University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV
TERRACE HILL.

The storm which visited Kentucky so wrathfully was
far milder among the New England hills, and in the vicinity
of Snowdon, whither our story now tends, was scarcely
noticed, save as an ordinary winter's storm. There were
no drifts against the fences, no driving sleet, no sheets of
ice covering the valleys, nothing save a dark, sour, dreary
day, when the grey December clouds seemed wading in
the piles of snow, which, as the sun went down, began to
fall in those small misty flakes, which betoken a storm of
some duration. As yet it had been comparatively warmer
in New England than in Kentucky; and Miss Anna Richards,
confirmed invalid though she was, had decided not
to take her usual trip to the South, so comfortable was she
at home, in her accustomed chair, with her pretty crimson
shawl wrapped around her. Besides that, they were expecting
her brother John from Paris, where he had been
for the last eighteen months, pursuing his medical profession,
and she must be there to welcome him.

Anna was proud of her young, handsome brother, for
on him and his success in life, all their future hopes were
pending.

All were proud of John, and all had petted and spoiled
him, from his precise lady mother, down to invalid Anna,
who, more than any one else, was anxious for his return,
and who had entered, with a good deal of interest into
the preparations which, for a week or more, had kept
Terrace Hill Mansion in a state of bustle and excitement,
for John was so refined and fastidious in his tastes, that
he was sure to notice if aught were amiss or out of place.

Consequently great pains was taken with his room, while
Anna, who had a private purse of her own, went into the
extravagance of furnishing a new carpet of more modern
style than the heavy, old-fashioned Brussels, which for
years, had covered the floor.

John had never been very happy at home — and hence
the efforts they were putting forth to make it attractive to
him after his long absence. He could not help liking it
now, the ladies said to each other, as, a few days before
his arrival, they rode from the village, up the winding
terraced hill, admiring the huge stone building embosomed
in evergreens, and standing out so distinctly against
the wintry sky. And Terrace Hill Mansion was a very
handsome place, exciting the envy and admiration of the
villagers, who could remember a time when it had looked
better even than it did now — when the house was oftener
full of city company, when high-born ladies rode up and
down in carriages, or dashed on horseback through the
park and off into leafy woods — when sounds of festivity
were heard in the halls from year's end to year's end, and
the lights in the parlors were rarely extinguished, or the
fires on the hearth put out. This was during the lifetime
of its former owner, whose covering had been the tall green
grass of Snowdon cemetery for several years. With his
death there had come a change to the inhabitants of Terrace
Hill, a curtailing of expenses, a gradual dropping of
the swarms of friends who had literally fed upon them during
the summer and autumn months. In short it was
whispered now that the ladies of Terrace Hill were restricted
in their means, that there was less display of dress and
style, fewer fires, and lights, and servants, and an apparent
desire to be left to themselves.

This was what the village people whispered, and none
knew the truth of the whisperings better than the ladies
in question, or shrank more from having their affairs
canvassed by those whom they looked down upon, even if

the glory of their house was departed. Mrs. Richards
and her elder daughters, Miss Asenath and Eudora, were
very proud, very exclusive, and but for the existence of
Anna, few of the villagers would ever have crossed their
threshold. Anna was a favorite in the village, and when
confined to her room for weeks, as she sometimes was,
there were more anxious enquiries concerning her than
would have been bestowed on Asenath and Eudora had
they both been dying. And yet in her early girlhood
she too had been cold and haughty, but since the morning
when she had knelt at her father's feet, and begged him
to revoke his cruel decision, and say she might be the
bride of a poor missionary, Anna had greatly changed,
and the father, had sometimes questioned the propriety
of separating the hearts which clung so tenaciously together.
But it was then too late to remedy the mistake.
The young missionary had married another, and neither
the parents nor the sisters ever forgot the look of anguish
which stole into Anna's face, when she heard the news.
She had told him to do so, it is true, for she knew a missionary
to be strictly useful must have a wife. She had
thought herself prepared, but the news was just as crushing
when it came, accompanied though it was with a few
last lines from him, such as a husband might write to the
woman he had loved so much, and only given up because
he must. Anna kept this letter yet, reading it often to
herself, and wondering, if through all the changes which
fourteen years had wrought, the missionary remembered
her yet, and if they would ever meet again. This was
the secret of the numerous missionary papers and magazines
scattered so profusely through the rooms at Terrace
Hill. Anna was interested in everything pertaining to
the work, though, it must be confessed, that her mind
wandered oftenest to the city of mosques and minarets,
where he was laboring; and once, when she heard of a
little grave made with the Moslem dead, the grave of
darling Anna, named for her, she wept bitterly, feeling as
if she, too, had been bereaved as well as the parents,
across the Eastern waters. This was sweet Anna Richards,
who, on the day of her brother's expected arrival
from Paris, dressed herself with unusual care and joined
her mother and elder sisters in the parlor below. It was
a raw, chilly evening, and a coal fire had been kindled in the
grate, the bright blaze falling on Anna's cheek, and lighting
it up with something like the youthful bloom for
which she had once been celebrated. The harsh expression
of Miss Asenath's face was softened down, while the
mother and Eudora looked anxiously expectant, and
Anna was the happiest of them all. Taken as a whole
it was a very pleasant family group, which sat there waiting
for the foreign lion, and for the whistle of the engine
which was to herald his approach.

