sweep over the country, and to which a higher elevation would expose them. But the mansion is relieved from all appearance of heaviness, by a light and elegant Ionic colonnade, sustaining an open verandah running around three sides of the building. On the fourth side, looking to the south, the aspect is diversified by a large bay window projecting from the lower story, and an elegant Venetian balcony from the upper one.

The villa is also shaded on three sides—north, west, and south—by a grove of the most beautiful and fragrant of the southern trees—the splendid tulip-poplar, lifting to the skies its slender shaft, crested with elegantly-shaped leaves of the most brilliant and intense verdure, and crowned with its bell-shaped flowers of the most vivid and gorgeous flame colour; the beautiful cotton-wood tree, softly powdered over with its formless snowy blossoms; the queenly magnolia-grandiflora, with its glittering green foliage and dazzling white flowers and rich oppressive aroma; the pretty red-bud, with its umbrella-shaped top, its crumpled, heart-shaped leaves, and scarlet tufts; the bois-d’arc, in full bloom, the most splendid and magnificent of ornamental trees, uniting the rarest qualities of the orange tree and the catalpa; the chinidine, with its vivid green foliage and brilliant purple flowers, dropping delicious but heavy narcotic odours, weighing down the nerves and brain into luxurious repose, and stupefying the very birds that shelter in its aromatic shades, so that they may be taken captive with the bare hand; the imperial catalpa, sovereign of the grove by virtue of the grandeur and elegance of its form, the grace and beauty of its foliage, and the ambrosial perfume of its flowers, filling all the air around with its delightful fragrance; and many, many others, so various, beautiful, and aromatic, that one is lost and entranced amid the luxuriating wealth of the grove. Birds of the most splendid plumage and the most exquisite melody—the goldfinch, the oriole, the redbird, the paroquet, the nightingale, swallow, and innumerable others, shelter here, and their songs fill the air with music. No artificial walk disfigures the sward. The green and velvety turf affords the softest, coolest footing. Rustic seats of twisted bow-wood are under the trees; here and there fountains of crystal water leap, sparkle, and fall, ever playing silvery accompaniments to the song of birds; statues of Diana, Pan, and the wood-nymphs, peopled the grove. Its shades are the delightful resort of the Sutherlands and their friends, to enjoy the freshness and brilliancy of the morning, to find shelter from the burning rays of the sun at noon, or to luxuriate in the delicious breeze of the evening. This Arcadian grove, as has been said, surrounded the house on three sides—north, west, and south.

The east is the front of the house towards the river. The view here is open, and the most beautiful, charming, and variegated, to be imagined.

From the colonnaded verandah a flight of broad marble steps lead to a terrace carpeted with grass, and planted with rose-bushes—the Damascus, the Provence, the scarlet, the white, the multiflora, the moss rose; daily, monthly, and perpetual roses; “roses—everywhere roses”—such a luxuriant exuberance of roses upon this velvety terrace. The rose terrace is divided from the lawn by a treillage of the most delicate and elaborate trellis-work; and this also is wreathed and festooned by running rose vines.

Below this spreads the lawn on every side, not level, but gently waving, and covered with grass as soft, as smooth, and as downy as velvet; and everywhere the eye roves with pleasure over a turf of brilliant intense green, except where it is variegated with the floral mosaic work of gay parterres, or trellised arbours, or reservoirs, or single magnificent forest trees left standing in honour of their monarchal grandeur. The parterres are rich, beautiful, and fragrant beyond description; there our hothouse plants bloom in the open air; and there our common garden flowers—violets, lilies, roses, myrtles, irises, and innumerable others—flourish with surpassing luxuriance. The arbours, of delicate trellis-work and elegant form, are shaded and adorned with running vines of rich Armenean and cape jessamine, honeysuckles, and woodbine. The reservoirs contain gold fish, and other ornamental specimens of the piscatorial kingdom.

This extensive and beautiful lawn is surrounded by an iron open-work fencing, very light and elegant in appearance, yet very strong and impassable. Three ornamented gates relieve the uniformity of this iron trellis; one on the north leads through to the orange groves, always inviting and delightful, whether in full bloom, and shedding ambrosial perfume in the spring, or laden with their golden fruit in the fall. The gate on the north admitted into the vineyard, where every variety of the finest and rarest grapes flourished in luxuriant abundance. The one on the east is central between these two others, and leads from the lawn down to the white and pebbly beach of the Pearl, where pretty boats are always moored for the convenience of the rambler who might desire to cross the river.

