"I believe that you love me," she said. "I believe this hand has the lines of a gentleman. Now, I will trust to you a family confidence. The troubles of this house are like a fire which there is no other way of treating than to put it out at once. My father will not be disturbed, beyond his secret pain, at the step I am to take, for he appreciates your talents and success. It is for him I shall take this step, if I take it at all, and I have yet an hour to reflect. But my mother will be resentful, and her brothers and kindred in Baltimore will express a savage rage, in the first place, at my father's losing her portion; next to that, and I hope less bitterly, they will resent my marriage to you.

Exposed to their interference, I might be restrained from going to my father's a.s.sistance; they might even force me away, and break our family up, leaving father alone to encounter his miseries."

"I see," said Milburn; "you would give me the legal right to meet your mother's excited people."

"Not that merely," Vesta said; "I would put it out of her power and theirs to prevent the sacrifice I meditate making. My father's immediate dread is my mother's upbraiding--that he has risked and lost her money.

It has sent her to bed already, sick and almost violent. I might as well save the poor gentleman his whole distress, if I am to save him a part."

"Brave girl!" exclaimed Meshach Milburn, in admiration. "It is true, then, that blood will tell. You intend to give your mother the money which has been lost, and silence her complaint before she makes it?"

"Just that, Mr. Milburn, and to say, 'It is my husband's gift, and a peace-offering from us all.'"

"Is it not your intention, honey," asked the creditor, "to take Mrs.

Custis into your confidence before this marriage?"

She looked at him with the entreaty of one in doubt, who would be resolved. "Advise me," she said. "I want to do the best for all, and spare all bitter words, which rankle so long. Is it necessary to tell my mother?"

"No. You are a free woman. I know your age--though I shall forget it by and by." This first gleam of humor rather became his strange face. "If you tell your father, it is enough."

"I hope I am doing right," Vesta said, "and now I shall take my hour to my soul and my Saviour. Sir, do you ever pray?"

Milburn recoiled a little.

"I do not pray like you," he replied; "my prayers are dry things. I do say a little rhyme over that my mother taught me in the forest."

"Try to pray for me to do right," said Vesta, "that I may not make this sacrifice, and leave a wounded conscience. And now, sir, farewell. At nine o'clock go to our church and wait. If I resolve to come, there you will find the rector, and all the arrangements made. If I do not come, I think you will see me no more."

"Oh, beautiful spirit," exclaimed her lover, "oppress me not with that fear!"

"If another way is made plain to me," Vesta said, "I shall go that way.

If my duty leads me to you again, you will be my master. Sir, though your errand here was a severe one, I thank you for your sincerity and the kind consideration you seem to have had for me so long. Farewell."

"Angel! Vesta! Honey!" Milburn cried, "may I kiss you?"

"Not now," she answered, cold as superiority, and interposing her hand.

The door stood wide open, and the slave-girl, Virgie, in it, holding the Entailed Hat. Milburn, with a shudder, took it, and covered himself, and departed.

CHAPTER X.

MASTER IN THE KITCHEN.

The kitchen had been a scene of anything but culinary peace and savor during the long visit of the owner of the hat.

Aunt Hominy and the little darkeys had made three stolen visits to the hall to peep at the dreadful thing hanging there, as if it were a trap of some kind, liable to drop a spring and catch somebody, or to explode like a mortar or torpedo. As hour after hour wore on, and Miss Vesta did not reappear, and finally rang her bell for tea, Aunt Hominy was beside herself with superst.i.tion.

"Honey," she exclaimed to Virgie, "jess you take in dis yer dried lizzer an' dis cammermile, an' drap de lizzer in dat ole hat, an' sprinkle de flo' whar ole Meshach sots wi' de cammermile, an' say 'Shoo!' Maybe it'll spile his measurin' of Miss Vessy in."

"No, aunty, if old Meshach measured _me_ in, I wouldn't make the family ashamed before him. Miss Vessy is powerful wise, and maybe she'll get the better of that wicked hat."

"Yes," said Roxy, "she's good, Aunt Hominy, an' says her prayers every night and mornin'. I've heard tell that witches can't hear the Lord's name, and stay, nohow. Maybe Miss Vessy'll say in Meshach's old hat: 'Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, bless the bed that I lie on.' That'll make the old devil jess fly up an' away."

"No, gals," insisted Aunt Hominy, "cammermile is all dat'll keep him from a-measurin' of us in. Don't ole Meshach go to church, too, and hab a prayer-book an'--listen dar, honey! ef she ain't a singin' to him!"

As Virgie answered the bell, Aunt Hominy took down her cherished camomile and sprinkled the little children, and gave them each a gla.s.s of sa.s.safras beer to bless their insides.

