Lena Rivers | Page 2

forefathers still prevailed. Consequently, neither the buxom maidens, nor the hale old matrons, felt in the least disgraced as they piled promiscuously upon the four-ox sled, which erelong was moving slowly through the mammoth drifts which lay upon the mountain road. As they drew near the farmhouse, they noticed that the blue paper curtains which shaded the windows of Grandma Nichols' "spare room," were rolled up, while the faint glimmer of a tallow candle within, indicated that the room possessed an occupant. Who could it be? Possibly it was John, the proud man, who lived in Kentucky, and who, to please his wealthy bride exchanged the plebeian name of Nichols, for that of Livingstone, which his high-born lady fancied was more aristocratic in its sounding!
"And if it be John," said the passengers of the ox sled, with whom that gentleman was no great favorite, "if it be John, we'll take ourselves home as fast as ever we can."
Satisfied with this resolution, they kept on their way until they reached the wide gateway, where they were met by Mr. Nichols, whose greeting they fancied was less cordial than usual. With a simple "how d'ye do," he led the way into the spacious kitchen, which answered the treble purpose of dining-room, sitting-room, and cook-room. Grandma Nichols, too, appeared somewhat disturbed, but she met her visitors with an air which seemed to say, she was determined to make the best of her trouble, whatever it might be.
The door of the "spare room" was slightly ajar, and while the visitors were disrobing, one young girl, more curious than the rest, peered cautiously in, exclaiming as she did so, "Mother! mother! Helena is in there on the bed, pale as a ghost."
"Yes, Heleny is in there," interrupted Grandma Nichols, who overheard the girl's remark. "She got hum the fust night of the storm, and what's queerer than all, she's been married better than a year."
"Married! Married! Helena married! Who to? Where's her husband?" asked a dozen voices in the same breath.
Grandfather Nichols groaned as if in pain, and his wife, glancing anxiously toward the door of her daughter's room, said in reply to the last question, "That's the worst on't. He was some grand rascal, who lived at the suthard, and come up here to see what he could do. He thought Heleny was handsome, I s'pose, and married her, making her keep it still because his folks in Car'lina wouldn't like it. Of course he got sick of her, and jest afore the baby was born he gin her five hundred dollars and left her."
A murmur of surprise ran round the room, accompanied with a look of incredulity, which Grandma Nichols quickly divined, and while her withered cheek crimsoned at the implied disgrace, she added in an elevated tone of voice, "It's true as the Bible. Old Father Blanchard's son, that used to preach here, married them, and Heleny brought us a letter from him, saying it was true. Here 'tis,--read it yourselves, if you don't b'lieve me;" and she drew from a side drawer a letter, on the back of which, the villagers recognized the well remembered handwriting of their former pastor.
This proof of Helena's innocence was hardly relished by the clever gossips of Oakland, for the young girl, though kind-hearted and gentle, was far too beautiful to be a general favorite. Mothers saw in her a rival for their daughters, while the daughters looked enviously upon her clear white brow, and shining chestnut hair; which fell in wavy curls about her neck and shoulders. Two years before our story opens, she had left her mountain home to try the mysteries of millinery in the city, where a distant relative of her mother was living. Here her uncommon beauty attracted much attention, drawing erelong to her side a wealthy young southerner, who, just freed from the restraints of college life, found it vastly agreeable making love to the fair Helena. Simple-minded, and wholly unused to the ways of the world, she believed each word he said, and when at last he proposed marriage, she not only consented, but also promised to keep it a secret for a time, until he could in a measure reconcile his father, who he feared might disinherit him for wedding a penniless bride.
"Wait, darling, until he knows you," said he, "and then he will gladly welcome you as his daughter."
Accordingly, one dark, wintry night, when neither moon nor stars were visible, Helena stole softly from her quiet room at Mrs. Warren's, and in less than an hour was the lawful bride of Harry Rivers, the wife of the clergyman alone witnessing the ceremony.
"I wish I could take you home at once," said young Rivers, who was less a rascal than a coward; "I wish I could take you