University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.
OF TOM'S NEW MASTER, AND VARIOUS OTHER MATTERS.

Since the thread of our humble hero's life has now become
interwoven with that of higher ones, it is necessary to give
some brief introduction to them.

Augustine St. Clare was the son of a wealthy planter of
Louisiana. The family had its origin in Canada. Of two
brothers, very similar in temperament and character, one had
settled on a flourishing farm in Vermont, and the other became
an opulent planter in Louisiana. The mother of Augustine
was a Huguenot French lady, whose family had emigrated to
Louisiana during the days of its early settlement. Augustine
and another brother were the only children of their
parents. Having inherited from his mother an exceeding
delicacy of constitution, he was, at the instance of physicians,
during many years of his boyhood, sent to the care of his
uncle in Vermont, in order that his constitution might be
strengthened by the cold of a more bracing climate.

In childhood, he was remarkable for an extreme and marked
sensitiveness of character, more akin to the softness of woman
than the ordinary hardness of his own sex. Time, however,
overgrew this softness with the rough bark of manhood, and
but few knew how living and fresh it still lay at the core.
His talents were of the very first order, although his mind
showed a preference always for the ideal and the æsthetic,
and there was about him that repugnance to the actual business
of life which is the common result of this balance of the

faculties. Soon after the completion of his college course, his
whole nature was kindled into one intense and passionate
effervescence of romantic passion. His hour came, — the hour
that comes only once; his star rose in the horizon, — that
star that rises so often in vain, to be remembered only as a
thing of dreams; and it rose for him in vain. To drop the
figure, — he saw and won the love of a high-minded and
beautiful woman, in one of the northern states, and they were
affianced. He returned south to make arrangements for their
marriage, when, most unexpectedly, his letters were returned
to him by mail, with a short note from her guardian, stating
to him that ere this reached him the lady would be the wife
of another. Stung to madness, he vainly hoped, as many
another has done, to fling the whole thing from his heart by
one desperate effort. Too proud to supplicate or seek explanation,
he threw himself at once into a whirl of fashionable
society, and in a fortnight from the time of the fatal letter
was the accepted lover of the reigning belle of the season; and
as soon as arrangements could be made, he became the husband
of a fine figure, a pair of bright dark eyes, and a hundred
thousand dollars; and, of course, everybody thought him
a happy fellow.

The married couple were enjoying their honeymoon, and
entertaining a brilliant circle of friends in their splendid villa,
near Lake Pontchartrain, when, one day, a letter was brought
to him in that well-remembered writing. It was handed to
him while he was in full tide of gay and successful conversation,
in a whole room-full of company. He turned deadly
pale when he saw the writing, but still preserved his composure,
and finished the playful warfare of badinage which
he was at the moment carrying on with a lady opposite; and,
a short time after, was missed from the circle. In his room,

alone, he opened and read the letter, now worse than idle and
useless to be read. It was from her, giving a long account
of a persecution to which she had been exposed by her guardian's
family, to lead her to unite herself with their son: and
she related how, for a long time, his letters had ceased to
arrive; how she had written time and again, till she became
weary and doubtful; how her health had failed under her
anxieties, and how, at last, she had discovered the whole fraud
which had been practised on them both. The letter ended
with expressions of hope and thankfulness, and professions of
undying affection, which were more bitter than death to the
unhappy young man. He wrote to her immediately:

“I have received yours, — but too late. I believed all I
heard. I was desperate. I am married, and all is over.
Only forget, — it is all that remains for either of us.”

And thus ended the whole romance and ideal of life for
Augustine St. Clare. But the real remained, — the real, like
the flat, bare, oozy tide-mud, when the blue sparkling wave,
with all its company of gliding boats and white-winged ships,
its music of oars and chiming waters, has gone down, and
there it lies, flat, slimy, bare, — exceedingly real.