And then the curving river itself is well named the Pearl, from the soft, semi-transparent glow of roseate, whitish, or saffron tints, caught from the heavens.

Across the soft water, in rich contrast, lie hills, and groves, and cotton-fields—the latter, one of the gayest features in southern scenery. They are sometimes a mile square. They are planted in straight rows, six feet apart; and the earth between them, of a rich Spanish-red colour, is kept entirely clean from weeds. The plants grow to the height of seven feet, and spread in full-leaved branches, bearing brilliant white and gold-hued flowers. When in full bloom, a cotton-field by itself is a gorgeous landscape. Beyond these hills, and groves, and cotton fields, are other cotton-fields, and groves, and hills, extending on and on, until afar off they blend with the horizon, in soft, indistinct hues, mingled together like the tints of the clouds.

I have led you through the beautiful grounds immediately around and in front of the villa; but behind the mansion, and back of the grove, there are gardens and orchards, and still other fields of cotton and outhouses, and offices, and the negro village called “The Quarters.”

CHAPTER III.
THE PLANTER’S DAUGHTER.

She has halls and she has vassals, and the resonant steam eagles

Follow fast on the directing of her floating dove-like hand,

With a thunderous vapour trailing underneath the starry vigils,

So to mark upon the blasted heavens the measure of her lands.

Mrs. Browning.

The summer sun had just sunk below the horizon, leaving all the heavens suffused with a pale golden and roseate light, that falls softly on the semi-transparent waters of the Pearl, flowing serenely on between its banks of undulating hills and dales, and green and purple lights and glooms. No jarring sight or sound breaks the voluptuous stillness of the scene and hour. The golden light has faded from the windows and balconies of the villa, and sunk with the sunken sun. An evening breeze is rising from the distant pine woods, that will soon tempt the inmates forth to enjoy its exhilarating and salubrious freshness and fragrance. But as yet all is quiet about the mansion.

In the innermost sanctuary of that house reposes Miss Sutherland. It is the most elegant of a sumptuous suit of apartments, upon which Mr. Sutherland had spared no amount of care or expense—having summoned from New Orleans a French artiste, of distinguished genius in his profession, to superintend their interior architecture, furnishing and adornment.

The suit consists of a boudoir, two drawing-rooms, a hall or picture gallery, a music room, a double parlour, a library, and dining and breakfast rooms; and, by the machinery of grooved doors, all these splendid apartments may be thrown into one magnificent saloon.

But the most finished and perfect of the suite is the luxurious boudoir of India. It is a very bower of beauty and love, a chef d’œuvre of artistic genius, a casket worthy to enshrine the Pearl of Pearl River.

There she reposes in the recess of the bay window, “silk-curtained from the sun.” This bay window is the only one in the apartment; it is both deep and lofty, and is a small room in itself. It is curtained off from the main apartment by drapery of purple damask satin, lined with gold-coloured silk, and festooned by gold cords and tassels. The interior of the recess is draped with thin gold-coloured silk alone; and the evening light, glowing through it, throws a warm, rich, lustrous atmosphere around the form of Oriental beauty, reposing on the silken couch in the recess.

It is a rare type of beauty, not easy to realise by your imagination, blending the highest charms of the spiritual, the intellectual, and the sensual, in seeming perfect harmony; it is a costly type of beauty, possessed often only at a fearful discount of happiness; it is a dangerous organisation, full of fatality to its possessor and all connected with her; for that lovely and voluptuous repose resembles the undisturbed serenity of the young leopardess, or the verdant and flowery surface of the sleeping volcano. It is a richly and highly gifted nature, but one that, more than all others, requires in early youth the firm and steady guidance of the wise and good, and that in after life needs the constant controlling influence of Christian principle.

