University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

Now there dwelt in the village of Springdale a
certain widow, in whose bosom the storms of life had
turned the milk of human kindness sour—if the peculiar
temperament of the lady had not soured it at her
birth. Mrs. Maddox was a starch widow, who had
a starch daughter, as renowned for her ugliness and
ungainliness, as was Peggy Blossom for her beauty
and grace. This fact had engendered no very kind
emotions towards Peggy in the bosoms of the mother
and daughter. The feeling was reciprocal; for it
cannot be denied that Peggy was wont to toss her
head with the airs of a My Lady wherever she encountered
Mrs. or Miss Maddox.

Mrs. Maddox and her daughter were the fashionable
milliners of Springdale. Miss Maddox read
novels, and was sentimental and spiteful; qualities
which she inherited, and which, like an estate entailed
in the hands of a careful heir, had not been suffered
to run to waste.

“Yes,” said Miss Maddox to her mother, on the
evening of Bobby's incarceration, as they sat together in
the backroom of their shop; “it's all that hussey Peggy's
fault. She'll come to no good, ma; I know it, and
feel it. Only to think how she cuts up with Mr. Gordon,
Mr. Hardy, and Mr. Hitt. Hitt's a vulgar person,
I know; and I suspect she didn't like him, and put
that abominable Bob up to shooting him.”

“Vulgar person, Lucinda; that's the very reason
that she used to like his visits. He is the most vulgar

spoken person I ever knew. But he's but a blacksmith;
and you can't expect fur off of a sow's back.
I understand it, my dear. She was all smiles to Hitt
and the rest of them, until Lawyer Lupton used to go
there. She thought he used to go to see her—just
like her vanity, when he went to ask her old grandmother
concerning a boundary line, as he told me himself—he,
he. Yes, she thought she'd catch the lawyer,
and so dropped the others; and Mr. Lupton, as he
told me himself, dropped her. Then she took up with
Hitt, and misled the fool into thinking that she liked
him, and now it's all for Gordon. This aggravated
Hitt, and he spoke her whole character out before the
people this evening; and that caused the fuss with
Bob Gammon. That child is raising this moment for
the gallows. It's so plain to me, that I see him swinging
now.—It shocks me. How I pity that poor,
wretched, old woman.”

“That Peggy has been ruined by the Holly folks,
ma; they have made too much of her. Miss Rachellina
gives her her cast off dresses, and Miss Fanny gives
her new ones, and this has put her above herself.”

“That reminds me, Lucinda, that Miss Rachellina—
such an old thing, to think so much of dressing herself
up,—wants to see the new pattern of a cap I got
yesterday,—what caps that Peggy makes for her; so
I'll put it in a bandbox and call by Mr. Bronson's, and
take his Tom with me, and go to Holly.”

“Do, ma, do; and see what they have to say for
Miss Peggy Blossom—what a name—now.”

Mrs. Maddox accordingly placed the cap in a
bandbox, put on her bonnet, and departed, saying:
“Lucinda, if Mr. Lupton comes, show him how beautifully
you stitched his collars. I told him this blessed
day that they were all your work. Put on your other
cape, my dear, and tye it with the pink ribbon—it
becomes you most.”

Mrs. Maddox proceeded directly to Mr. Bronson's
store; and after telling him that his prophecies about
Bobby Gammon had come exactly true, she asked
if he would suffer his boy Tom to attend her to Holly.

The milliner and Mr. Bronson, in their respective
vocations, were of great service to each other; and
consequently very good friends. Her request was
therefore politely complied with, and Tom, with the
bandbox under his arm, was ordered to attend Mrs.
Maddox.

Holly was but a short distance from Springdale,
and Mrs. Maddox soon arrived there. She was
shown into Miss Rachellina's especial room, where,
with the profoundest deference, she exhibited the
cap, and expatiated upon its beauties to that good
lady.

“Indeed, Miss Rachellina, don't it suit your taste—I
hope it will, ma'am,” she said, displaying the cap on her
hand, and bobbing it about as though it were on her
head. “Your taste in caps is quite according to the
prints. Miss Blossom, too, is quite a milliner,—poor
thing, indeed she is to be pitied, though it's somewhat
her fault, yet misfortunes never come single.”

“Her fault—what's the matter,” exclaimed Miss
Rachellina, somewhat astonished at the volubility of
Mrs. Maddox, “what's her fault, Mrs. Maddox?”

“Haint you heard it, Miss Rachellina”—

“Heard it! no, ma'am, I have not heard it—what's
her fault, what's she been doing?”

“Then you hav'nt heard, Miss Rachellina, as what
a trouble she's got her poor lame cousin into.”

“Trouble! why no, tell me—do tell me?”

Mrs. Maddox composed her features into a sympathetic
expression ere she said:—

“Why, Miss Rachellina, I know that Miss Blossom
is a great favourite of yours, and I wouldn't say anything
for the world that would hurt the child in your

good opinion. She is pretty—very, everybody says
that, and they say that your kindness to her and the
many presents you give her, gives her looks and
ways far above her situation in life.”

“No matter what people say, Mrs. Maddock; tell
me, what has she done?”

“Why, ma'am, you must know, that folks say that
she is a great flirt-coquette; and that she trifles with
the feelings of the young men who call to see her,
with the best intentions.”

“What's that to do, Mrs. Maddox, with the present
business.”