Of course, in a novel, people's hearts break, and they die,
and that is the end of it; and in a story this is very convenient.
But in real life we do not die when all that makes
life bright dies to us. There is a most busy and important
round of eating, drinking, dressing, walking, visiting, buying,
selling, talking, reading, and all that makes up what is commonly
called living, yet to be gone through; and this yet
remained to Augustine. Had his wife been a whole woman,
she might yet have done something — as woman can — to
mend the broken threads of life, and weave again into a tissue
of brightness. But Marie St. Clare could not even see that

they had been broken. As before stated, she consisted of a
fine figure, a pair of splendid eyes, and a hundred thousand
dollars; and none of these items were precisely the ones to
minister to a mind diseased.

When Augustine, pale as death, was found lying on the
sofa, and pleaded sudden sick-headache as the cause of his
distress, she recommended to him to smell of hartshorn; and
when the paleness and headache came on week after week,
she only said that she never thought Mr. St. Clare was
sickly; but it seems he was very liable to sick-headaches,
and that it was a very unfortunate thing for her, because he
did n't enjoy going into company with her, and it seemed odd
to go so much alone, when they were just married. Augustine
was glad in his heart that he had married so undiscerning
a woman; but as the glosses and civilities of the honeymoon
wore away, he discovered that a beautiful young woman,
who has lived all her life to be caressed and waited on, might
prove quite a hard mistress in domestic life. Marie never
had possessed much capability of affection, or much sensibility,
and the little that she had, had been merged into a most
intense and unconscious selfishness; a selfishness the more
hopeless, from its quiet obtuseness, its utter ignorance of any
claims but her own. From her infancy, she had been surrounded
with servants, who lived only to study her caprices;
the idea that they had either feelings or rights had never
dawned upon her, even in distant perspective. Her father,
whose only child she had been, had never denied her anything
that lay within the compass of human possibility; and when
she entered life, beautiful, accomplished, and an heiress, she
had, of course, all the eligibles and non-eligibles of the other
sex sighing at her feet, and she had no doubt that Augustine
was a most fortunate man in having obtained her. It is a

great mistake to suppose that a woman with no heart will be
an easy creditor in the exchange of affection. There is not
on earth a more merciless exactor of love from others than a
thoroughly selfish woman; and the more unlovely she grows,
the more jealously and scrupulously she exacts love, to the
uttermost farthing. When, therefore, St. Clare began to
drop off those gallantries and small attentions which flowed at
first through the habitude of courtship, he found his sultana
no way ready to resign her slave; there were abundance of
tears, poutings, and small tempests, there were discontents,
pinings, upbraidings. St. Clare was good-natured and self-indulgent,
and sought to buy off with presents and flatteries;
and when Marie became mother to a beautiful daughter, he
really felt awakened, for a time, to something like tenderness.

St. Clare's mother had been a woman of uncommon elevation
and purity of character, and he gave to this child his
mother's name, fondly fancying that she would prove a
reproduction of her image. The thing had been remarked
with petulant jealousy by his wife, and she regarded her
husband's absorbing devotion to the child with suspicion and
dislike; all that was given to her seemed so much taken from
herself. From the time of the birth of this child, her health
gradually sunk. A life of constant inaction, bodily and
mental, — the friction of ceaseless ennui and discontent, united
to the ordinary weakness which attended the period of maternity,
— in course of a few years changed the blooming young
belle into a yellow, faded, sickly woman, whose time was
divided among a variety of fanciful diseases, and who considered
herself, in every sense, the most ill-used and suffering
person in existence.

There was no end of her various complaints; but her principal
forte appeared to lie in sick-headache, which sometimes

would confine her to her room three days out of six. As, of
course, all family arrangements fell into the hands of servants,
St. Clare found his menage anything but comfortable. His
only daughter was exceedingly delicate, and he feared that,
with no one to look after her and attend to her, her health
and life might yet fall a sacrifice to her mother's inefficiency.
He had taken her with him on a tour to Vermont, and had
persuaded his cousin, Miss Ophelia St. Clare, to return with
him to his southern residence; and they are now returning
on this boat, where we have introduced them to our readers.

And now, while the distant domes and spires of New
Orleans rise to our view, there is yet time for an introduction
to Miss Ophelia.