India Sutherland has never known another guide than her own good pleasure. “Queen o’er herself” she is not, indeed, unhappily; but queen instead over father and lover, friends, relatives, and servants. In truth hers is a gentle and graceful reign. It could not be otherwise, over subjects so devoted as hers. All of them, from Mr. Sutherland her father, down to Oriole her bower-maid, deem it their best happiness to watch, anticipate, and prevent her wants; and she is pleased to repay such devotion with lovely smiles and loving words. She is, indeed, the tamest as well as the most beautiful young leopardess that ever sheathed claws and teeth in the softest down. She is no hypocrite; she is perfectly sincere; but her deepest nature is unawakened, undeveloped. She knows no more, no, nor as much, as you now do, of the latent strength, fire, and cruelty of those passions which opposition might provoke. There she lay, as unconscious of the seeds of selfishness and tyranny as Nero was, when, at seventeen years of age, he burst into tears at signing the first death-warrant. Awful spirits sleep in the vasty depths of our souls—awful in goodness or in evil—and vicissitudes are the Glendowers that can call them forth. There she lies, all unconscious of the coming struggle, “a perfect form in perfect rest.” A rich dress of light material, yet dark and brilliant colours, flows gracefully around her beautiful figure. She reclines upon a crimson silken couch, her face slightly turned downwards, her head supported by her hand, and her eyes fixed upon a book that lies open upon the downy pillow; a profusion of smooth, shining, amber-hued ringlets droop around her graceful Grecian head; her eyebrows are much darker, and are delicately pencilled; her eyelashes are also dark and long, and shade large eyes of the deepest blue; her complexion is very rich, of a clear warm brown, deepening into a crimson blush upon cheeks and lips the brighter and warmer now that the book beneath her eyes absorbs her quite. The light through the golden-hued drapery of the window pours a warm, subdued effulgence over the whole picture. On a cushion below her couch sits a little quadroon girl, of perfect beauty, fanning her mistress with a fan of ostrich plumes; and while she sways the graceful feathers to and fro, her dark eyes, full of affection and innocent admiration, are fixed upon the beautiful epicurienne.

When the rising of the evening breeze began to swell the gold-hued curtains, Oriole dropped her fan, but continued to sit and watch lovingly the features of her lady. When the purple shades of evening began to fall around, Oriole arose softly, and drew back the curtains on their golden wires, to let in more light and air, revealing the terrace of roses, the lawn and its groves and reservoirs, and the lovely rose and amber-clouded Pearl, rolling on between its banks of undulating light and shade; and giving to view, besides, the figure of a lady standing upon the terrace of roses, and who immediately advanced smiling, and threw in a shower of rose-leaves over the recumbent reader, exclaiming—

“Will that wake you? Mon Dieu! What is it you are idling over? The breeze is up, and playing a prelude through the pine tops and cane-brakes, and the birds are about to break forth in their evening song. Will you come out?”

The speaker was a lady of about twenty-five years of age, of petite form, delicate features, dark and brilliant complexion, and sprightly countenance, which owed its fascination to dazzling little teeth, and ripe lips bowed with archness, great sparkling black eyes full of mischief, and jetty ringlets in whose very intricacies seemed to lurk a thousand innocent conspiracies. She was dressed in mourning, if that dress could be called mourning which consisted of a fine light black tissue over black silk, and a number of jet bracelets set in gold, that adorned the whitest, prettiest arms in the world, and a jet necklace that set off the whiteness of the prettiest throat and bosom. Mrs. Vivian, of New Orleans—Annette Valeria Vivian—spirituelle Valerie—piquant Nan!—the widow of a wealthy merchant, a distant relative of Mrs. Sutherland by her mother’s side, and now with her step-daughter on a visit of some weeks here at “Cashmere.”

“Ciel! then do you hear me? What volume of birds or flowers do you prefer to the living birds and flowers out here? What book (pardieu!) of poetry do you like better than the gorgeous pastoral poem spread around us? Mon Dieu! she does not hear me yet! India, I say!” exclaimed the impatient little beauty, throwing in another shower of rose petals.

Miss Sutherland, languid and smiling, rose from her recumbent posture, and handed her the volume.

“Pope! by all that is solemnly in earnest! Pope’s Essay on Man, by all that is grave, serious and awful! Why, I thought at the very worst it was some Flora’s Annual, or Gems of the Aviary, or some other of the embossed and gilded trifles that litter your rooms. But Pope’s Essay on Man! Why, I should as soon have expected to find you studying a work on tanning and currying!”

“Oh, hush, you tease! And tell me what these lines mean. I have been studying them for the last half hour, and can’t make them out.”

“You studying! Ha! ha! ha! You doing anything! By the way, I have been trying to discover what office I hold near the person of our Queen. I have just this instant found out that I am thinker in ordinary to her gracious majesty.”

“Well, dear Nan, do credit to your post—think me out these lines,” said the beauty, languidly sinking back upon her couch.

“But what lines do you mean?”

