"The night wears on, Miss Custis," spoke Meshach. "Its rewards are already great to me. When may I return?"

"I think we must determine what to do this night, Mr. Milburn," Vesta said, with rising determination. "Not one point nearer have we come to any solution of this obligation of my father. We have considered it up to this time as my obligation, and that may have unduly encouraged you.

Sir, I can work for my living."

"You _work_?" repeated Milburn.

"Why not? I love my father. As other women who are left poor work for their children or a sick husband, why should not I for him! Poverty has no terrors but--but the loss of pride."

"You hazard that, whatever happens," said her suitor, "but you will not lose it by evading the lesser evil for the greater. I have heard of women who fled to poverty from dissatisfaction with a husband, but pride survived and made poverty dreadful. Pride in either case increased the discontent. You should take the step which will let pride be absorbed in duty, if not in love."

"Duty?" thought Vesta. "That is a reposeful word, better than Love. Mr.

Milburn," she said aloud, "how is it my duty to do what you ask?"

"I think I perceive that you have a loyal heart, a conscientiousness that deceit cannot even approach. Something has already made you slow to marriage, else, with your wonders, I would not have had the chance to be now rejected by you. Marriage has become too formidable, perhaps, to you, by the purity of your heart, the more so because you looked upon it to be your destiny. It _is_ your fate, but you contend against it. Look upon it, then, as a duty, such as you expect in others--in your slave maid, for instance."

"Alas!" Vesta said, "she may marry freely. I am the slave."

"No, Miss Vesta, she has been free, but, sold among strangers with your father's effects, will feel so perishing for sympathy and protection that love, in whatever ugly form it comes, will be G.o.d's blessing to her poor heart. What you repel in the revulsion of fortune--the yoke of a husband--millions of women have bent to as if it was the very rainbow of promise set in heaven."

"How do you know so much of women's trials, Mr. Milburn? Have you had sisters, or other ladies to woo?"

"I have seen human nature in my little shop, not, like your rare nature, refined by happy fortune and descent, but of moderate kind, and struggling downward like a wounded eagle. They have come to me at first for cheaper articles of necessity or smaller portions than other stores would sell, looking on me with contempt. At last they have sacrificed their last slave, their last pair of shoes, and, when it was too late, their false pride has surrendered to shelter under a negro's hut, or dance barefooted in my store for a cup of whiskey."

"Sir," exclaimed Vesta indignantly, rising from her rocker, "do you set this warning for me?"

As she rose Meshach Milburn thought his wealth was merely pebbles and sh.e.l.ls to her perfection, now animated with a queen's spirit.

"Miss Vesta," he said, "pardon me, but I have just issued from many generations of forest poverty, and knowing how hard it is to break that thraldom, I would stop you from taking the first step towards it. The bloom upon your cheek, the mould you are the product of without flaw, the chaste lady's tastes and thoughts, and inborn strength and joy, are the work of G.o.d's favor to your family for generations. That favor he continues in laying those family burdens on another's shoulders, to spare you the toil and care, anxiety and slow decay, that this violent change of circ.u.mstances means. It would be a sin to relapse from this perfection to that penury."

"I cannot see that honorable poverty would make me less a woman,"

exclaimed Vesta.

"You do not dread poverty because you do not know it," Milburn continued. "It grows in this region like the old field-pines and little oaks over a neglected farm. Once there was a court-house settlement on Dividing Creek, where justice, eloquence, talent, wit, and heroism made the social centre of two counties, but they moved the court-house and the forest speedily choked the spot. Now not an echo lingers of that former glory. You can save your house from being swallowed up in the forest."

"By marrying the forest hero?" Vesta said, though she immediately regretted it.

"Yes," Milburn uttered stubbornly, after a pause. "I have met the house of Custis half-way. I am coming out of the woods as they are going in, unless the sacrifice be mutual."

"Let us not be personal," Vesta pleaded, with her grace of sorrow; "I feel that you are a kind man, at least to me, but a poor girl must make a struggle for herself."

She saw the tears stand instantly in his eyes, and pressed her advantage:

"Your tears are like the springs we find here, so close under the flinty sand that n.o.body would suspect them, but I have seen them trickle out.

Tell me, now, if I would not be happier to take up the burden of my father and mother, and let us diminish and be frugal, instead of cowardly flying into the protection of our creditor, by a union which the world, at least, would p.r.o.nounce mercenary. My father might come up again, in some way."

"No, Miss Vesta. Your father can hold no property while any portion of his debts remains unpaid. The easier way is to show the world that our union is not mercenary, by trying to love each other. Throughout the earth marriage is the reparation of ruined families--the short path, and the most natural one, too. Ruth was poor kin, but she turned from the harvest stubble that made her beautiful feet bleed, to crawl to the feet of old Boaz and find wifely rest, and her wisdom of choice we sing in the psalms of King David, and hear in the proverbs of King Solomon, sons of her sons."