“I wonder if he has changed,” said the mother, glancing
at the opposite mirror and arranging the puffs of
glossy false hair which shaded her aristocratic forehead.

“Of course he has,” returned Miss Asenath. Nearly
two years of Paris society must have imparted to him that
air distingue so desirable in a young man who has travelled.”

“He'll hardly fail of making a good match now,” Miss
Eudora remarked. “I think we must manage to visit
Saratoga or some of those places next summer. Mr.
Gardner found his wife at Newport, and they say she's
worth half a million.”

“But horridly ugly,” and Anna looked up from the
reverie in which she had been indulging. “Lottie says she
has tow hair and a face like a fish. John would never be
happy with such a wife.”

“Possibly you think he had better have married that
sewing girl about whom he wrote us just before going to
Europe,” Miss Eudora suggested.

“No, I don't,” Anna answered, mildly. “I am almost

as anxious as yourselves for him to marry rich, for I know
you need money sadly, and my income is not so large as
for your sakes I wish it was, but poverty and love are
better than riches and hatred, and I have always felt a
strange interest in that young girl, whom I know John
loved, or he would never have written to see how we
would bear his taking a portionless bride.”

“I told him plainly how I would bear it. She should
never cross my threshold,” and the face of Mrs. Richards,
the mother, was highly indicative of the feeling she entertained
for the young, penniless girl, whom it would
seem John Richards M. D., had thought to marry.

“I trust he is over that fancy,” she continued, “and
ready to thank me for the strong letter I wrote him.”

“Yes, but the girl,” and Anna leaned her white cheek
in her whiter hand. “None of us know the harm his
leaving her may have done. Don't you remember he
wrote how much she loved him — how gentle and confiding
her nature was, how to leave her then might prove
her ruin?”

“Our little Anna is growing very eloquent upon the
subject of sewing girls,” Miss Asenath said, rather scornfully,
and Anna rejoined,

“I am not sure she was a sewing girl. He spoke of
her as a school girl.”

“But it is most likely he did that to mislead us,” said
the mother. “The only boarding school he knows anything
about is the one where Lottie was. He often visited
her, but I've questioned her closely, and she cannot
think of a single young lady whom he fancied more than
another. All were in love with him, she said, herself included.
If he were not her uncle by marriage I should
not object to Lottie as a daughter,” was the next remark,
whereupon there ensued a conversation touching the merits
and demerits of a certain Lottie Gardner, whose father
had taken for a second wife Miss Laura Richards.

During this discussion of Lottie, Anna had sat listlessly
looking up and down the columns of an old Herald
which Dick, Eudora's pet dog, had ferreted out from the
table and deposited at her feet. She evidently was not
thinking of Lottie, nor yet of the advertisements, until
one struck her notice as being very singular from the fact
that a name was appended to it, a thing she had never
seen before. Holding it a little more to the light and
bending forward she said, “Possibly this is the very person
I want — one who will be either a companion or a
waiting-maid, only the child might be an objection, though
I do love the little things. Just listen,” and Anna read
as follows:

Anna was about to say whom, when a violent ringing
of the bell and a heavy stamping of feet on the steps without
announced an arrival, and the next moment a tall,
handsome young man, exceedingly Frenchified in his appearance,
entered the room, and was soon in the arms of his
mother, who, kissing his bearded cheek, welcomed him as
her son.

