"Then it was probably overlooked by me. I was like the other boys, mischievous, before my spirits had been depressed by unhappy love, and I did not know I was any exception to their habits."

"It was grateful to see that exception," said Milburn; "hooted people make fine distinctions."

"Oh, Mr. Milburn, forgive the boys! They are made for laughter, and little causes excite it, like dogs to bark, from health and exercise--scarcely more than that. The request I make is to let me be your friend, because I have been your wife's! Frankness becomes my calling, and I think you need friendly, cordial surroundings to bring out your usefulness, and give you the freedom that will take constraint out of your family life, and, without diminishing your good sensibilities, dispel any morbid ones. This will open a way for Vesta to see her domestic career, which, otherwise, might become so rapidly contracted as to disappoint you both. You have seen her the idol of her wide circle, free as a bird, indulged by her kind, and by Providence also, till joy and grace, beauty and health, faith and hope live abundant in her, and you are the beneficiary of it all. Her society hereafter you must control. May I become your friend, and let my love for your wife recommend me to your confidence, as you to mine and to my prayers?"

"Have I another friend already?" exclaimed Milburn, his voice quivering.

"What wealth she brings me never known before! William, you will be ever welcome to me."

They clasped hands upon it, and old Samson Hat, sitting back, was heard to chuckle aloud such a warming laugh, that Meshach's response to it, in a sudden pallid shivering, seemed slightly out of keeping. He was recalled, however, by the entrance of Judge Custis with his daughter, and her maid, Virgie.

Vesta was very pale, but neither shrinking nor negative. On the contrary, she supported her father rather than received his support, and Milburn saw the Judge's worn, helpless face, with the pride faded from it, and pity for his daughter absorbing every other feeling of depression.

He wore his best cloth suit, with the coat tails falling to his knees behind, the body cut square to the hips, and the collar raised high upon his stock of white enamelled English leather. His low-b.u.t.toned vest exposed his shirt-b.u.t.tons of crystal and gilt, and a ruffle, ironed by Roxy's slender hands with nimble touches, parted down the middle like sea foam on sh.e.l.l, and similar ruffles at the wrists were clasped by chain b.u.t.tons of pearl and silver. His vest was of figured Ma.r.s.eilles stuff, and gaiters of the same material partly covered his shoes; and his heavy seal, with his coat of arms upon it, fell from a pale ribbon at his fob. Debtor though he was, and answering at the bar of the church to a heavy personal and family judgment, his large and flowing lines of body, deeply cut chin, full eyes, and natural height and grace of stature made him a marked and n.o.ble presence anywhere.

Vesta Custis, dropping off a mantle of blue velvet at a touch of her maid, stood in a party dress of white silk, the neck, shoulders, and arms bare; and, as she halted a minute in the aisle, Virgie struck the cloth sandals from her mistress's white slippers of silk, and, removing her hood of home-embroidered cloth, a veil of white fell to her train.

The dingy light from the lamps of whale-oil gathered, like poor folks'

children's marvelling eyes, around the pair of diamonds in her delicately moulded, but alert and generous ears. Her fine gold watch-chain, twice dependent from her neck, disappeared in the snowy mould of her bosom, on whose heaving drift swam a magnolia-bud and blossom, each with a leaf. Her father's picture, in a careful miniature set in pearls, lay higher on her breast, fastened by a pearl necklace.

Her hands were covered with white gloves, and her arms were without ornament. Her hair, dropping in dark ringlets around her forehead and temples, was combed upward farther back, and then gathered around a pearl comb in high braids, and the plentiful loops drooped to her shoulder.

Milburn glanced at the treasures of her peerless bodily charms, never till now revealed to his sight, and their splendor almost made him afraid.

Never had he been at a theatre, a ball, or anywhere from which he could have foreseen a swan-like neck and bosom sculptured like these, and arms as white as the limbs of the silver-maple, and warmed with bridal-life and modesty.

Her lips, parted and red, her great rich eyes a G.o.ddess might have commanded through, with their eyebrows of raven-black, like entrances to the caves of the c.u.maean sibyl, her small head borne as easily upon her neck as a dove upon a sprig--all flashed upon Milburn's thrilled yet flinching soul, as the revelation of a divinity.

As she stepped forward he spoke to her with that bold instinct or ecstasy she had observed when she first addressed him in her father's house, ten hours before.

"You have dressed yourself for me?" he said.

"Sir, such as I could command upon this necessity I thought to do you honor with."

"For _me_, to look so beautiful! what can I say? You are very lovely!"

"It is gracious of you to praise me. Shall we wait, or are you ready?"

He gave her his hand, unable to speak again, and she was calm enough to notice that his hand was now hot, as if he had fever. Her father, at her side, reached out also, and took the bridegroom's other hand:

"Milburn," he said, huskily, "this is no work of mine. My daughter has my consent only because it is her will."

"The n.o.bler to me for that," Milburn spoke, with his countenance strangely flushed. "What shall we do, my lady?"

"Give me your arm; not that one. This is right. Have you brought a ring, sir?"

"Yes." He drew from his vest pocket a little, lean gold ring, worth hardly half a dollar.

"It was my poor mother's," he said.

