existence.

"Your Cousin James's home is the place for you, Evelina, and until he explained to me how you felt last night I was deeply hurt that you hadn't come straight, with Sallie, to me and to him," said Cousin Martha, in as severe a voice as was possible for such a placid individual to produce. Cousin Martha is completely lovely, and the Mossback gets his beauty from her. She is also such a perfect dear that her influence is something terrific, even if negatively expressed.

"I have come to help you get your things together, so you can move over before dinner," she continued with gentle force. "Now, what shall we put in the portmanteau first? I see you have unpacked very little, and I am glad that it confirms me in my feeling that your coming over here for the night was just a dutiful sentiment for your lost loved ones, and not any unmaidenly sense of independence in the matter of choice where it is best for you to live. Of course, such a question as that must be left to your guardian, and of course James will put you under my care."

"I--I really thought that perhaps Cousin James did not have room for me, Cousin Martha," I answered meekly. "How many families has he with him now?" I asked with a still further meekness that was the depths of wiliness.

"There are three of us widows, whom he sustains and comforts for the loss of our husbands, and also the three Norton girls, cousins on his father's side of the house, you remember. It is impossible for them to look after their plantation since their father's death robbed them of a protector, at least, even though he had been paralyzed since Gettysburg. James is a most wonderful man, my dear--a most wonderful man. Though as he is my son I ought to think it in silence."

"Indeed he is," I answered from the heart. "But--but wouldn't it be a little crowded for him to have another--another vine--that is, exactly what would he do with me? I know Widegables is wide, but that is a houseful, isn't it?"

"Well, all of us did feel that it made the house uncomfortably full when Sallie came with the three children, but you know Henry Carruthers left James his executor and guardian of the children, and Sallie of course couldn't live alone, so Mrs. Hargrove and I moved into the south room together, and gave Sallie and the children my room. It is a large room, and it would be such a comfort to Sallie to have you stay with her and help her at night with the children. She doesn't really feel able to get up with them at all. 

 Prev. P 17/126 next