“Oriole, show them to her. Oh, never mind, you don’t know them. Hand me the book, Nan! Here, here are the lines—now make out a meaning for them, if you can:

‘And binding nature fast in fate,

Left free the human will.’”

“Well,” said Mrs. Vivian, laughing, “it sounds very like—

‘And tying Adam hand and foot,

Bid him get up and walk!’

And it looks as if it might have been written by Uncle Billy Bothsides! Ah, by the way, here he comes. Talk of the evil one, and—you know the rest. Ah, I shall be amused to hear his opinion of the sentiment in question. It is just in his way.”

I am sure that I shall never be able to do justice to the gentleman that was now seen advancing from the lawn—Mr. William I. Bolling, as he called himself; Billy Bolling, as he was called by his brothers-in-law; Bolling Billy, as called by his boon companions of the bowling alley; Uncle Billy, by the young people; Marse Billy, by the negroes; and Billy Bothsides, by everybody else. He was a short, fat, little gentleman, of about fifty years of age, and clothed in an immaculate suit of white linen, with a fresh broad-brimmed straw hat, which as he walked he carried in one hand, while in the other he flourished out a perfumed linen handkerchief, with which he wiped his face and rubbed his head. His little head was covered with fine light hair, that did not shade, but curled itself tightly off from his round, rosy, good-natured face, full of cheerfulness, candour, and conceit. The damper or the warmer the weather, or the more excited state of Uncle Billy’s feelings, then the redder grew his face and the tighter curled off his flaxen hair.

Mr. Bolling was one of those social and domestic ne’er-do-wells of which every large family connection may rue its specimen—one of those idle hangers-on to others, of which almost every southern house does penance with at least one. He was a brother of Mrs. Mark Sutherland, but no credit to his sister or their mutual family; though, to use his own qualifying style, neither was he any dishonour to them. He was a bachelor. He said it was by his own free election that he led a single life, though he vowed he very much preferred a married life; that nothing could be justly compared to the blessings of celibacy, except the beatitude of matrimony. He compromised with the deficiency of every other sort of importance by a large surplus of self-importance. He valued himself mostly upon what he called his cool blood, clear head, and perfect impartiality of judgment. He was not to be seduced by love or bribed by money to any sort of partisanship. And as there are two sides to most questions under the sun, and as Mr. Bolling would look impartially upon positive and negative at once, so Billy

“Won himself an everlasting name.”

He now came up to the bay window, wiping his face, and fanning himself, and saying—

“Good evening, ladies! It is a perfectly delightful evening—though, to be sure, it is insufferably warm.”

Mrs. Vivian immediately challenged him with, “Mr. Bolling, we are anxious to know your opinion upon these lines of Pope;” and she read them to him, and put the book in his hands. He took it, and wiped his face, and fanned himself—but these cooling operations seemed to heat him all the more, for his face grew very red and his flaxen hair crisped tightly as he gazed upon the page, and said: “Eh, yes, that’s all right—certainly!”

“We believe it right, but what does it mean?”

“Mean! Why, this is what it means—

‘Binding nature fast in fate,

Left free the human will;’

certainly—yes.”

“Please to explain yourself, Mr. Bolling,” said the widow, while India gazed on in languid amusement.

Uncle Billy wiped his forehead, and said, “Why I don’t think ladies understand these grave theological matters.”

“No, but you can enlighten us, Mr. Bolling.”

“You see these lines comprise the profoundest problems of philosophy—so profound as to perplex the understandings of the greatest scholars and philosophers that have ever lived; so profound, in fact, as to be quite unintelligible even to me—yet so simple as to be easily comprehended by the narrowest intellect—so simple as to be clear even to you, or to Fly here.”

This was said of a small boy who at that instant appeared with a basket of oranges.

“Fly, do you know what your master William is talking about?”

“Yes, ma’am; politics.”

“Exactly,” smiled Valeria; “go on, Mr. Bolling.”

“Hem! Observe, Mrs. Vivian, that there is an analogy all through nature—physical, mental, moral, spiritual.”

“Yes. Fly, listen—what is he talking about now?”

“Physic and sparrits, ma’am.”

“That is right. Pray go on, Mr. Bolling.”

“Yes; permit me to seat myself.”

Uncle Billy let himself cautiously down upon the green turf. Valeria gave her hand to India, who stepped out upon the terrace and seated herself. Mrs. Vivian sank down near her. Oriole placed herself by her mistress, with the plume fan. Fly stood a short distance off, with his basket of oranges.