Without another word she walked forward, her arm drawing him on, Virgie following, and her father bringing up the rear. Samson Hat, feeling uneasy at being awarded no part in the ceremony, slipped up the aisle as far as the big, stiff-ap.r.o.ned stove in the middle of the church, behind which he ducked his body, but kept his head and faculties in the centre of the events.

Mr. Tilghman had preceded them in his surplice, and taking his place at the altar, with his countenance pale as death, he read the exordium in an altered voice: "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here, and in the face of this company, to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony."

"What 'company' is here?" thought Vesta. "Not alone these poor negroes and my father; no, I feel behind me, looking on, the generations of our pride and helpless ease, the worthy younger suitors I have been too exacting and particular to see the consideration and merits of, the golden hours I might have improved my mind in, with brilliant opportunities I was not jealous of, and which will be mine no more, because I had not trimmed my virgin lamp; and so I slept away my girlhood, till now I awaken at the cry, 'The bridegroom cometh,' and I behold! Yes, I have been a foolish virgin, and am surprised when my fate is here! Perhaps my guardian angel also stands behind me, the cross advanced that I must take, my crown concealed; but somewhere, midway of this journey of life, she may give it to me, and say, 'Well done!'"

"This 'company,'" thought Milburn, with swimming head, "gathered to see me marry! what company? I seem to feel, besides these negroes, my sole spectators, the populous forest peering on, the barefoot generations, the illiterate broods, the instinctive parents, the sandy graves. They give forth my lost tribe, and all cry at me, 'Go, leave us, proud one!

despiser, go!' Yet there is one I see, pure as my bride, white as my captive's bosom, her soul all in her believing eyes, and saying, 'Oh, my son, it is a woman like me that has come into your life, and her heart is very tender, and, by your mother's dying love! be kind to the poor stranger you have bought.'"

He answered, "I will!" aloud, and it seemed almost a miraculous coincidence that it was a response to the minister's question, till he heard the corresponding inquiry put to his bride in the clergyman's low, but gentlest, tones:

"Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him, in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?"

"I will!" spoke the Judge's daughter, clear as music, and the Judge drew a long, deep sigh, saturated with tears, as if from the deepest wells of grief.

He could not distinctly answer, as he joined her hand to the minister's.

The minister lost his office and speech for a moment, joining her hand to the bridegroom's. The slave-girl burst into a wail she could not control, and only Vesta stood calm as her bridegroom, putting her cool, moist hand in his palm of fire, and waited to repeat the Church's deliberate language.

When both had made this solemn promise, she reached for the little ring, and gave it to her old lover, the minister, and Virgie loosed her glove.

Mr. Tilghman, his tears silently falling upon his book, pa.s.sed the ring to Meshach, and saw its tiny circle hoop her white finger round, no bigger than a straw, yet formidable as the martyr's chain. His prayers were said with deep feeling, and he p.r.o.nounced them man and wife. Then, shaking Meshach's hand, he said, with his boyish countenance bright as faith could make it:

"My friend, may I take my kiss?"

Meshach nodded his head, but his face was like a ball of fire, and he hardly knew what was asked. Mr. Tilghman kissed Vesta, saying,

"Cousin, your husband is my friend, and love and friendship both surround you now. May your happiness be, like your goodness, securest when you surmount difficulties, like those birds that cannot float at perfect grace till they have struggled above the clouds."

"May I kiss you now?" Milburn said, gazing with a wild look upon her rich eyes.

As she obediently raised her lips, a strange, warm, husky breath, not natural nor even pa.s.sionate, came from his nostrils. The Judge, looking at this--no pleasing scene to him, the fairest Custis in two hundred years being devoured before his sight--exclaimed within his soul,

"Is Meshach drinking? His eyes look fiery."

So, after kissing his daughter also, and saying, "May G.o.d reward you with triumphs and compensation beyond our fears!" the Judge said:

"Milburn, I suppose, in the sudden conclusion of this union, you have made no arrangements as to where you will go; so come, of course, to Teackle Hall, and make it your home."

"Is that your wish, my dear one?"

Vesta replied, "Yes. But it is yours to choose, sir."

"You have some business with your father for an hour," Milburn said; "meantime, I require something at my warehouse, and, as it is yet early in the night, may I leave you a little while?"

She bowed her head again, and, while they proceeded towards the church-door, lingering there, Samson took the opportunity to seize both of Virgie's hands.

"Virgie," he exclaimed, "is all dat kissin a gwyin on an' we black folks git none of it? Come hyeah, purty gal, an' kiss yer ole gran'fadder!"

Virgie consented without resistance, till Samson continued, "Oh, what peach an' honey, Virgie! Gi me anoder one! I say, Virgie, sence my marster an' your mistis have done gone an' leff us two orphans, sposen we git Mr. Tilghman to pernounce us man an' wife, too?" Then Virgie drew away.

"Samson Hat," she said, "what's that you are talking about? You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You are old enough to be my father!"

"'Deed I ain't, my love. I'm good as four o' dese new kine o' Somoset County beaux. I'm a free man. Maybe I'll sot you free too, Virgie--me an' my marster yonder. He says we better git married. 'Deed he does."