Whoever has travelled in the New England States will
remember, in some cool village, the large farm-house,
with its clean-swept grassy yard, shaded by the dense and
massive foliage of the sugar maple; and remember the air of
order and stillness, of perpetuity and unchanging repose, that
seemed to breathe over the whole place. Nothing lost, or out
of order; not a picket loose in the fence, not a particle of litter
in the turfy yard, with its clumps of lilac-bushes growing up
under the windows. Within, he will remember wide, clean
rooms, where nothing ever seems to be doing or going to be
done, where everything is once and forever rigidly in place,
and where all household arrangements move with the punctual
exactness of the old clock in the corner. In the family
“keeping-room,” as it is termed, he will remember the staid,
respectable old book-case, with its glass doors, where Rollin's
History, Milton's Paradise Lost, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress,
and Scott's Family Bible, stand side by side in
decorous order, with multitudes of other books, equally
solemn and respectable. There are no servants in the house,

but the lady in the snowy cap, with the spectacles, who sits
sewing every afternoon among her daughters, as if nothing
ever had been done, or were to be done, — she and her girls,
in some long-forgotten fore part of the day, “did up the
work,” and for the rest of the time, probably, at all hours
when you would see them, it is “done up.” The old kitchen
floor never seems stained or spotted; the tables, the chairs,
and the various cooking utensils, never seem deranged or disordered;
though three and sometimes four meals a day are
got there, though the family washing and ironing is there
performed, and though pounds of butter and cheese are in
some silent and mysterious manner there brought into existence.

On such a farm, in such a house and family, Miss Ophelia
had spent a quiet existence of some forty-five years, when
her cousin invited her to visit his southern mansion. The
eldest of a large family, she was still considered by her father
and mother as one of “the children,” and the proposal that she
should go to Orleans was a most momentous one to the family
circle. The old gray-headed father took down Morse's Atlas
out of the book-case, and looked out the exact latitude and
longitude; and read Flint's Travels in the South and West, to
make up his own mind as to the nature of the country.

The good mother inquired, anxiously, “if Orleans was n't
an awful wicked place,” saying, “that it seemed to her most
equal to going to the Sandwich Islands, or anywhere among
the heathen.”

It was known at the minister's, and at the doctor's, and at
Miss Peabody's milliner shop, that Ophelia St. Clare was
“talking about” going away down to Orleans with her
cousin; and of course the whole village could do no less than
help this very important process of talking about the matter.

The minister, who inclined strongly to abolitionist views, was
quite doubtful whether such a step might not tend somewhat
to encourage the southerners in holding on to their slaves;
while the doctor, who was a stanch colonizationist, inclined to
the opinion that Miss Ophelia ought to go, to show the
Orleans people that we don't think hardly of them, after all.
He was of opinion, in fact, that southern people needed
encouraging. When, however, the fact that she had resolved
to go was fully before the public mind, she was solemnly
invited out to tea by all her friends and neighbors for the
space of a fortnight, and her prospects and plans duly canvassed
and inquired into. Miss Moseley, who came into the
house to help to do the dress-making, acquired daily accessions
of importance from the developments with regard to
Miss Ophelia's wardrobe which she had been enabled to
make. It was credibly ascertained that Squire Sinclare, as
his name was commonly contracted in the neighborhood, had
counted out fifty dollars, and given them to Miss Ophelia, and
told her to buy any clothes she thought best; and that two
new silk dresses, and a bonnet, had been sent for from Boston.
As to the propriety of this extraordinary outlay, the public
mind was divided, — some affirming that it was well enough, all
things considered, for once in one's life, and others stoutly
affirming that the money had better have been sent to the
missionaries; but all parties agreed that there had been no
such parasol seen in those parts as had been sent on from
New York, and that she had one silk dress that might fairly
be trusted to stand alone, whatever might be said of its mistress.
There were credible rumors, also, of a hemstitched
pocket-handkerchief; and report even went so far as to state
that Miss Ophelia had one pocket-handkerchief with lace all
around it, — it was even added that it was worked in the
corners; but this latter point was never satisfactorily ascertained,
and remains, in fact, unsettled to this day.