The tall rose-trees, blown by the breeze, shed coolness and fragrance over the party. The beautiful variegated lawn, with its groves, ponds, and parterres, stretched out before them; and below it flowed on, between its banks of purple shadow, the limpid Pearl, with the evening light fast fading from its white bosom.

“Now, then, Mr. Bolling!”

“Now, then, Mrs. Vivian! I said that there was an analogy running through the universe of nature; thus, the centripetal and centrifugal forces, that modify each other’s power, and regulate the motions of the planetary systems, correspond exactly to predestination and free will”—

“Do you understand him now, Fly?”

“No, ma’am; Marse Billy’s too deep for me now.”

“And for me too, Fly; put down your basket now, and go, Fly. I dislike to see a poor child tiring himself, first upon one foot, and then upon the other; it puts me ill at ease.”

“Yes, go! you sickly little wretch, you! I wonder how you think the ladies like to have such an ugly little attenuated black shrimp as you are about them; and I’m astonished at the gardener for presuming to send you here. Be off with you, and never show your face again,” said Master Billy, growing very red in the face with zeal and gallantry.

Little Fly looked first surprised and grieved, and then penitent on the score of his sickness and deformity, and set down his basket and turned to go.

“Please don’t scold him, Mr. Bolling; it’s not his fault, poor little fellow! It was I who asked Mr. Sutherland to take him from the field and place him in the garden, because it is shadier there, and the work is lighter. Everybody cannot be strong and handsome—can they, Fly?” And the gentle speaker turned and laid her hand kindly upon the boy’s head and smiled encouragingly in his face. The child looked up in grateful affection; and the eyes of all the party were raised to welcome the orphan step-daughter of Mrs. Vivian. She was a fair, pale girl, of a gentle, thoughtful, pensive cast of countenance and style of beauty, with which her plain dress of deep mourning perfectly harmonized.

“Come and sit by me, Rosalie, love,” said the widow, making room for the maiden, half embracing her with one arm.

The kind girl put an orange in the boy’s hand, and, smiling, motioned him away; and Fly, no longer mortified, but solaced and cheerful, ran off.

“Now proceed, Mr. Bolling. Rosalie, dove, Mr. Bolling is explaining to us the two great motive powers of the universe; the centripetal, which he says means the law of the Lord, and the centrifugal, which he says means the temptation of the demon. And we, my love, are the planetary bodies, kept from extremes of good and evil by the opposite action of these two forces. Is not this it, Mr. Bolling?”

“No, madam; no! no! no! Lord! Lord! Thus it is to expose one’s theories, especially to Mrs. Vivian there, who would wrest the plainest text of Scripture to her own perdition. No, ma’am; I was about to say that the overruling will of Providence and the free agency of man were the two great motive powers of the moral universe—the human free will, being the great inward and impulsive force, is the centrifugal or flying-off power, and the government of God the centripetal or constraining power; that in the moral world these two great forces modify each other’s action, just as their prototypes do in the material world—keeping all in healthful action. Do you understand me?”

“Do you understand yourself, Mr. Bolling?”

“Ah, I see you don’t—women seldom do!” said Uncle Billy, wiping his forehead. “Thus, then, were man without free will—without the power of working out his own salvation, or the privilege of sending himself to perdition, if he desired it—he would no longer be a moral agent, and, were he never so sinless, he would be at the best only a sinless puppet, an automaton, and God’s creation would be a dumb show. And, on the other hand, were human free will left without restraint of the Lord’s overruling government, why, man would rush into all sorts of extravagances, become a maniac, and convert God’s order into chaos again. But, both these evil extremes being avoided, the Scylla of inert, passive obedience is left upon the right, and the Charybdis of unbridled license on the left, and all goes on well and harmoniously. And now I hope you understand how it is that in ‘binding nature fast in fate,’ God still left free the human will.”

“No, I do not; it seems to me that we are free agents, or we are not free agents—one or the other.”

“We’re both, I assure you—both. Truth generally lies between extremes. I have known that all my life, and acted upon it. We are free agents, and we are not—that is to say, we are free agents within a certain limit, and no further. And observe, my dear Mrs. Vivian, and my dear girls! within that limit we have still room enough to save or to lose our souls!”

This speech was concluded with so much solemnity of manner, that it imposed a silence on the little circle, that might have lasted much longer than it did, had Mr. Bolling been disposed to repose on his laurels. He was not.

“Now, are you satisfied, madam?” he inquired of Mrs. Vivian.