“Why, ma'am, give me time; your indulgence, Miss
Rachellina. There be many young men who go to
see her, and she, ma'am,—I only say what folks say,
I don't want to harm her in your good opinion, but
folks say that she has caused somehow or other frequent
quarrels amongst them. This I have heard
over and over again. Indeed, they do say that she
gets sometimes a little above herself. But the long
and short of it is this; that Mr. Hitt, Joe Hitt, the
blacksmith, ma'am, to whom everybody said she was
going to be married, he was there last night, and
they do say she treated him very badly, indeed. She
has involved herself with that scamp Gordon. This
morning, ma'am, Hitt's feelings were so hurt, and it
being election day, he got intoxicated, ma'am, and he
being in liquor asked Bobby what his cousin meant.
Bobby took him up, snubbed him on the spot, and told
him he had no business to come to the house. At
this, as was natural, you know, Miss Rachellina, considering
what had passed between Miss Blossom and
Mr. Hitt, he, Mr. Hitt, got angry, and spoke his mind
out against Miss Blossom. Bobby all the while had
his gun on his shoulder,—a gun Colonel Bentley gave
him, ma'am—it was injudicious to give a gun to such
a boy who, everybody says, is disposed to be vicious.

Well, ma'am, Mr. Hitt could scarcely turn round before
the boy fired the whole load into him.”

“Terrible!” ejaculated Miss Rachellina; “is he
dead?”

“No, ma'am; but dangerous—very dangerous.”

“Where was he wounded—where was he wounded?”
inquired Miss Rachellina, with intense earnestness.

“Ahem, ahem. Mr. Hitt now turned round, when
the boy fired, and the load, ma'am, nearly half a peck
of buckshot, hit him in the back. Indeed, ma'am, it was
the doings of Providence, for if it had have been before
it would have ruined him forever.”

At this moment there was a tremulous tap at the
door, and on Miss Rachellina saying “Come in!” Peggy,
with a face pale as Mrs. Maddox's cap, entered
the room.

“Peggy, my child, this is sad things, I hear,” said
Miss Rachellina, with much sternness.

Poor Peggy burst into tears.

Mrs. Maddox stood with her cap in her hand, not
knowing what to say. “Not now, Mrs. Maddox, not
now,” said Miss Rachellina, turning away from the
milliner and her cap, and looking compassionately at
Peggy, “my nerves, my sensibilities have been too
much tried. You must call again, Mrs. Maddox.”

The milliner lingered for a moment with the wish
to hear what Peggy should say; but on Miss Rachellina's
repeating, “Not now, Mrs. Maddox,” with a
bow that said as plainly as ever did a regal one that
the audience was over, she felt compelled to take her
departure. As soon as the door had closed on Mrs.
Maddox, Miss Rachellina seated herself in her high-backed
rocking chair, and motioning Peggy to a
seat, she crossed her arms in her lap, and said:—

“Peggy Blossom, this is terrible news I hear of
your cousin and yourself.”

“Of me, Miss Rachellina?”

“Yes! of you, Peggy; I am astonished; shocked
beyond measure. My kindness to you was founded
upon the opinion that you were a superior young woman.
Not superior as to mere appearance—I do not
mean personal appearance, that is a very fragile and
fleeting quality—but superior in disposition, in conduct,
in that which constitutes the chief charm of the female
character. I am surprised to hear, Peggy, that you
are given to flirtation and coquetry (here Peggy's
astonishment subsided into a sheepish expression), and
in this way—a very common way, Peggy Blossom,
you have caused perhaps the death of two persons.”

“It can't be, Miss Rachellina,” said Peggy; “for
they say Joe Hitt is not hurt badly; and if he is not,
how can they harm Bobby. Besides, if he was, he
threw at Bobby, a poor lame boy as he is, three or
four times, and once like to have knocked him down,
before Bobby fired.”

“Well, child,” resumed Miss Rachellina, “you have
relieved my mind from an oppressive load, if such is
the fact; I rejoice to hear it. Peggy, Peggy, let this
be a lesson to you, let what may be the event. I am
told, much to my surprise and grief, that you suffer
that young man Gordon, whose character is, to say
the best of it, on a very doubtful footing, to visit you
on familiar terms. Peggy, let me caution you; do not
at all encourage that man. I am told it is notorious
that you prefer his company and conversation to that
of any other young man in the village.”

Here Sidney Fitzhurst entered his aunt's room,
and that lady, ere she turned to him, said to the girl,
“I hope I have said enough to you Peggy;” and then,
addressing her nephew, asked: “What news do you
bring, Sidney? you are late; can you tell me of Robert
Gammon's unfortunate case?”

“Yes, aunt; I am fresh from the village, and can
tell you all about it,—I have just had the honour of

becoming Mr. Robert Gammon's bail; the poor fellow
was in a peck of troubles.”

“Bail! what's that, Mr. Fitzhurst, if you please,
sir?” asked Peggy.

“Why, Peggy, I have become his security for his
appearance at court, for his future good behaviour,
and they have let him out of jail on that condition.
So you must tell Bobby, that if he does not behave
himself I shall have ten times as much money to pay
for him as he has lost.”

“I will, sir! is he out, sir? has he gone home?”

“He has, Peggy.”

“Then good night, Mr. Fitzhurst; good night, Miss
Rachellina,” said Peggy, as she hastened to the
door.

“Good night, Peggy,” replied Miss Rachellina.
“Remember, child,” she continued, impressively
raising her finger, “what I have said to you.”

With a downcast head, Peggy closed the door
and hastened out of the house. Without stopping to
speak to any one she took her solitary way home.

“If I were to meet Jack Gordon,” thought Peggy,
as she drew near grandmother's, “I'd be bound I'd
tell him a piece of my mind. I always had a misgiving,
just like one of granny's dreams, that he would
bring trouble on me.”

The adage, which says talk of a certain person
and he appears, was not verified in this instance, perhaps
it might have been because Peggy was only
thinking. She entered the house without meeting
any one; and beheld Bobby giving an account of the
day's adventure to his grandmother.