University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.

When Elbridge sought James Blair, to ask of him
his greatest treasure, an affecting scene occurred.
The father wept tears of mingled joy and sorrow.
He grieved to resign his noble daughter, but was
proud of the honourable connection she was to form.
“To one thing I will pledge myself,” he said, grasping
the hand of Elbridge, “your wife henceforth
shall never be ashamed of her father and his home.
I have not been intoxicated since Mary left me, and
from this day, not one drop of my bane shall pass my
lips.” And he kept his word.

On account of the necessity of Elbridge's immediate
return to Virginia, an early period was fixed for
the wedding.

One morning, a day or two previous to that decided
upon as the day of days, Elbridge was riding
slowly home from a visit to his lady-love, his thoughts
winged with golden fancies, and his heart steeped in
sweet recollections. In passing through a wild and
rocky glen, he was startled by the sudden appearance
of Katherine Denny. She was deathly pale, and her
eye was blacker and more fearfully brilliant than
ever. Elbridge dismounted, hung the bridle on his
arm, and walking up by her side, pleasantly passed
the usual compliments. To these Katherine made no
reply, but turning abruptly, and fixing a gaze of intense
meaning on his face, said, calmly—

“And so you are to marry Elizabeth Blair?”

“I am,” he replied, smiling.

“It is a happy and a fortunate circumstance to
her,” she rejoined.

“But most of all to me,” added the lover. A pause
of some moments. Then Katherine continued, in a
deep, impressive tone—

“Mr. Elbridge, I love my cousin, Elizabeth, as an
own sister, but, stronger than my love for her, than
my family pride, is my sense of the duty I owe to
my pastor, to my church, to religion itself, and I must
warn you before it is too late.”

“Good heavens!” cried Elbridge, “what do you
mean?”

“Tell me,” she replied, “did not Dr. N— advise
you to this marriage?”

“Yes.”

“Strongly?”

“Very strongly.”

“Then, are you blind? are you mad?” she exclaimed.
“Can you not see the trap laid for you?
He would not marry the poor girl, the drunkard's
daughter, and puts her off upon you in his calculating
villany. Bewaro!”

She then turned and ran swiftly up the hill-side at
her left. Once she paused on a rock, many feet above
him, and while the wind bore back the dark hair from
her white cheek and brow, she stood like a very
sibyl,[1] and, stretching her hand towards him, cried,

solemnly, “you are warned—remember!” and disappeared
amid the thick brushwood.

Elbridge stood transfixed with amazement and
horror, while the blood ran cold through every vein.
A faintness came over him, and he leaned for support
against his horse. But presently he lifted his head
and smiled a proud, happy smile. “I will believe in
my Elizabeth,” he murmured, “as I believe in that
heaven whose own goodness and purity are written
in every line of her sweet face.” And he went his
way with a heart strong in faith, and richer than ever
in love.

“Dear Elizabeth,” said Elbridge, at their next
meeting, “if you have not yet invited the guests to
our wedding, there is one of your relatives I must ask
you to exclude—Katherine Denny.”

“What! dear Kate, my only cousin! Why is this,
Henry?”

“I will tell you some time,—at present grant my
request, and trust me for my reasons.”

“If it is your wish, I promise,” she said, turning
aside to hide her emotion.

I will not bore my reader with a description of the
wedding, They were married, and started directly
for Virginia.

Mary Blair, who seemed to possess a goodly portion
of her sister's spirit, cheerfully took charge of
her father's family.

Great was the grief of Elbridge's attached parishioners
at the loss of their faithful pastor, and he is yet
remembered by them with reverence and affection.

The morning after his marriage, Elbridge acquainted
his wife with his memorable interview with
her cousin in the glen.

“It is well you did not tell me this at the time,”
she said.

“Why, my love?”

“I never should have married you, had you done
so.”

As for Katherine Denny, she soon after lost, unaccountably,
her religious zeal, “backslid” to her bellehood,
and finally “astonished the natives” by a run-away
match with Tom Henderson.

I think I cannot better close my story, than by
quoting part of a letter from my friend Dr. N—, to
whom I had applied for information of the after-fate of
some of my characters.

“The Elbridges had been married some four or
five years,” he writes, “when I visited them with
my wife, at their home in Virginia. We found them
living happily and harmoniously with the parents,
brother, and widowed sister of Elbridge, in the very
midst of his “aristocratic connexions.” Without
being essentially changed, Elizabeth Elbridge had
become truly a magnificent woman. Her beauty was
heightened to greater delicacy by habits of elegance
and rendered striking by rich and tasteful attire. Her
sweet face was softly shadowed by a constant care
for poor Henry's health, which I found was not yet
firmly established. She had then one child, a boy,
and her brother “Jamie,” grown a tall, fine looking

lad, was with her. She was an admirable hostess, and
I met many agreeable and distinguished people at
her dinner-parties. There was Senator —, and
Judge —, and a batch of lesser honourables.

“She informed me (for I had been some time absent
from my old location) that her sister Mary had
married an intelligent young farmer, and was living
with her father in a neat white cottage on the old
place.

“Elbridge informed me that his rustic bride had
won the love and respect of his relatives at once;—
that she had applied herself diligently to study, and
had already made up for the deficiencies in her early
education.

“`And I have found,' continued Elbridge, `that all
things are possible to woman, when she loves with
fervour and devotion.”'

Moore, in one of his poetical romances, places his
princely hero amid roses and enchantments, in the
vale of Cashmere,—but for a simple methodist parson,
I think I have had my share of romance and
poetry,—Love in the Valley of the Juniata.