University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
A FAMILY SCENE.

The party entered the hall in fine glee, with the exception of the Governor,
who still remained dejected, pale, and entirely different from his usually hearty
and even gleeful mood. Kate had again been on horseback, in which she
delighted, and entered the room with her skirt upon her arm, and a black cap
upon her head, full of drooping feathers. She was quite flushed and really
looked charming with the excitement of the ride, or that clashing of rival
wits, she so well knew how to keep up between her two assiduous attendants,
but it was all playful and courteous in the highest degree. It was the daily
practice of Carter and Moore to walk off arm in arm, after one of these
sprightly encounters for her favor. The fact was that Kate did not perceive
as yet, that either of these youths were in that die-away state, usually called
being in love. They had all played together for the last five years, except
when the young gentlemen were upon their travels and now that they were
returned so much improved, she saw no cause of rejecting attentions due to
her and which she really enjoyed. Neither of them had approached the
threshold of love-making—the Virginia system requires a much longer probation
than that, and the good old custom prevails still, thanks to the good
sense of our charming lassies, that even this old prescriptive right of their sex
is left willed to them by their great grandmothers.

One addition to the party was Mr. Nathaniel Dandrige, a youth just emerging
from his teens and his syntax, and a scion of the same class to which the
two others belonged. In the language of the times he was a young gentleman
of fortune and birth—the former in expectation of course. As he entered
Dorothea had his arm, and was carrying on a most desperate juvenile flirtation
in which his Excellency seemed only prevented from taking part by his
painful reflections, which every now and then came over him; as it was, he
hung in their near neighborhood, and gave way to a smile in spite of himself,
occasionally, at the perfect good humor and naivette of his favorite.

Old Essex had replaced the letter and was standing in most respectful
deference, awaiting the movements of his master.

“Who brought this, Essex?” was his instant enquiry as he broke the seal.

“Two gentlemen and a lady, all in masks, sir.”

The Governor threw himself into a chair and commenced the perusal, with
not a little interest. The whole party by this time were seated and waiting
impatiently for further developments.

“Did the people in masks run away with any of my spoons and cream pots,
Essex?” asked Dorothea.

“No, Miss, they were quite of another sort when I came to see them.”

“And the lady,” said Carter, “was she pretty, and young?”

“I could not see her face, sir, but she was very young.”

“Had she a pretty foot and hand?” continued Carter.

“The prettiest I ever saw in my life, sir.”

All the young people laughed outright at old Essex's close observation upon
points which the gentleman seemed to consider so essential a test.

“And her figure, Essex” asked Carter, “did that correspond with the two
beautiful members?”

“Most happily, sir. Very much such a figure as Miss Catherine's.”

“Thank you, Essex, for your compliment.”

“The Governor, though reading rapidly, lost not a word of all this, trifling
though it was, meanwhile he was racking his imagination for some other clue
to their identity, than any he found in the letter. As soon as he had finished

he handed the epistle to Dr. Blair, and then turned to Essex, but the faithful
and discreet old Major, maintained his reserve. He said not a word about
pictures, nor the lady's weeping, but dealt entirely in a general account of the
visit, the ostensible objects of which were to avoid the storm and leave the
letter. No one in the room perceived that the old fellow still held something
back, but his master. He knew him so well, that he divined some cause for
his reluctance to make a clean breast of it; accordingly he soon after retired
to his library, followed by Essex, and there learned the whole affair, as our
readers have done likewise.

Dr. Blair seeing nothing in the letter to conceal, and knowing that if there was
it would soon become public, commenced reading it aloud, it ran as follows:

“Dear me,” said Kate, “and our visitors were doubtless some of these.
Poor girl, she has followed her father and her brother to these wilds—but perhaps
the young gentleman was her lover. That would give quite a romantic
turn to the affair.”

“I think that hard shower of rain, if they were out in it, would drench
what little romance out of them the sea voyage left,” said Dorothea.

“Poor child,” said Dr. Blair, seeming rather to commune with his own
charitable thoughts, “I pity her from my soul.”

“I do not see,” whispered Carter to Kate, “that a lady with such a foot
and ankle, is any such object of commiseration after all.”

“Perhaps an orphan,” said Lady Spotswood, glancing at her own happy
little circle with a tear almost starting in her eye.

These various remarks upon the visitors were cut short by the re-entrance
of the Governor, who walked to that portion of the room where the young
gentlemen were seated, and asked which of them would volunteer to ride to
York on such a night, in search of these unhappy visitors? Moore immediately
rose to his feet and volunteered his services, as indeed did both the
others, but the former being first, the Governor commissioned him to go, and
find them out if possible and bring them back as his guests.

Kate seeing how earnest and grave her father seemed, gave her beau a
look of gratitude, which he considered ample remuneration for riding half an
hour in a wet night.

The party were soon after assembled for family prayers—the young ladies
having hastily retired to throw off their riding skirts and hats. A small reading
desk was placed before Dr. Blair, while Kate ascended a platform erected
before an organ, fitting into the recess formed by the projecting abutment of
the chimney. Then the servants came filing in one by one and ranged themselves
against the wall on the opposite side of the room. The old Major at
their head.

The whole group being composed to a proper and becoming solemnity, the
Doctor commenced reading a hymn. When he had finished, the slow and
solemn tones of the organ began to ascend in a prelude of great beauty.
Kate raised the tune in a fine mellow voice, which, in that high old fashioned
apartment, reverberated through its lofty ceilings, mingled with the tones of
the organ, so as to attune all their hearts to this befitting close of the scenes
of the day. The fine enthusiasm of the young musician's eye and mein,
told how earnestly her heart was concerned in what was before her. When
she had finished, the whole party by one accord sat breathless and motionless,
evidently desirous to catch the last note as it died away amidst the
solemn moan of the waves without. All then bowed the knee to the throne
of mercy to follow in humble response the petitions of one of the purest men
that ever adorned the church in the Old Dominion, or illustrated his Master's
divine system of Heavenly charity, by a life of spotless purity.

What a fitting prelude to the excellent Prelate's solemn reading, was Kate's

musical exaltation of spirit. Surely the voice of ardent and honest supplication
ascends all the nearer to Heaven by being heralded in such divine
strains. If there is any inspiration known and felt by the creatures of this
earth, as pure and refined above all earthly pollution, it is this musical enthusiasm
mingling with the sublimations of deeply prayerful and humble hearts.
Surely God looks down upon such scenes on earth, with benignity. It is at
all events the purest earthly feeling—the freest from the dross and corruptions
of this world, of any thing that we know of, and in such an attitude would
we present most of the personages kneeling around that family altar. A
purer and more guileless group of beings has seldom before or since assembled
in one room, and ere an all wise Providence scatters them and their
descendants upon a wider and a longer pilgrimage than ever was decreed to
the Israelitcs, we would fix them in the affections of our readers.