The little lady shook her jetty ringlets, and slowly picked her marabout fan to pieces.

“I think mamma wishes to know why these things need be so,” said Rosalie.

“My sweet Miss Vivian, little maidens should be seen, and not heard.”

“Don’t tempt Mr. Bolling beyond his depth, Rosalie,” smiled the widow; and not suiting the action to the word, she handed Uncle Billy an orange she had just peeled.

The little gentleman received the attention with a deprecating, humble bow, and, to prevent inconvenient questioning, turned to Miss Sutherland, and inquired when she had heard from her cousin Mark, winking with what he supposed to be a killing leer.

The beauty slightly raised her lip and arched her brows, but deigned no other answer.

“Oh, she has not heard from Mr. Sutherland for three whole days, and his last letter was but twelve pages long. I am afraid he is fickle, like the rest. I should not wonder if he were now the humble servant of some northern blue ——. It is written, ‘put not your trust in’—pantaloons. Men are so uncertain,” said Valeria.

“Men are so uncertain! What men? Uncertain in what respect?”

“All men are uncertain, in all things!”

“Humph, that is a totally unfounded calumny on our sex; though, to be candid, I acknowledge it is but too true of all men, without a single exception—save myself!”

“You? Oh, dear, oh! Ha! ha! ha! You!”

“Yes, me! In what did you ever find me uncertain?”

“In what? Oh, heavens! he asks in what! Why, in all things—mental, moral, and physical! In religion, politics, and morality! In friendship, love, and truth! In war, courtship, and money! In one word, you are a thorough, essential, organic uncertainty. Other people are uncertain—you are uncertainty. I think, in the day of general doom, you will find yourself—nothing in nowhere!”

Uncle Billy turned away from this unmerciful philippic, and again asked Miss Sutherland if she had lately heard from her cousin.

“I have not heard from him for two weeks,” replied the young lady, in a low voice, and without raising her eyes.

“Nan, what would you give me for a letter?” inquired Mr. Bolling, rolling his little blue eyes merrily, as he drew one from his pocket and laid it before her.

“Oh, Mr. Bolling! have you had this letter all this time, and detained it from me?” said the beauty, reproachfully, as she took it, and, excusing herself, withdrew into the house to peruse it.

“Come, Rosalie, this night air is deadly to you, my child.”

“Oh, mamma, see, the full moon is just rising over those purple hills. I only want to see it reflected in the river, and then I will come.”

“Are you moon-struck, then, Rosalie? Come in; you can safely view the scene from the house. Besides, coffee is about to be served.”

And the lady gave her hand to her step-daughter and assisted her to arise, and then tenderly drawing the girl’s arm within her own, turned to lead her into the house. And Mr. Bolling lifted himself up, and picking up his straw hat, said—

“And I must go down to the cotton-mills, and make Clement Sutherland come home to his supper. Heigh-ho! it’s an incontrovertible fact, that if I did not walk after that man and take care of him, he’d kill himself in the pursuit of gain in one month. Everything is forgotten—mental culture and bodily comfort. I have to bully him to his breakfast, and dragoon him to his dinner, and scare him to his supper. If things go on in this way, I shall have to cut up his food and place it to his lips. He is growing to be a monomaniac on the subject of money-getting. He is as thin as a whipping-post, and about as enlivening to look upon. He looks like a weasel in the winter time, all skin and hair, and cunning and care! He looks as if he felt poor in the midst of all his possessions, and I suppose he really does; while here am I, without a sous, cent, markee, happy as a king, and much more at leisure; eating hearty, and sleeping sound, and growing fat; ‘having nothing, yet possessing all things,’ according to Scripture, and without a care in life, except to keep Clement from sharing the fate of Midas, and starving in the midst of gold. And, by-the-by, that is another heathen myth, with an eternal, awful truth wrapped up in it. Heigh-ho!. Well, here’s to bring him home to his supper. And a hot time I shall have of it, between him and the infernal machinery! I shall not get the thunder of the mills out of my ears, or the shower of cotton-lint out of my eyes, nose, and throat, the whole night! Oriole, is that you? Do you go and tell the housekeeper, child, to have something comforting prepared for your poor master. He’s had nothing since breakfast; I couldn’t find him at dinner-time. He was gone, devil knows where, to inspect, devil knows what! He is the only southerner I ever did know to give himself up so entirely to the worship of Mammon, and the only one, I hope, I ever shall know!”

