O, Pierre! you must not let him see you!"

"Nor shall he. I can get off as I came, under cover of the trees.

Adieu, dearest! meet me to-morrow night. Come out late, when all are gone to bed--say eleven. You'll find me waiting for you here--no, by the big cottonwood yonder. How often we used to sit under its shade."

"Go, Pierre, go! He's got up to the gate."

"One more kiss, love! and then--"

Their lips met and parted; and they too parted, the girl gliding towards the house, and the young man stealing off among the peach trees, to seek safer concealment in the shadowy woods beyond.

STORY ONE, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

"I've got good news for ye, gurl," said Jerry Rook, sliding out of his saddle, and joining her in the porch. "Darnationed good news."

"What news, father?"

"Thet the liquor hez at last done its work, an' ole Planter Brandon air dead."

"O father! surely you do not call it good news?"

"And shurly I do--the best o' news. Alf air now full master o' the place, an' thar's nothin' to hinder you from bein' full mistress o't. I know he intend makin', you a offer o' marriage, an' I've reezun to b'lieve it'll be done this very day. Brandon war buried day before yesserday."

"If he does, father, I shall refuse him."

"Refuse him!" cried the quondam squatter, half starting out of the chair in which he had just seated himself. "Lena, gurl! hev ye tuk leave o'

yur senses? Air ye in airnest?"

"I am, father. I mean what I've said."

"Mean, darnation! ye're eyether mad, gurl, or else talkin' like a chile.

D'ye know what refusin' means?"

"I have not thought of it."

"But I hev, over an' over agin. It means beggary--preehap sturvation, for myself as well as you."

"I'd rather starve than marry Alf Brandon."

"Ye woud, woud ye? Then ye may hev a chance o't, sooner'n ye think for.

Ye've got an idea yur ole dad's well to do; an' so think a good many other folks. Thar's been a house built, an' a clarin' made; but neyther's been paid for. Jerry Rook don't know the day he may hev to up sticks, an' go back agin to some durned old crib o' a cabin."

"Father! I was as happy in our old cabin as I've ever been in this fine house. Ay, far happier."

"Yer war, war ye? But I warn't--not by a long chalk; and I don't want to squat in any o' yer shanties agin--not if I kin keep out o' 'em.

Hyar's a plan by which yur may be rich for the rest o' yur life; an'

thur'd be no need for me starvin' eyther. Alf Brandon k.u.ms in for a good plantation, wi' three score n.i.g.g.e.rs on it; an' thur's nothin' to hinder yur from bein' mistress o' the hul lot."

"I don't wish it."

"But I do; an' I mean to hev it so. Don't git it in yur head, good-lookin' as yur may think yurself, thet the world air a stick o'

sugar-candy an' ye've got nothin' to do but suck it. I tell yur, gurl, I've drifted into difeequilties. I've had some rasources you know nothin' beout; but I can't tell the day _the supplies may be stopt_, an'

then we've got to go under. Now, d'ye unnerstan' me?"

"Indeed, father, I know nothing of your affairs. How should I? But I am sure I should never be happy as the wife of Alfred Brandon."

"An' why? What hev yur get agin him? He's a good-lookin' feller-- doggoned good-lookin'."

"It has nothing to do with his looks."

"What then? His karracktur, I s'pose?"

"You know it is not good."

"Dum karracktur! What signify that? Ef all the young weemen in these parts war to wait till they got a husband o' good karracktur, they'd stay a long spell single, I reck'n. Alf Brandon ain't no worse nor other people; an', what's o' far more konsequince, he air richer than most. Ye'd be a fool, gurl, a dod-rotted eedyit, not to jump at the chance. An' don't you get it into yur head that I'm gwine to let it slip. Willin' or not, ye've got to be the wife o' Alf Brandon. Refuse?

an' by the Eturnal, ye shall be no longer my darter? Ye hear that?"

"I hear you, father. It is very painful to hear you; and painful, too, for me to tell you, that your threat cannot change me. I'm sure I have been obedient to you in everything else. Why should you force me to this?"

"Wal," said the hardened man, apparently relenting, "I acknowledge ye've been a good gurl; but why shed yur now speil all the chances o' our gettin' a good livin' by yur obstinateness in bizness? I tell ye that my affairs air jest at this time a leetle preecarious. I owe Alf Brandon money--a good grist o't--an' now his father's dead he may be on me for't. Beside, you're o' full age, an' oughter be spliced to somebody. Who's better'n Alf Brandon?"

Had Jerry arrived a little sooner at his house, or approached it with greater caution, he might have received a more satisfactory answer to his question. As it was, he got none, his daughter remaining silent, as if not caring to venture a reply.

She had averted her eyes, displaying some slight embarra.s.sment.

Something of this the old man must have noticed, as evinced by the remark that followed:--

"Poor white, ye ain't a gwine to marry wi' my consent--I don't care what be his karracktur; an' ef ye've been makin' a fool o' yurself wi' sich, an' gin any promise, ye've got to get out o' it best way ye kin."

Neither was there any rejoinder to this; he sat for a time in silence, as if reflecting on the probability of some such complication.

He had never heard of his daughter having bestowed her heart on any one; and, indeed, she had gained some celebrity for having so long kept it to herself.

For all that, it might have been secretly surrendered; and this would, perhaps, account for her aversion to the man he most wished her to marry.

"I heerd a shot as I war coming along the road. It war the crack o' a rifle, an' sounded as ef 'twar somewhar near the house. Hez anybody been hyar?"

The question was but a corollary to the train of thought he had been pursuing.

Fortunately for the young girl, it admitted of an evasive answer, under the circ.u.mstances excusable.

"There has been no one _at the house_ since you left. There was a shot though; I heard it myself."

"Whar away?"

"I think down by the creek--maybe in the woods beyond the orchard."