Miss Ophelia, as you now behold her, stands before you, in
a very shining brown linen travelling-dress, tall, squareformed,
and angular. Her face was thin, and rather sharp
in its outlines; the lips compressed, like those of a person
who is in the habit of making up her mind definitely on all
subjects; while the keen, dark eyes had a peculiarly searching,
advised movement, and travelled over everything, as if they
were looking for something to take care of.

All her movements were sharp, decided, and energetic;
and, though she was never much of a talker, her words were
remarkably direct, and to the purpose, when she did speak.

In her habits, she was a living impersonation of order,
method, and exactness. In punctuality, she was as inevitable
as a clock, and as inexorable as a railroad engine; and she
held in most decided contempt and abomination anything of a
contrary character.

The great sin of sins, in her eyes, — the sum of all evils, —
was expressed by one very common and important word in
her vocabulary — “shiftlessness.” Her finale and ultimatum
of contempt consisted in a very emphatic pronunciation of the
word “shiftless;” and by this she characterized all modes of
procedure which had not a direct and inevitable relation to
accomplishment of some purpose then definitely had in
mind. People who did nothing, or who did not know exactly
what they were going to do, or who did not take the most
direct way to accomplish what they set their hands to, were
objects of her entire contempt, — a contempt shown less
frequently by anything she said, than by a kind of stony
grimness, as if she scorned to say anything about the matter.

As to mental cultivation, — she had a clear, strong, active

mind, was well and thoroughly read in history and the older
English classics, and thought with great strength within certain
narrow limits. Her theological tenets were all made up,
labelled in most positive and distinct forms, and put by, like
the bundles in her patch trunk; there were just so many of
them, and there were never to be any more. So, also, were her
ideas with regard to most matters of practical life, — such as
housekeeping in all its branches, and the various political
relations of her native village. And, underlaying all, deeper
than anything else, higher and broader, lay the strongest
principle of her being — conscientiousness. Nowhere is conscience
so dominant and all-absorbing as with New England
women. It is the granite formation, which lies deepest, and
rises out, even to the tops of the highest mountains.

Miss Ophelia was the absolute bond-slave of the “ought.”
Once make her certain that the “path of duty,” as she commonly
phrased it, lay in any given direction, and fire and
water could not keep her from it. She would walk straight
down into a well, or up to a loaded cannon's mouth, if she
were only quite sure that there the path lay. Her standard
of right was so high, so all-embracing, so minute, and making
so few concessions to human frailty, that, though she strove
with heroic ardor to reach it, she never actually did so, and
of course was burdened with a constant and often harassing
sense of deficiency; — this gave a severe and somewhat gloomy
cast to her religious character.

But, how in the world can Miss Ophelia get along with
Augustine St. Clare, — gay, easy, unpunctual, unpractical,
sceptical, — in short, walking with impudent and nonchalant
freedom over every one of her most cherished habits and
opinions?

To tell the truth, then, Miss Ophelia loved him. When a

boy, it had been hers to teach him his catechism, mend his
clothes, comb his hair, and bring him up generally in the way
he should go; and her heart having a warm side to it,
Augustine had, as he usually did with most people, monopolized
a large share of it for himself, and therefore it was
that he succeeded very easily in persuading her that the
“path of duty” lay in the direction of New Orleans, and
that she must go with him to take care of Eva, and keep
everything from going to wreck and ruin during the frequent
illnesses of his wife. The idea of a house without anybody
to take care of it went to her heart; then she loved the
lovely little girl, as few could help doing; and though she
regarded Augustine as very much of a heathen, yet she loved
him, laughed at his jokes, and forbore with his failings, to an
extent which those who knew him thought perfectly incredible.
But what more or other is to be known of Miss
Ophelia our reader must discover by a personal acquaintance.

There she is, sitting now in her state-room, surrounded by
a mixed multitude of little and big carpet-bags, boxes,
baskets, each containing some separate responsibility which
she is tying, binding up, packing, or fastening, with a face of
great earnestness.

