University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
ONE STEP TOWARD THE HOMESTEAD.

Weeks passed on, and so necessary to the comfort of
the invalid did the presence of Mrs. Carter become, that
at last, by particular request, she took up her abode at
the homestead, becoming Mrs. Hamilton's constant nurse
and attendant. Lenora, for the time being, was sent to
the house of a friend, who lived not far distant. When
Margaret Hamilton learned of the arrangement, she opposed
it with all her force.

“Send her away, mother,” said she one evening;
“please send her away, for I cannot endure her presence,
with her oily words and silent footsteps. She reminds
me of the serpent, who decoyed Eve into eating that apple,
and I always feel an attack of the nightmare, whenever
I know that her big, black eyes are fastened upon
me.”

“How differently people see,” laughed Carrie, who was

sitting by. “Why, Mag, I always fancy her to be in a
nightmare when your big eyes light upon her.”

“It's because she knows she's guilty,” answered Mag,
her words and manner warming up with the subject.
“Say, mother, won't you send her off? It seems as
though a dark shadow falls upon us all the moment she
enters the house.”

“She is too invaluable a nurse to be discharged for a
slight whim,” answered Mrs. Hamilton. “Besides, she
bears the best of reputations, and I don't see what possible
harm can come of her being here.”

Margaret sighed, for though she knew full well the “possible
harm” which might come of it, she could not tell it
to her pale, dying mother; and ere she had time for any
answer, the black bombasin dress, white linen collar, and
white, smooth face of Widow Carter moved silently into
the room. There was a gleam of intense hatred in the
dark eyes which for a moment flashed on Margaret's face,
and then a soft hand gently stroked the glossy hair of
the indignant girl, and in the most musical tones imaginable,
a low voice murmured, “Maggie, dear, you look
flushed and wearied. Are you quite well?”

“Perfectly so,” answered Margaret; and then rising,
she left the room, but not until she had heard her mother
say, “Dear Mrs. Carter, I am so glad you've come!”

“Is everybody bewitched,” thought Mag, as she repaired
to her chamber, “father, mother, Carrie, and all?
How I wish Walter was here. He always sees things as
I do.”

Margaret Hamilton was a high spirited, intelligent girl,
about nineteen years of age. She was not beautiful, but
had you asked for the finest looking girl in all Glenwood,
Mag would surely have been pointed out. She was
rather above the medium height, and in her whole bearing

there was a quiet dignity, which many mistook for
hauteur. Naturally frank, affectionate, and kind-hearted,
she was, perhaps, a little strong in her prejudices, which,
when once satisfactorily formed, could not easily be
shaken.

For Mrs. Carter she had conceived a strong dislike, for
she believed her to be an artful, hypocritical woman;
and now, as she sat by the window in her room, her heart
swelled with indignation toward one who had thus
usurped her place by her mother's bedside, whom Carrie
was learning to confide in, and of whom even the
father said, “she is a most excellent woman.”

“I will write to Walter,” said she, “and tell him to
come immediately.”

Suiting the action to the word, she drew up her writing
desk, and soon a finished letter was lying before her.
Ere she had time to fold and direct it, a loud cry from
her young brother Willie, summoned her for a few moments
from the room, and on her return, she met in the
doorway the black bombasin and linen collar.

“Madam,” said she, “did you wish for anything?”

“Yes, dear,” was the soft answer, which, however, in
this case failed to turn away wrath. “Yes, dear, your
mother said you knew where there were some fine bits
of linen.”

“And could not Carrie come for them?” asked Mag.

“Yes, dear, but she looks so delicate that I do not like
to send her up these long stairs oftener than is necessary.
Have n't you noticed how pale she is getting of late? I
shouldn't be at all surprised—;” but before the sentence
was finished, the linen was found, and the door
closed upon Mrs. Carter.

A new idea had been awakened in Margaret's mind,
and for the first time she thought how much her sister really

had changed. Carrie, who was four years younger
than Margaret, had ever been delicate, and her parents
had always feared that not long could they keep her; but
though each winter her cough had returned with increased
severity, though the veins on her white brow
grew more distinct, and her large, blue eyes glowed with
unwonted luster, still Margaret had never before dreamed
of danger, never thought that soon her sister's voice
would be missed, and that Carrie would be gone. But
she thought of it now, and laying her head upon the table,
wept for a time in silence.

At length, drying her tears, she folded her letter and
took it to the post-office. As she was returning home,
she was met by a servant, who exclaimed, “Run, Miss
Margaret, run; your mother is dying, and Mrs. Carter
sent me for you!”

