University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.
THE DEPARTURE.

“John, how would you like to take a trip to New
York—the city, I mean?” said Mr. Livingstone, to his
son, one morning about two weeks following the events
narrated in the last chapter.

“Well enough—why do you ask?” answered John.

“Because,” said his father, “I have to-day received a
letter which makes it necessary for one of us to be there

the 15th, and as you are fond of traveling, I had rather
you would go. You had better start immediately—say
to-morrow.”

John Jr. started from his chair. To-morrow she left
her home—the 15th she sailed. He might see her again,
though at a distance, for she should never know he followed
her! Since that night in Frankfort he had not
looked upon her face, but he had kept his promise, returning
to her everything—everything except a withered
rose-bud, which years before, when but a boy, he had
twined among the heavy braids of her hair, and which
she had given back to him, playfully fastening it in the
button-hole of his roundabout! How well he remembered
that day. She was a little romping girl, teasing
him unmercifully about his flat feet and big hands, chiding
him for his negro slang, as she terned his favorite
expressions, and with whatever else she did, weaving her
image into his heart's best and noblest affections, until he
seemed to live only for her. But now 'twas changed—
terribly changed. She was no longer “his Nellie,” the
Nellie of his boyhood's love; and with a muttered curse
and a tear, large, round, and hot, such as only John Jr.
could shed, he sent her back every memento of the past,
all save that rose-bud, with which he could not part, it
seemed so like his early hopes—withered and dead.

Nellie was alone, preparing for her journey, when the
box containing the treasures was handed her. Again and
again she examined to see if there were not one farewell
word, but there was nothing save, “Here endeth the first
lesson!!” followed by two exclamation points, which
John Jr. had dashed off at random. Every article seemed
familiar to her as she looked them over, and everything
was there but one—she missed the rose-bud—and she
wondered at the omission, for she knew he had it in his

possession. He had told her so not three months before.
Why, then, did he not return it? Was it a lingering
affection for her which prompted the detention? Perhaps
so, and down in Nellie's heart was one warm, bright
spot, the memory of that bud, which grew green and
fresh again, as on the day when first it was torn from its
parent stem.

When it was first known at Maple Grove that Nellie
was going to Europe, Mrs. Livingstone, who saw in the
future the full consummation of her plans, proposed that
Mabel should spend the period of Nellie's absence with
her. But to this Mr. Douglass would not consent. “He
could not part with both his daughters,” he said, and Mabel
decided to remain, stipulating that 'Lena, of whom
she was very fond, should pass a portion of the time with
her.

“All the time, if she chooses,” said Mr. Douglass, who
also liked 'Lena, while Nellie, who was present, immediately
proposed that she should take music lessons of Monsieur
Du Pont, who had recently come to the city, and who
was said to be a superior teacher. “She is fond of music,”
said she, “and has always wanted to learn, but that
aunt of hers never seemed willing; and this will be a
good opportunity, for she can use my piano all the time if
she chooses.”

“Capital!” exclaimed Mabel, generously thinking how
she would pay the bills, and how much she would assist
'Lena, for Mabel was an excellent musician, singing and
playing admirably.

When this plan was proposed to 'Lena, she objected,
for two reasons. The first, that she could not leave her
grandmother, and second, that much as she desired the
lessons, she would not suffer Mabel to pay for them, and
she had no means of her own. On the first point she began

to waver, when Mrs. Nichols, who was in unusually
good health, insisted upon her going.

“It will do you a sight of good,” said she, “and there's
no kind of use why you should stay hived up with me.
I'd as lief be left alone as not, and I shall take comfort
thinkin' you're larnin' to play the pianner, for I've allus
wondered 'Tildy didn't set you at Car'line's. So, go,”
the old lady continued, whispering in 'Lena's ear, “Go,
and mebby some day you'll be a music teacher, and take
care of us both.”

Still, 'Lena hesitated at receiving so much from Mabel,
who, after a moment's thought, exclaimed, “Why, I can
teach you myself! I should love to, dearly. It will be
something to occupy my mind; and my instructors have
frequently said that I was capable of teaching advanced
pupils, if I chose. You'll go now, I know”—and Mabel
plead her cause so well, that 'Lena finally consented, saying
she should come home once a week to see her grandmother.

“A grand arrangement, I must confess,” said Carrie,
when she heard of it. “I should think she sponged
enough from her connections, without living on other
folks, and poor ones, too, like Mr. Douglass.”

“How ridiculous you talk,” said John Jr., who was
present. “You'd be perfectly willing to spend a year at
Mr. Graham's, or Mr. Douglass' either, if he had a son
whom you considered an eligible match. Then as to his
being so poor, that's one of Mother Atkins' yarns, and
she knows everybody's history, from Noah down to the
present day. For 'Lena's sake I am glad to have her go,
though heaven knows what I shall do without her.”