"Lord a bless 'em!" exclaimed the old lady, "ef de slave-buyer comes, Aunt Hominy'll take 'em to de woods an' jess git los', an' live on teaberries, slippery-ellum, haws, an' chincapins. We don't gwyn stay an'

let ole Meshach starve us like a lizzer."

"Aunt Hominy," said Roxy, "maybe, old lady, ef you bake a nice loaf of Federal bread, or a game-pie, or a persimmon custard, an' send it to ole Meshach, he won't sell us to the slave-buyers. He never gets nothing good to eat, an' don't know what it is. A little taste of it'll make him want mo'."

"Roxy, gal," said Aunt Hominy, "I'd jess like to make a dumplin'-bag out o' dat steeple-hat he got. When I skinned de dumplin' de hat would be bad spiled, chillen, an' den de Judge would git his lan' back dat Meshach's measured in. For de Judge would say, 'Meshach, ye hain't measured me fair. Wha's yer yard-stick, ole debbil?' Den Meshach he say, 'De hat I tuk it in wid, done gone burnt by dat ole Hominy, makin' of her puddin's.' 'Den,' says de Judge, 'ye ain't measured me squar. I won't play. Take it all back!' Chillen, we must git dat ar ole hat, or de slave-buyers done take us all."

They started to take another peep of cupidity and awe at the storied hat, when Virgie emerged from the parlor door with the dreaded article in her hand, and, hanging it on the peg, came with superst.i.tious fear and relief into the colonnade. Aunt Hominy hurried her to the kitchen, strewed her with herb-dust, waved a rattle of snake's teeth in a pig's weazen over her head, and ended by pushing a sweet piece of preserved watermelon-rind down her throat.

"Did it hurt ye, honey?" inquired Aunt Hominy, with her eyes full of excitement, referring to the hat.

"'Deed I don't know, aunty," Virgie answered; "all I saw was Miss Vessy, looking away from me, as if she might be going to be ashamed of me, an'

I picked the thing up an' took it to the rack; an' all I know is, it smelled old, like some of the old-clothes chests up in the garret, when we lift the lid and peep in, an' it seems as if they were dead people's clothes."

The little negroes, Ned, Vince, and Phillis, heard this with shining eyes, and dived their heads under Aunt Hominy's skirts and ap.r.o.n, while the old woman exclaimed:

"De Lord a ma.s.sy!" and began to blow what she called "pow-pow" on the girl's profaned fingers.

"I don't believe it's anything, aunty, but an ugly, old, nasty, dead folks' hat," exclaimed Virgie. "He just wears it to plague people. He was drinking tea just like Miss Vessy, but I thought his teeth chattered a little, as if he had smelt of the old hat, and it give him a chill."

"Where did he get the hat, Aunt Hominy?" Roxy asked. "Did he dig it up somewhere?"

The question seemed to spur the cook's easy invention, and, after a cunning yet credulous look up and down the large kitchen, where the pale light at the windows was invisible in the stronger fire beneath the great stack chimney, Aunt Hominy whispered:

"He dug dat hat up in ole Rehoboff ruined churchyard. He foun' it in de grave."

"But you said this afternoon, aunty, that the Bad Man gave it to him."

"De debbil met him right dar," insisted Aunt Hominy, "in dat ole obergrown churchyard, whar de hymns ob G.o.d used to be raised befo' de debbil got it. He says to Meshach: 'I make you de s.e.xton hyar. Go git de spade out yonder, whar de dead-house used to be, an' dig among de graves under de myrtle-vines, an' fin' my hat. As long as ye keep de Lord an'

de singin' away from dis yer big forsaken church, you may keep dat hat to measure in eberybody's lan'.' So n.o.body kin sing or pray in dat church. n.o.body but Meshach Milburn ever prays dar. He goes dar sometimes wid his Chrismas-giff on he head, an' prays to de debbil."

Thus does an unwonted fashion arouse unwonted visions, as if it brought to the present day the phantoms which were laid at rest with itself, and they walked into simple minds, and produced superst.i.tion there.

Aunt Hominy never was stimulated to inventions of this kind, but she immediately absorbed them, and they became religious beliefs with her.

Her manner, highly animated by her terror and belief, produced more and more superst.i.tion in the minds of the girls and children, and the conversation fell off,--the little negroes wandering hither and thither, unable to sleep, yet unable to attract sufficient attention from any one, till Judge Custis, who had been waiting for hours for his creditor to go, slipped down the back stairs in his old slippers, and came to the kitchen among the colored people for company's sake.

His fine presence, and familiar, if superior, address, put a new complexion at once on the African end of the house.

He picked up all the children by twos or threes, woolled them, chased them, tossed them, and drove the lurid images of Aunt Hominy's mind out of their spirits, and then caught the two young girls, and set Roxy on his shoulder, and caught Virgie by the waist, and finally piled them on Aunt Hominy, who ran behind her biscuit-block, and he bunched all the children upon the party.