John, or Dr. Richards, did not care particularly to be
caressed by ladies unless he could choose them, and releasing
himself as soon as practicable from his lady mother's
embrace, he submitted himself a moment to his two elder
sisters, and then, hastening to where Anna sat, wound
his arms around her light figure, and lifting her as he would
have lifted a little child, kissed her white lips and looked
into her face with an expression which told that, however
indifferent he might be to others, he was not so to Anna.

“You have not changed for the worse,” he said, replacing
her in her chair and sitting down beside her.

“And you are vastly improved,” was Anna's answer, as
she smoothed playfully the Parisian mustache, her brother's
special pride.

Then commenced from mother and sisters a volley of
questions. Had he been well? Did he like Paris? Was
he glad to be home again? And why had he gone off
without coming out to say good-bye?

This last was put by his mother, who continued, “I
thought, perhaps, you were offended at my plain letter
concerning that girl, and resented it by not coming, but of
course you are glad now, and see that mother was right.
What could you have done with a wife in Paris?”

“I should not have gone,” John answered, moodily, a
shadow stealing over his face.

It was not good taste for Mrs. Richards thus early to introduce
a topic on which John was really so sore, and for
a moment an awkward silence ensued, broken at last by
the mother again, who, feeling that all was not right, and
anxious to know if there was yet aught to fear from a poor,
unknown daughter-in-law, asked, hesitatingly,

“Have you seen her since your return?”

She is dead was the reply, and then anxious to change
the conversation, the Doctor began talking to Anna until
the supper bell rang, and his mother led the way to the
dining room where a most inviting supper was prepared
in honor of the Doctor's return. How handsome he looked
in his father's place at the head of the table. How
gracefully he did the honors, and how proud all were of
him as he repeated little incidents of Parisian life, speaking
of the Emperor and Eugenie as if they had been
every day sights to him. In figure and form the fair Empress
reminded him of Anna, he said, except that Anna
was the prettier of the two — a compliment which Anna
acknowledged with a blush and a trembling of her long
eyelashes. It was a very pleasant family reunion, for John
did his best to be agreeable, and by the time they returned

to the parlor his mother had quite forgiven him the flagrant
act of loving an unknown girl.

“Oh, John, please be careful where you tear that paper.
There's an advertisement I want to save,” Anna exclaimed,
as she saw her brother tearing a strip from the Herald
with which to light his cigar, but as she spoke, the smoke
and flame curled around the narrow strip, and Dr. Richards
had lighted his cigar with the name and address appended
to the advertisement which had so interested
Anna.

How disturbed she was when she found that nought
was left save the simple wants of the young girl who,
with a breaking heart had penned the lines, and who now
lay so still beneath a Kentucky rift of snow!

“Let's see,” and taking the mutilated sheet, Dr. Richards
read the “Wanted, by a young unfortunate married
woman.”

“That unfortunate may mean a great deal more than
you imagine,” he said, in order to quiet his sister, who
quickly rejoined,

“Yes, but she distinctly says married. Don't you see,
and I had really some idea of writing to her, or at least
I think I had, now that 'tis too late.”

“I'm sorry I was so careless, but there are a thousand
unfortunate women who would gladly be your maid,
little sister. I'll send you out a score, if you say so,
either with or without babies,” and John laughed, as with
the utmost nonchalance he smoked the cigar lighted with
the name of Adah Hastings!

“Has any thing of importance occurred in this slow old
town?” he inquired, after Anna had become reconciled to
her loss. Has there been any desirable addition to
Snowdon society?”

“Yes,” returned Anna. “A Mrs. Johnson, who is
every way cultivated and refined, while Alice is the

sweetest girl I ever knew. You have a rare pleasure in
store in forming their acquaintance.

“Whose, the old or the young lady's?” John asked,
carelessly knocking the ashes from the end of his cigar.

