Heaven forgive them––the seeds of the bitterest of tragedies were irrevocably sown.

CHAPTER II.

One bright May morning some sixteen years later, the golden sunshine was just putting forth its first crimson rays, lighting up the ivy-grown turrets of Whitestone Hall, and shining upon a little white cottage nestling in a bower of green leaves far to the right of it, where dwelt John Brooks, the overseer of the Hurlhurst plantation.

For sixteen years the grand old house had remained closed––the plantation being placed in charge of a careful overseer. 11 Once again Whitestone Hall was thrown open to welcome the master, Basil Hurlhurst, who had returned from abroad, bringing with him his beautiful daughter and a party of friends.

11

The interior of the little cottage was astir with bustling activity.

It was five o’clock; the chimes had played the hour; the laborers were going to the fields, and the dairy-maids were beginning their work.

In the door-way of the cottage stood a tall, angular woman, shading her flushed and heated face from the sun’s rays with her hand.

“Daisy, Daisy!” she calls, in a harsh, rasping voice, “where are you, you good-for-nothing lazy girl? Come into the house directly, I say.” Her voice died away over the white stretches of waving cotton, but no Daisy came. “Here’s a pretty go,” she cried, turning into the room where her brother sat calmly finishing his morning meal, “a pretty go, indeed! I promised Miss Pluma those white mulls should be sent over to her the first thing in the morning. She will be in a towering rage, and no wonder, and like enough you’ll lose your place, John Brooks, and ’twill serve you right, too, for encouraging that lazy girl in her idleness.”

“Don’t be too hard on little Daisy, Septima,” answered John Brooks, timidly, reaching for his hat. “She will have the dresses at the Hall in good time, I’ll warrant.”

“Too hard, indeed; that’s just like you men; no feeling for your poor, overworked sister, so long as that girl has an easy life of it. It was a sorry day for me when your aunt Taiza died, leaving this girl to our care.”

A deep flush mantled John Brooks’ face, but he made no retort, while Septima energetically piled the white fluted laces in the huge basket––piled it full to the brim, until her arm ached with the weight of it––the 

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