Huberts Wife | Page 4

name and by nature, it was not so strange that thy
skeleton fingers should clutch at the myriad-headed city, situate by

river and by sea, but thou wert insatiable! Proud dwellings and lowly
cots in green fields and midst waving woods thou didst not spare; for
thy victim, the human form, was there.
In the middle of August, the skies shone over Kennons happy and fair.
Some cousins came down from the city seeking safety--bringing, alas,
suffering and death!
In one little month, how fearful a change!
Duncan Lisle, sitting before the fire on this sad rainy evening, after the
lapse of twenty years, shudders as he recalls the blackened pall that
seemed spread over earth and air.
Strange to say, the disease prevailed least amongst the frightened
servants.
The hundred were perhaps decimated.
In the house only Duncan and his half-sister Della survived; they in fact
escaped the contagion. The father, a strong, healthy man, struggled
bravely with the fierce attack; he even rallied, until there was good
hope of his recovery. But a sudden relapse bore him swiftly beyond
mortal remedy. Duncan, in his reverie, closes his eyes, to shut out the
fearful memory. He glides over his college years and his sister's course
at school. He sees Jerusha Thornton in her youth and pride and beauty.
She waves off the many suitors in her train, only to smile winsomely at
the young master of Kennons. Her estate is equal to, and adjoins his
own. He has known her from her childhood--he loves no other--and
still he loves not her. He revolves the reason of this in his own mind.
She has beauty, wealth, accomplishments. He gives no credence to
rumors of her cruelty to servants, though aware of her haughtiness to all,
and her disdain to inferiors. The high favor which she showed to him
would be welcomed with joy by at least a half-dozen of his
acquaintance. But this, her manifest preference, did not please Duncan
Lisle--there might be no accounting for it, but it was a fact.
What was to be done? Kennons needed sadly a woman at its head. Its

master had come to be nearly twenty-eight, and not married yet!
The servants were in a state of terrified suspense, lest he should bring
Miss Rusha as their mistress. They wished their master to marry--they
would dance for joy--but it must be some other young lady than the
heiress of Thornton Hall.
Delia had been to a Northern school nearly five years; she would soon
be eighteen, and was about to graduate.
As very young girls, Della and Rusha had known each other. For many
years, however, having been at different schools they had rarely met.
Duncan held a faint impression that his half-sister had never been at all
partial to this near neighbor of his. She was coming home so soon, he
had such confidence in her judgment and womanly intuitions, he would
await her coming, and see if she could divine why it was that while he
would be attracted to Rusha Thornton he could not.
Besides, Della was not returning home alone. Ellice Linwood had been
for five years her most intimate chosen friend, and room-mate. Ellice
was the only child of a widowed Presbyterian clergyman. Her father
had spent all he had to bestow upon her, in her education. This being
thorough and complete, in the way such terms are used, she was
henceforth to support herself by teaching.
In order to avoid a deplorable separation, these two young friends had
put their wits together, and lo, the result! Through Della's good brother
Duncan, a situation had been secured for Ellice in the family of Col.
Anderson, not over six miles from Kennons. They would speedily
become excellent equestrians, these friends, and annihilate the narrow
space every day in the year.
CHAPTER III.
AN INTERRUPTION TO DUNCAN'S REVERIE.
Duncan Lisle, still gazing vacantly into the varying flames, performed

anew the journey, not from Kennons to Troy on the Hudson, but from
the latter city, via New York, back to his Virginian plantation. His
sister and Ellice Linwood were his companions, for it had been
arranged that, though Ellice's session of school was not to commence
for a couple of months, yet she should thus early undertake the journey
for sake of the company; and Della's home was to be hers also in the
intervening time.
Della and Ellice! They flitted hither and thither before Duncan's mental
vision, as they had on that memorable journey. Just free from the
irksome restraints of the school-room, full of joyous anticipations, they
gave way to that girlish gayety, and that unbounded enthusiasm, which
a thorough sense of happiness and enjoyment cannot fail to inspire.
Life was before them beautiful, glorious, and without end! This was
only nine