“Both,” was Anna's reply. “The mother is very
youthful in her appearance. Why, she scarcely looks
older than I do, and I, you know, am thirty-two.”

As if fearful lest her own age should come next under
consideration, Miss Eudora hastened to say,

“Yes, Mrs. Johnson does look very young, and Alice
seems like a child, though I heard her say she was almost
twenty. Such beautiful hair as she has. It used to
be a bright yellow, or golden, so the old nurse says, but
now it has a darker, richer shade, midway between golden
and chestnut, while her eyes are the softest, handsomest
blue.”

Alice Johnson was evidently a favorite at Terrace Hill,
and as this stamped her somebody John began to ask who
the Johnsons were, and where they came from.

Mrs. Richard seemed disposed to answer these questions,
which she did as follows:

“Mrs. Johnson used to live in Boston, and her husband
was grandson of old Governor Johnson, one of the best
families in that State.”

“Ah, yes,” and John began to laugh. “I see now what
gives Miss Alice's hair that peculiar shade, and her eyes
that heavenly blue, over which my staid sister Dora waxed
so eloquent. Miss Alice is an ex-Governor's great granddaughter
— but go on, mother, only come to Alice herself,
and give her figure as soon as may be.”

“What do you mean?” asked Anna, who took things
literally. “I should suppose you'd care more for her face
than her form.”

John smiled mischievously, while his mother continued,

“I fancy that Mrs. Johnson's family met with a reverse
of fortune befor her marriage, but know nothing certain

ly except that she was greatly beloved in Boston. Her
husband has been dead some years, and recently she has
bought and fitted up that pretty cottage down by the river.
I do not see her as often as I would like to, for I am greatly
pleased with her, although she has some habits of which
I cannot approve, such as associating with the poor of the
town to the extent she does. Why, I hear that Alice had
a party the other day consisting wholly of ragged urchins.”

“They were her Sunday-school scholars,” interposed
Anna. Alice has picked up a large class of children, who
before her coming, used to run the streets on Sundays
breaking up birds' nests and pilfering gardens. I am sure
we ought to be much obliged to her, for our fruit and
flowers are now comparatively safe.”

“I vote that Anna goes on with Alice's history. She
gives it best,” said John, and so Anna continued,

“There is but little to tell. Mrs. Johnson and her
daughter are both nice ladies, and I am sure you will like
them — every body does; and rumor has already given
Alice to our young clergyman, Mr. Howard.”

“And she is worth fifty thousand dollars, too,” rejoined
Asenath, as if that were a powerful reason why a poor
clergyman should not aspire to her hand.

“I have her figure at last,” said John, winking slily at
Anna, who only looked bewildered. And, the $50,000
did seem to make an impression on the young man, who
made numerous inquiries concerning the heiress, asking
how often she came to Terrace Hill, and where he would
be most likely to see her.

“At church,” was Anna's reply. “She is always there,
and their pew joins ours.”

Dr. Richards did not much like going to church, unless
it were where the music was grand and operatic. Still
he had intended honoring the benighted Snowdonites with
a sight of himself for one half day, though he knew he

should be terribly bored; but now the case was different,
for besides being, to a certain extent, a kind of lion, he
should see Miss Alice, and he reflected with considerable
satisfaction that as this was Friday night, only one day
intervened ere his curiosity and that of the villagers would
be gratified. He was glad there was something new and
interesting in Snowdon in the shape of a pretty girl, for he
did not care to return at once to New York, where he had
intended practising his profession. There were too many
sad memories clustering about that city to make it altogether
desirable, but Dr. Richards was not yet a hardened
wretch, and thoughts of another than Alice Johnson,
crowded upon his mind as on that first evening of his return,
he sat answering questions and asking others of his own.

It was late ere the family group broke up, and the
storm beating so furiously upon Spring Bank, was just
making its voice heard round Terrace Hill Mansion, when
the doctor took the lamp the servant brought, and bidding
his mother and sisters good-night, ascended the
stairs whither Anna, who kept early hours, had gone before
him. She was not, however, in bed, and when she
heard his step passing her door she called softly to him,

“John, brother John, come in a moment, please.”