The Battle Ground | Page 8

a gentle reproof to the Governor.
Mr. Bill started and cast a frightened glance across the table. Thirty years are not as a day, and, after all, his emotion had been hardly more than he would have felt for a prize perch that had wriggled from his line into the stream. The perch, indeed, would have represented more appropriately the passion of his life--though a lukewarm lover, he was an ardent angler.
"Ah, Brother Bill understands us," cheerfully interposed the Governor. His keen eyes had noted Mr. Bill's alarm as they noted the emptiness of Miss Pussy's cup. "By the way, Julia," he went on with a change of the subject, "Major Lightfoot found Betty in the road and brought her home. The little rogue had run away."
Mrs. Ambler filled Miss Pussy's cup and pressed Mr. Bill to take a slice of Sally Lunn. "The Major is so broken that it saddens me," she said, when these offices of hostess were accomplished. "He has never been himself since his daughter ran away, and that was--dear me, why that was twelve years ago next Christmas. It was on Christmas Eve, you remember, he came to tell us. The house was dressed in evergreens, and Uncle Patrick was making punch."
"Poor Patrick was a hard drinker," sighed Miss Lydia; "but he was a citizen of the world, my dear."
"Yes, yes, I perfectly recall the evening," said the Governor, thoughtfully. "The young people were just forming for a reel and you and I were of them, my dear,--it was the year, I remember, that the mistletoe was brought home in a cart,--when the door opened and in came the Major. 'Jane has run away with that dirty scamp Montjoy,' he said, and was out again and on his horse before we caught the words. He rode like a madman that night. I can see him now, splashing through the mud with Big Abel after him."
Betty came running in with smiling eyes, and fluttered into her seat. "I got here before the waffles," she cried. "Mammy said I wouldn't. Uncle Shadrach, I got here before you!"
"Dat's so, honey," responded Uncle Shadrach from behind the Governor's chair. He was so like his master--commanding port, elaborate shirt-front, and high white stock--that the Major, in a moment of merry-making, had once dubbed him "the Governor's silhouette."
"Say your grace, dear," remonstrated Miss Lydia, as the child shook out her napkin. "It's always proper to offer thanks standing, you know. I remember your great-grandmother telling me that once when she dined at the White House, when her father was in Congress, the President forgot to say grace, and made them all get up again after they were seated. Now, for what are we about--"
"Oh, papa thanked for me," cried Betty. "Didn't you, papa?"
The Governor smiled; but catching his wife's eyes, he quickly forced his benign features into a frowning mask.
"Do as your aunt tells you, Betty," said Mrs. Ambler, and Betty got up and said grace, while Virginia took the brownest waffle. When the thanksgiving was ended, she turned indignantly upon her sister. "That was just a sly, mean trick!" she cried in a flash of temper. "You saw my eye on that waffle!"
"My dear, my dear," murmured Miss Lydia.
"She's des an out'n out fire bran', dat's w'at she is," said Uncle Shadrach.
"Well, the Lord oughtn't to have let her take it just as I was thanking Him for it!" sobbed Betty, and she burst into tears and left the table, upsetting Mr. Bill's coffee cup as she went by.
The Governor looked gravely after her. "I'm afraid the child is really getting spoiled, Julia," he mildly suggested.
"She's getting a--a vixenish," declared Mr. Bill, mopping his expansive white waistcoat.
"You des better lemme go atter a twig er willow, Marse Peyton," muttered Uncle Shadrach in the Governor's ear.
"Hold your tongue, Shadrach," retorted the Governor, which was the harshest command he was ever known to give his servants.
Virginia ate her waffle and said nothing. When she went upstairs a little later, she carried a pitcher of buttermilk for Betty's face.
"It isn't usual for a young lady to have freckles, Aunt Lydia says," she remarked, "and you must rub this right on and not wash it off till morning--and, after you've rubbed it well in, you must get down on your knees and ask God to mend your temper."
Betty was lying in her little trundle bed, while Petunia, her small black maid, pulled off her stockings, but she got up obediently and laved her face in buttermilk. "I don't reckon there's any use about the other," she said. "I believe the Lord's jest leavin' me in sin as a warnin' to you and Petunia," and she got into her trundle bed and waited for the lights to go out, and for the watchful Virginia to fall