“Now, Eva, have you kept count of your things? Of
course you have n't, — children never do: there 's the spotted
carpet-bag and the little blue band-box with your best bonnet,
— that 's two; then the India rubber satchel is three; and my
tape and needle box is four; and my band-box, five; and
my collar-box, six; and that little hair trunk, seven. What
have you done with your sunshade? Give it to me, and let
me put a paper round it, and tie it to my umbrella with my
shade; — there, now.”

“Why, aunty, we are only going up home; — what is the
use?”

“To keep it nice, child; people must take care of their
things, if they ever mean to have anything; and now, Eva,
is your thimble put up?”

“Really, aunty, I don't know.”

“Well, never mind; I 'll look your box over, — thimble,
wax, two spools, scissors, knife, tape-needle; all right, — put
it in here. What did you ever do, child, when you were
coming on with only your papa. I should have thought
you 'd a lost everything you had.”

“Well, aunty, I did lose a great many; and then, when
we stopped anywhere, papa would buy some more of whatever
it was.”

“Mercy on us, child, — what a way!”

“It was a very easy way, aunty,” said Eva.

“It 's a dreadful shiftless one,” said aunty.

“Why, aunty, what 'll you do now?” said Eva; “that
trunk is too full to be shut down.”

“It must shut down,” said aunty, with the air of a
general, as she squeezed the things in, and sprung upon the
lid; — still a little gap remained about the mouth of the
trunk.

“Get up here, Eva!” said Miss Ophelia, courageously;
“what has been done can be done again. This trunk has
got to be shut and locked — there are no two ways about it.”

And the trunk, intimidated, doubtless, by this resolute statement,
gave in. The hasp snapped sharply in its hole, and
Miss Ophelia turned the key, and pocketed it in triumph.

“Now we 're ready. Where 's your papa? I think it
time this baggage was set out. Do look out, Eva, and see if
you see your papa.”

“O, yes, he 's down the other end of the gentlemen's
cabin, eating an orange.”

“He can 't know how near we are coming,” said aunty;
“had n't you better run and speak to him?”

“Papa never is in a hurry about anything,” said Eva,
“and we have n't come to the landing. Do step on the
guards, aunty. Look! there 's our house, up that street!”

The boat now began, with heavy groans, like some vast, tired
monster, to prepare to push up among the multiplied steamers
at the levee. Eva joyously pointed out the various spires,
domes, and way-marks, by which she recognized her native
city.

“Yes, yes, dear; very fine,” said Miss Ophelia. “But
mercy on us! the boat has stopped! where is your father?”

And now ensued the usual turmoil of landing — waiters
running twenty ways at once — men tugging trunks, carpet-bags,
boxes — women anxiously calling to their children, and
everybody crowding in a dense mass to the plank towards the
landing.

Miss Ophelia seated herself resolutely on the lately vanquished
trunk, and marshalling all her goods and chattels in
fine military order, seemed resolved to defend them to the last.

“Shall I take your trunk, ma'am?” “Shall I take your
baggage?” “Let me 'tend to your baggage, Missis?”
“Shan't I carry out these yer, Missis?” rained down upon
her unheeded. She sat with grim determination, upright
as a darning-needle stuck in a board, holding on her bundle
of umbrella and parasols, and replying with a determination
that was enough to strike dismay even into a hackman,
wondering to Eva, in each interval, “what upon earth
her papa could be thinking of; he could n't have fallen over,
now, — but something must have happened;” — and just as she

had begun to work herself into a real distress, he came up, with
his usually careless motion, and giving Eva a quarter of the
orange he was eating, said,

“Well, Cousin Vermont, I suppose you are all ready.”

“I 've been ready, waiting, nearly an hour,” said Miss
Ophelia; “I began to be really concerned about you.”

“That 's a clever fellow, now,” said he. “Well, the carriage
is waiting, and the crowd are now off, so that one can
walk out in a decent and Christian manner, and not be
pushed and shoved. Here,” he added to a driver who
stood behind him, “take these things.”

“I'll go and see to his putting them in,” said Miss
Ophelia.

“O, pshaw, cousin, what 's the use?” said St. Clare.

“Well, at any rate, I 'll carry this, and this, and this,”
said Miss Ophelia, singling out three boxes and a small
carpet-bag.