And, having eased his mind by this fit of grumbling, Uncle Billy waddled off on his benevolent errand to the mills.

In the meantime Mrs. Vivian conducted her step-daughter into the drawing-room communicating with Miss Sutherland’s boudoir. The room was now brilliantly lighted up, but vacant of the family. The broad doors were slidden back into the walls, revealing the boudoir in its rich-toned gloom and gleam of purple and gold; and India herself, standing in the midst, quite lost in thought, with one jewelled hand pressing back the amber ringlets from her forehead, and the other hanging down by her side, clasping the letter of Mr. Sutherland. So deeply troubled and perplexed was her look, that Valeria impulsively sprang to her side, exclaiming, “What grieves you, my dearest India? No evil news, I trust?”

Miss Sutherland burst into tears, and silently handed her the letter. But before Valeria had turned it about and found the commencement, India recovered her voice, and said in broken accents, “You know how closely I have kept his correspondence for the last few weeks. Alas! I have had reason for it, Valeria. Little do his uncles imagine what detains him at the North. But he conceals nothing from me, and he lays the heavy responsibility of his confidence upon me. For a month past it has been an onerous burden to my conscience.”

“My love! what has he been doing there? Has he killed his man in a duel, and got himself in trouble, in that frozen stiff North, where a gentleman cannot even shoot his rival in a generous quarrel, without being put to the inconvenience of a judicial investigation? I really do suppose that is it, now!”

“Oh, no! Would it were only that! That were no dishonour, at least. Oh, no! It is as much worse as it could possibly be!”

“I cannot believe that Mr. Sutherland would do aught unworthy of a man and a gentleman.”

“Woe to my lips that they should utter the charge. But read his letter, Valeria, and advise me, for I am deeply distressed,” said Miss Sutherland; and she threw herself back into a cushioned chair, and bowed her face upon her hands, until all the amber ringlets drooped and veiled them.

Valeria ran her eyes quickly over the letter, and then she threw herself into a chair—but it was to laugh. Miss Sutherland raised her head in silent surprise and displeasure. But still Valeria laughed, till the tears ran down her cheeks, holding up one hand in speechless deprecation, to implore forgiveness for a mirth impossible to restrain. When she found her voice—“Why, my dear, unsophisticated girl, there is nothing except a great deal of food for laughter in all this! He has been in New York at the height of the annual fever, and has caught it! He has been bit by a raging reformer, and gone rabid! Not the first hot-headed young southerner sent to a northern college who has fallen into the same series of fevers. But they all come safely through it! When they find out that to free their slaves means just to empty their pockets, and go to work with their own hands or brains, you have no idea how refrigerating the effect. Don’t fear for Mr. Sutherland. He will be brought beautifully out of it! Only note it! he will never send a son of his to be educated at a northern college. Come, cheer up, my love, and never mind my laughing. Really it is legitimate food for laughter! Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!”

“Oh, don’t! Only think of it, even at its best! Here, for weeks past, he has been mingling freely with these sort of persons—mixing in their assemblies, where people of all colours and castes meet on equal terms, in a stifling crowd—oh, Queen of Heaven! it is a ruinous dishonour—an unspeakable insult he has cast upon me, his betrothed!” she exclaimed, rising with all the proud and passionate energy of deep and strong conviction.

And again Mrs. Vivian gave way to a peal of silvery laughter, exclaiming, “Why, you simple maiden! gentlemen will do such odd things, because you see they (poets excepted) have no instincts—not even any original ideas of refinement. But be comforted! He comes to us by sea, and will have passed through several hundred miles of salt sea wind before he reaches your fragrant boudoir.”

“Do not pursue this subject! Do not, Valeria! Do not press it upon me so! It wrongs, it injures me—I feel it does!” said India, with energetic earnestness.

“I never saw you so deeply and strongly moved before—nonsense! But indeed I must have my laugh out with somebody! It is, besides, too good to keep—this ludicrous secret! Ah, here comes Mr. Bolling, with Uncle Clement in his wake, no doubt, for he went to fetch him! I must tell Uncle Clement of his son-in-law’s conversation or—die.

“Uncle, Uncle Clement! what do you think has happened to Mark? Listen,” exclaimed the vivacious lady, running off with the letter. Miss Sutherland sprang and caught her hand, and, pale as death, cried out, “On your life, Valeria—on your soul! You do not know my father; he abhors those sects with an exterminating fury of hatred! Give me the letter! Nay, now by your honour, Valeria! It was a sacred confidence. Give me the letter!” and she wrested the contended paper away from the giddy, laughing, little lady.