"I am not thinking of myself, G.o.d knows!" said Vesta. "Gladly could I teach a little school, or be a governess somewhere, or, like our connection, the mother of Washington, ride afield in my sun-bonnet and straw hat and oversee the laborers."

"That never made General Washington, Miss Vesta. It was marriage that lent him to the world; first, his half-brother's marriage with the Fairfaxes; next, his own with Custis's rich widow. Had they been looking for natural parts only, some Daniel Morgan or Ethan Allen would have been Washington's commander."

"Why do you draw me to you by awakening the motive of my self-love?"

asked Vesta. "That is not the way to preserve my heart as you would have it."

"In every way I can draw you to me," spoke Milburn, again trembling with earnestness, "I feel desperate to try. If it is wrong, it arises from my sense of self-preservation. Without you I am a dismal failure, and my labor in life is thrown away."

"Do you really believe you love me? Is it not ambition of some kind; perhaps a social ambition?"

"To marry a Custis?" Milburn exclaimed. "No, it is to marry _you_. I would rather you were not a Custis."

"Ah! I see, sir;" Vesta's face flushed with some admiration for the man; "you think your family name is quite as good. So you ought to do. Then you love me from a pa.s.sion?"

"Partly that," answered Milburn. "I love you from my whole temperament, whatever it is; from the glow of youth and the reflection of manhood, from appreciation of you, and from worship, also; from the eye and the mind. I love you in the vision of domestic settlement, in the companionship of thought, in the part.i.tion of my ambition, in my instinct for cultivation. I love you, too, with the ardor of a lover, stronger than all, because I must possess you to possess myself; because you kindle flame in me, and my humanity of pity is trampled down by my humanity of desire; I cannot hear your appeal to escape! I am deaf to sentiments of honor and courtesy, if they let you slip me! Give yourself to me, and these better angels may prevail, being perhaps accessory to the mighty instinct I obey at the command of the Creator!"

As he proceeded, Vesta saw shine in Meshach Milburn's face the very ecstacy of love. His dark, resinous eyes were like forest ponds flashing at night under the torches of negro 'c.o.o.n-hunters. His long lady's hands trembled as he stretched them towards her to clasp her, and she saw upon his brow and in his open nostril and firm mouth the presence of a will that seldom fails, when exerted mightily, to reduce a woman's, and make her recognize her lord.

Yet, with this strong excitement of mental and animal love, which generally animates man to eloquence, if not to beauty, a weary something, nearly like pain, marked the bold intruder, and a quiver, not like will and courage, went through his frame. It was this which touched Vesta with the sense that perhaps she was not the only sufferer there, and pity, which saves many a lover when his merits could not win, brought the Judge's daughter to an impulsive determination.

"Mr. Milburn," she said at last, pressing her hands to her head, "this day's trials have been too much for my brain. Never, in all my life together, have I had realities like these to contend with. I am worn out. Nay, sir, do not touch me now!" He had tried to repeat his sympathetic overture, and pet her in his arms. "Let us end this conflict at once. You say you will marry me; when?"

"It is yours to say when, Miss Custis. I am ready any day."

"And you will give me every note and obligation of my father, so that my mother's portion shall be returned to her in full, and this house, servants, and demesnes be mine in my own right?"

"Yes," said Milburn; "I have such confidence in your truth and virtue that you shall keep these papers from this moment until the marriage-day."

"It will not be long, then," Vesta said, looking at Milburn with a will and authority fully equal to his own. "Will you take me to-night?"

"To-night?" he repeated. "Not to-night, surely?"

"To-night, or probably never."

He drew nearer, so as to look into her countenance by the strong firelight. Calm courage, that would die, like Joan of Arc in the flames, met his inquiry.

"Yes," said Milburn, "at your command I will take you to-night, though it is a surprise to me."

He flinched a little, nevertheless, his conscience being uneasy, and the same trembling Vesta had already observed went through his frame again.

"What will the world say to your marriage after a single day's acquaintance with me?"

"Nothing," Vesta answered, "except that I am your wife. That will, at least, silence advice and prevent intrusion. If I delay, these forebodings may prevail, if not with me, with my family, some of whom are to be feared."

He seemed to have no curiosity on that subject, only saying:

"It is you, dear child, I am thinking of--whether this haste will not be repented, or become a subject of reproach to yourself. To me it cannot be, having no world, no tribe--only myself and you!"

Vesta came forward and lifted his hand, which was cold.