“My dear Miss Vermont, positively, you must n't come
the Green Mountains over us that way. You must adopt at
least a piece of a southern principle, and not walk out under
all that load. They 'll take you for a waiting-maid; give
them to this fellow; he 'll put them down as if they were
eggs, now.”

Miss Ophelia looked despairingly, as her cousin took all
her treasures from her, and rejoiced to find herself once more
in the carriage with them, in a state of preservation.

“Where 's Tom?” said Eva.

“O, he 's on the outside, Pussy. I 'm going to take
Tom up to mother for a peace-offering, to make up for that
drunken fellow that upset the carriage.”

“O, Tom will make a splendid driver, I know,” said
Eva; “he'll never get drunk.”

The carriage stopped in front of an ancient mansion, built
in that odd mixture of Spanish and French style, of which
there are specimens in some parts of New Orleans. It
was built in the Moorish fashion, — a square building enclosing
a court-yard, into which the carriage drove through an
arched gateway. The court, in the inside, had evidently been
arranged to gratify a picturesque and voluptuous ideality.
Wide galleries ran all around the four sides, whose Moorish
arches, slender pillars, and arabesque ornaments, carried the
mind back, as in a dream, to the reign of oriental romance in
Spain. In the middle of the court, a fountain threw high its
silvery water, falling in a never-ceasing spray into a marble
basin, fringed with a deep border of fragrant violets. The
water in the fountain, pellucid as crystal, was alive with
myriads of gold and silver fishes, twinkling and darting
through it like so many living jewels. Around the fountain
ran a walk, paved with a mosaic of pebbles, laid in various
fanciful patterns; and this, again, was surrounded by turf,
smooth as green velvet, while a carriage-drive enclosed the
whole. Two large orange-trees, now fragrant with blossoms,
threw a delicious shade; and, ranged in a circle round upon
the turf, were marble vases of arabesque sculpture, containing
the choicest flowering plants of the tropics. Huge pomegranate
trees, with their glossy leaves and flame-colored flowers,
dark-leaved Arabian jessamines, with their silvery stars, geraniums,
luxuriant roses bending beneath their heavy abundance
of flowers, golden jessamines, lemon-scented verbenum, all
united their bloom and fragrance, while here and there a mystic
old aloe, with its strange, massive leaves, sat looking like
some hoary old enchanter, sitting in weird grandeur among
the more perishable bloom and fragrance around it.

The galleries that surrounded the court were festooned

with a curtain of some kind of Moorish stuff, and could be
drawn down at pleasure, to exclude the beams of the sun. On
the whole, the appearance of the place was luxurious and
romantic.

As the carriage drove in, Eva seemed like a bird ready to
burst from a cage, with the wild eagerness of her delight.

“O, is n't it beautiful, lovely! my own dear, darling
home!” she said to Miss Ophelia. “Is n't it beautiful?”

“'T is a pretty place,” said Miss Ophelia, as she alighted;
“though it looks rather old and heathenish to me.”

Tom got down from the carriage, and looked about with an
air of calm, still enjoyment. The negro, it must be remembered,
is an exotic of the most gorgeous and superb countries
of the world, and he has, deep in his heart, a passion for all
that is splendid, rich, and fanciful; a passion which, rudely
indulged by an untrained taste, draws on them the ridicule of
the colder and more correct white race.

St. Clare, who was in his heart a poetical voluptuary,
smiled as Miss Ophelia made her remark on his premises,
and, turning to Tom, who was standing looking round, his
beaming black face perfectly radiant with admiration, he
said,

“Tom, my boy, this seems to suit you.”

“Yes, Mas'r, it looks about the right thing,” said Tom.

All this passed in a moment, while trunks were being
hustled off, hackman paid, and while a crowd, of all ages and
sizes, — men, women, and children, — came running through
the galleries, both above and below, to see Mas'r come in.
Foremost among them was a highly-dressed young mulatto
man, evidently a very distingue personage, attired in the
ultra extreme of the mode, and gracefully waving a scented
cambric handkerchief in his hand.