Mrs. Livingstone, too, was secretly pleased, for she
would thus be more out of Durward's way, and the good
lady was again becoming somewhat suspicious. So when

her husband objected, saying 'Lena could take lessons at
home if she liked, she quietly overruled him, giving many
good reasons why Lena should go, and finally saying,
that if Mrs. Nichols was very lonely without her, she
might spend her evenings in the parlor when there was
no company present! So it was decided that 'Lena should
go, and highly pleased with the result of their call, Mr.
Douglass and Mabel returned to Frankfort.

At length the morning came when Nellie was to start
on her journey. Mr. Wilbur had arrived the night before,
together with his sister, whose marble cheek and lusterless
eye even then foretold the lonely grave which awaited
her far away 'neath a foreign sky. Durward and Mr.
Douglass accompanied them as far as Cincinnati, where
they took the cars for Buffalo. Just before it rolled from
the depot, a young man closely muffled, who had been
watching our party, sprang into a car just in the rear of
the one they had chosen, and taking the first vacant seat,
abandoned himself to his own thoughts, which must have
been very absorbing, as a violent shake was necessary,
ere he heeded the call of “Your ticket, sir.”

Onward, onward flew the train, while faster and faster
Nellie's tears were dropping. They had gushed forth
when she saw the quivering chin and trembling lips of her
gray-haired father, as he bade his only child good-by,
and now that he was gone, she wept on, never heeding
her young friend, who strove in vain to call her attention
to the fast receding hills of Kentucky, which she—Mary
—was leaving forever. Other thoughts than those of her
father mingled with Nellie's tears, for she could not forget
John Jr., nor the hope cherished to the last that he
would come to say farewell. But he did not. They had
parted in coldness, if not in anger, and she might never
see him again.

“Come, cheer up, Miss Douglass; I cannot suffer you
to be sad,” said Mr. Wilbur, placing himself by Nellie,
and thoughtlessly throwing his arm across the back of the
seat, while at the same time he bent playfully forward to
peep under her bonnet.

And Nellie did look up, smiling through her tears, but
she did not observe the flashing eyes which watched her
through the window at the rear of the car. Always restless
and impatient of confinement, John Jr. had come out
for a moment upon the platform, ostensibly to take the
air, but really to see if it were possible to get a glimpse
of Nellie. She was sitting not far from the door, and he
looked in, just in time to witness Mr. Wilbur's action,
which he of course construed just as his jealousy dictated.

“Confounded fool!” thought he. “I wouldn't hug
Nellie in the cars in good broad daylight, even if I was
married to her!”

And returning to his seat, he wondered which was the
silliest, “for Nellie to run off with Mr. Wilbur, or for
himself to run after her. Six of one and half a dozen of
the other, I reckon,” said he; at the same time wrapping
himself in his shawl, he feigned sleep at every station, for
the sake of retaining his entire seat, and sometimes if the
crowd was great, going so far as to snore loudly!

And thus they proceeded onward, Nellie never suspecting
the close espionage kept upon her by John Jr., who
once in the night, at a crowded depot, passed so closely
to her that he felt her warm breath on his cheek. And
when, on the morning of the 15th, she sailed, she little
thought who it was that followed her down to the water's
edge, standing on the last spot where she had stood,
and watching with a swelling heart the vessel which bore
her away.

“I'm nothing better than a walking dead man, now,”

said he, as he retraced his steps back to his hotel. “Nellie's
gone, and with her all for which I lived, for she's the
only girl except 'Lena who isn't a libel on the sex—or,
yes—there's Anna—does as well as she knows how—and
there's Mabel, a little simpleton, to be sure, but amiable
and good-natured, and on the whole, as smart as they'll
average. 'Twas kind in her, anyway, to offer to pay 'Lena's
music bills.”

And with these reflections, John Jr. sought out the
men whom he had come to see, transacted his business,
and then started for home, where he found his mother in
unusually good spirits. Matters thus far had succeeded
even beyond her most sanguine expectations. Nellie was
gone to Europe, and the rest she fancied would be easy.
'Lena, too, was gone, but the result of this was not what
she had hoped. Durward had been at Maple Grove but
once since 'Lena left, while she had heard of his being in
Frankfort several times.

“Something must be done”—her favorite expression—
and in her difficulty she determined to call upon Mrs. Graham,
whom she had not seen since Christmas. “It is quite
time she knew about the gray pony, as well as other matters,”
thought she, and ordering the carriage, she set out
one morning for Woodlawn, intending to spend the day
if she found its mistress amiably disposed, which was not
always the case.