“Heyday! What the mischief is all this? A regular romp or wrestle? Let me put down my hat, and I’ll stand by and see fair play,” exclaimed Mr. Bolling, who had just entered.

Blushing with anger at having suffered herself to be surprised out of her usual repose of manner, Miss Sutherland sat down in silent dignity, while Mrs. Vivian, still laughing, inquired, “Where is uncle?”

“Where? Yes! ‘Echo answers where?’ He has not been home to breakfast nor dinner, and now I suppose he’ll not be here to supper. I went down to the mill to bring him home to supper; he was not there! Guess where he was? Gone over the other side of the river, to preside at the lynching of an incendiary. Upon my sacred word and honour!” exclaimed Uncle Billy, growing crimson in the face, “the most cruel, unjust, unwarrantable proceeding I ever heard of in all my life; though, to be perfectly fair, I must say it serves the fellow exactly right.”

“Apropos—what did I tell you, Valeria?” said Miss Sutherland, in a low voice.

“And, now, what is this mighty mystery that must be concealed from Clement?”

Mrs. Vivian and Miss Sutherland exchanged glances, and the latter replied: “It is a letter from Mr. Sutherland, sir, that concerns myself alone, and I do not choose to make its contents public, even at the suggestion of my dear esteemed friend here.”

“Ah! Umph—hum! Yes! But now, my dear child, let me say one word. Young people are foolish, and need to be counselled by the wisdom of age. Observe, therefore, what I say, and be guided by my advice. There is no circumstance or combination of circumstances whatever, that will justify you in withholding any secret from your father; nevertheless, I am bound to say that nothing under the sun could excuse you in betraying, even to him, the confidence of your betrothed husband. Now, I hope you understand your duty! At least, you have my advice!” said Uncle Billy, wiping his head, after which he placed his handkerchief in his straw hat, seated himself, and put the hat upon the carpet between his feet—all with a look of great self-satisfaction.

“At least the advice is very practical!” said an ironical voice behind him. All turned to see Mr. Sutherland the elder, who had silently entered. He was of an unusually tall, attenuated form, with a yellow, bilious, cadaverous face, whetted to the keenest edge by care and rapacity, and surrounded by hair and whiskers so long and bristling as to give quite a ferocious aspect to a set of features that without them would have looked merely cunning. He strode into the midst of the circle, and standing before his daughter, demanded in an authoritative tone, “Give me that letter, Miss Sutherland!” She turned deadly pale, but without an instant’s hesitation arose to her feet, placed the letter in her bosom, and stood fronting him.

Seeing that the matter was about to take a very serious turn, Mrs. Vivian playfully interfered, by nestling her soft little hand into the great bony one of the planter, and saying, with her bewitching smile, “Ah, then, Mr. Sutherland, let young people alone. Do not rifle a young girl’s little mysteries. Remember when you were youthful—it was not so long ago but what you can remember, I am sure,” she said with an arch glance. “And when you used to write sweet nonsense to one beautiful Cecile, her mother, how would you have liked it if the practical commercial eyes of good Monsieur Dumoulins had read your letters? Come! give me your arm to supper; we have waited for you half an hour;” and the lively lady slipped her arm into his; and Mr. Sutherland with the very ill grace of a bear led captive, suffered himself to be carried off. Mr. Billy Bolling, with a flourishing bow, gave his hand to Miss Sutherland, and Paul Sutherland led Rosalie.

The apartment was very pleasant. The inner shutters of wire gauze, that were closed against the mosquitoes, did not exclude the fresh and fragrant evening breeze that fanned the room. The elegant tea-table stood in the midst, and the whole was illumined by light subdued through shades of ground glass—not figured—but plain, and diffusing a soft, clear, even radiance. They sat down to the table, and coffee and tea were served by waiters from the sideboard. To dispel the last shades of suspicion and discontent from the mind of Mr. Sutherland, Mrs. Vivian remarked: “We are to have Mr. Mark Sutherland home in a very few days, if I understand aright. N’est ce pas, chere Indie?” Miss Sutherland only bowed, and the conversation turned upon their approaching voyage to Europe.

CHAPTER IV.
MRS. SUTHERLAND.

On her cheek the autumn flush

Deeply ripens; such a blush

In the midst of brown was born,