This personage had been exerting himself, with great alacrity,
in driving all the flock of domestics to the other end of
the verandah.

“Back! all of you. I am ashamed of you,” he said, in a
tone of authority. “Would you intrude on Master's domestic
relations, in the first hour of his return?”

All looked abashed at this elegant speech, delivered with
quite an air, and stood huddled together at a respectful distance,
except two stout porters, who came up and began conveying
away the baggage.

Owing to Mr. Adolph's systematic arrangements, when St.
Clare turned round from paying the hackman, there was
nobody in view but Mr. Adolph himself, conspicuous in satin
vest, gold guard-chain, and white pants, and bowing with
inexpressible grace and suavity.

“Ah, Adolph, is it you?” said his master, offering his
hand to him; “how are you, boy?” while Adolph poured
forth, with great fluency, an extemporary speech, which he
had been preparing, with great care, for a fortnight before.

“Well, well,” said St. Clare, passing on, with his usual air
of negligent drollery, “that 's very well got up, Adolph. See
that the baggage is well bestowed. I 'll come to the people in
a minute;” and, so saying, he led Miss Ophelia to a large
parlor that opened on to the verandah.

While this had been passing, Eva had flown like a bird,
through the porch and parlor, to a little boudoir opening likewise
on the verandah.

A tall, dark-eyed, sallow woman, half rose from a couch on
which she was reclining.

“Mamma!” said Eva, in a sort of a rapture, throwing
herself on her neck, and embracing her over and over again.

“That 'll do, — take care, child, — don't, you make my

head ache,” said the mother, after she had languidly kissed
her.

St. Clare came in, embraced his wife in true, orthodox,
husbandly fashion, and then presented to her his cousin.
Marie lifted her large eyes on her cousin with an air of some
curiosity, and received her with languid politeness. A crowd
of servants now pressed to the entry door, and among them a
middle-aged mulatto woman, of very respectable appearance,
stood foremost, in a tremor of expectation and joy, at the
door.

“O, there 's Mammy!” said Eva, as she flew across the
room; and, throwing herself into her arms, she kissed her
repeatedly.

This woman did not tell her that she made her head ache,
but, on the contrary, she hugged her, and laughed, and cried,
till her sanity was a thing to be doubted of; and when
released from her, Eva flew from one to another, shaking
hands and kissing, in a way that Miss Ophelia afterwards
declared fairly turned her stomach.

“Well!” said Miss Ophelia, “you southern children can
do something that I could n't.”

“What, now, pray?” said St. Clare.

“Well, I want to be kind to everybody, and I would n't
have anything hurt; but as to kissing —”

“Niggers,” said St. Clare, “that you 're not up to, —
hey?”

“Yes, that 's it. How can she?”

St. Clare laughed, as he went into the passage. “Halloa,
here, what 's to pay out here? Here, you all — Mammy,
Jimmy, Polly, Sukey — glad to see Mas'r?” he said, as he
went shaking hands from one to another. “Look out for the
babies!” he added, as he stumbled over a sooty little urchin,

who was crawling upon all fours. “If I step upon anybody,
let 'em mention it.”

There was an abundance of laughing and blessing Mas'r,
as St. Clare distributed small pieces of change among them.

“Come, now, take yourselves off, like good boys and girls,”
he said; and the whole assemblage, dark and light, disappeared
through a door into a large verandah, followed by Eva, who
carried a large satchel, which she had been filling with apples,
nuts, candy, ribbons, laces, and toys of every description,
during her whole homeward journey.

As St. Clare turned to go back, his eye fell upon Tom,
who was standing uneasily, shifting from one foot to the
other, while Adolph stood negligently leaning against the
banisters, examining Tom through an opera-glass, with an
air that would have done credit to any dandy living.

“Puh! you puppy,” said his master, striking down the
opera glass; “is that the way you treat your company?
Seems to me, Dolph,” he added, laying his finger on the
elegant figured satin vest that Adolph was sporting, “seems
to me that 's my vest.”

“O! Master, this vest all stained with wine; of course,
a gentleman in Master's standing never wears a vest like this.
I understood I was to take it. It does for a poor nigger-fellow,
like me.”