Swift as the mountain chamois, Margaret sped up the
long, steep hill, and in a few moments stood within her
mother's sick-room. Supported in the arms of Mrs. Carter
lay the dying woman, while her eyes, already overshadowed
with the mists of coming death, wandered anxiously
around the room, as if in quest of some one. The
moment Margaret appeared, a satisfied smile broke over
her wasted features, and beckoning her daughter to her
bedside, she whispered, “Dear Maggie, you did not think
I'd die so soon, when you went away.”

A burst of tears was Maggie's only answer, as she passionately
kissed the cold, white lips, which had never
breathed aught to her save words of love and gentleness.
Far different, however, would have been her reply, had
she known the reason of her mother's question. Not
long after she had left the house for the office, Mrs.
Hamilton had been taken worse, and the physician, who
chanced to be present, pronounced her dying. Instantly

the alarmed husband summoned together his household,
but Mag was missing. No one had seen her; no one
knew where she was, until Mrs. Carter, who had been
some little time absent from the room, reëntered it, saying,
“Margaret had started for the post-office with a letter,
when I sent a servant to tell her of her mother's danger,
but for some reason she kept on, though I dare say
she will soon be back.”

As we well know, the substance of this speech was
true, though the impression which Mrs. Carter's words
conveyed was entirely false. For the advancement of her
own cause, she felt that it was necessary to weaken the
high estimation in which Mr. Hamilton held his daughter,
and she fancied that the mother's death-bed was as
fitting a place where to commence operations as she could
select.

As Margaret hung over her mother's pillow, the false
woman, as if to confirm the assertion she had made,
leaned forward and said, “Robin told you, I suppose? I
sent him to do so.”

Margaret nodded assent, while a deeper gloom fell
upon the brow of Mr. Hamilton, who stood with folded
arms, watching the advance of the great destroyer. It
came at last, and though no perceptible change heralded
its approach, there was one fearful spasm, one long drawn
sigh, a striving of the eye for one more glimpse of the
loved ones gathered near, and then Mrs. Hamilton was
dead. On the bosom of Mrs. Carter her life was breathed
away, and when all was over, that lady laid gently down
her burden, carefully adjusted the tumbled covering, and
then stepping to the window, looked out, while the
stricken group deplored their loss.

Long and bitterly over their dead they wept, but not
on one of that weeping band fell the bolt so crushingly

as upon Willie, the youngest of the flock, the child four
summers old, who had ever lived in the light of his mother's
love. They had told him she would die, but he understood
them not, for never before had he looked on
death; and now, when to his childish words of love
his mother made no answer, most piteously rang out
the infantile cry, “Mother, oh, my mother, who'll be my
mother now?”

Caressingly, a small, white hand was laid on Willie's
yellow curls, but ere the words of love were spoken,
Margaret took the little fellow in her arms, and whispered,
through her tears, “I'll be your mother, darling.”

Willie brushed the tear-drops from his sister's cheek,
and laying his fair, round face upon her neck, said, “And
who'll be Maggie's mother? Mrs. Carter?”

“Never! never!” answered Mag, while to the glance
of hatred and defiance cast upon her, she returned one
equally scornful and determined.

Soon from the village there came words of sympathy
and offers of assistance; but Mrs. Carter could do everything,
and in her blandest tones she declined the services
of the neighbors, refusing even to admit them into the
presence of Margaret and Carrie, who, she said, were so
much exhausted as to be unable to bear the fresh burst
of grief which the sight of an old friend would surely
produce. So the neighbors went home, and, as the world
will ever do, descanted upon the probable result of Mrs.
Carter's labors at the homestead. Thus, ere Ernest Hamilton
had been three days a widower, many in fancy had
wedded him to Mrs Carter, saying that nowhere could
he find so good a mother for his children.

And truly she did seem to be indispensable in that
house of mourning. 'Twas she who saw that everything
was done, quietly and in order; 't was she who so neatly

arranged the muslin shroud; 't was her arms that supported
the half fainting Carrie when first her eye rested
on her mother, coffined for the grave; 't was she who
whispered words of comfort to the desolate husband; and
she, too, it was, who, on the night when Walter was expected
home, kindly sat up until past midnight to receive
him!

She had read Mag's letter, and by being first to welcome
the young man home, she hoped to remove from his mind
any prejudice which he might feel for her, and by her
bland smiles and gentle words to lure him into the belief
that she was perfect, and Margaret uncharitable. Partially
she succeeded, too, for when next morning Mag
expressed a desire that Mrs. Carter would go home, he
replied, “I think you judge her wrongfully; she seems to
be a most amiable, kind-hearted woman.”

“Et tu, Brute!” Mag could have said, but 't was neither
the time nor the place, and linking her arm within her
brother's, she led him into the adjoining room, where
stood their mother's coffin.