And Adolph tossed his head, and passed his fingers through
his scented hair, with a grace.

“So, that 's it, is it?” said St. Clare, carelessly. “Well,
here, I 'm going to show this Tom to his mistress, and then
you take him to the kitchen; and mind you don't put on
any of your airs to him. He 's worth two such puppies as
you.”

“Master always will have his joke,” said Adolph, laughing.
“I 'm delighted to see Master in such spirits.”

“Here, Tom,” said St. Clare, beckoning.

Tom entered the room. He looked wistfully on the velvet
carpets, and the before unimagined splendors of mirrors, pictures,
statues, and curtains, and, like the Queen of Sheba
before Solomon, there was no more spirit in him. He looked
afraid even to set his feet down.

“See here, Marie,” said St. Clare to his wife, “I 've
bought you a coachman, at last, to order. I tell you, he 's a
regular hearse for blackness and sobriety, and will drive you
like a funeral, if you want. Open your eyes, now, and look
at him. Now, don't say I never think about you when I 'm
gone.”

Marie opened her eyes, and fixed them on Tom, without
rising.

“I know he 'll get drunk,” she said.

“No, he 's warranted a pious and sober article.”

“Well, I hope he may turn out well,” said the lady; “it's
more than I expect, though.”

“Dolph,” said St. Clare, “show Tom down stairs; and,
mind yourself,” he added; “remember what I told you.”

Adolph tripped gracefully forward, and Tom, with lumbering
tread, went after.

“He 's a perfect behemoth!” said Marie.

“Come, now, Marie,” said St. Clare, seating himself on a
stool beside her sofa, “be gracious, and say something pretty
to a fellow.”

“You 've been gone a fortnight beyond the time,” said the
lady, pouting.

“Well, you know I wrote you the reason.”

“Such a short, cold letter!” said the lady.

“Dear me! the mail was just going, and it had to be that
or nothing.”

“That 's just the way, always,” said the lady; “always
something to make your journeys long, and letters short.”

“See here, now,” he added, drawing an elegant velvet case
out of his pocket, and opening it, “here 's a present I got for
you in New York.”

It was a daguerreotype, clear and soft as an engraving,
representing Eva and her father sitting hand in hand.

Marie looked at it with a dissatisfied air.

“What made you sit in such an awkward position?” she
said.

“Well, the position may be a matter of opinion; but what
do you think of the likeness?”

“If you don't think anything of my opinion in one case, I
suppose you would n't in another,” said the lady, shutting the
daguerreotype.

“Hang the woman!” said St. Clare, mentally; but aloud
he added, “Come, now, Marie, what do you think of the
likeness? Don't be nonsensical, now.”

“It 's very inconsiderate of you, St. Clare,” said the lady,
“to insist on my talking and looking at things. You know
I 've been lying all day with the sick-headache; and there 's
been such a tumult made ever since you came, I 'm half
dead.”

“You 're subject to the sick-headache, ma'am?” said Miss
Ophelia, suddenly rising from the depths of the large arm-chair,
where she had sat quietly, taking an inventory of the
furniture, and calculating its expense.

“Yes, I 'm a perfect martyr to it,” said the lady.

“Juniper-berry tea is good for sick-headache,” said Miss

Ophelia; “at least, Auguste, Deacon Abraham Perry's wife,
used to say so; and she was a great nurse.”

“I 'll have the first juniper-berries that get ripe in our
garden by the lake brought in for that especial purpose,”
said St. Clare, gravely pulling the bell as he did so; “meanwhile,
cousin, you must be wanting to retire to your apartment,
and refresh yourself a little, after your journey.
Dolph,” he added, “tell Mammy to come here.” The
decent mulatto woman whom Eva had caressed so rapturously
soon entered; she was dressed neatly, with a high red and
yellow turban on her head, the recent gift of Eva, and which
the child had been arranging on her head. “Mammy,” said
St. Clare, “I put this lady under your care; she is tired,
and wants rest; take her to her chamber, and be sure she is
made comfortable;” and Miss Ophelia disappeared in the rear
of Mammy.