Twenty minutes passed, and then the streets were filled again; but now
the people were going home, talking as they went of the beauty of the
bride and of the splendid-looking bridegroom, who looked so fondly at
her as she murmured her responses, kissing her first himself when the
ceremony was over, and letting his arm rest for a moment around her
slender form. No one doubted its being a genuine love match, and all
rejoiced in the happiness of the newly-married pair, who, at the village
depot, were waiting for the train which would take them on their way to
Kentucky, for that was their destination.
In the distracted condition of the country, Hugh's presence was needed
there; for, taking advantage of his absence, and the thousand rumors
afloat touching the Proclamation, one of his negroes had already run
away in company with some half dozen of the colonel's, who, in a
terrible state of excitement, talked seriously of emigrating to Canada.
Hugh's timely arrival, however, quieted him somewhat, though he listened
in sorrow, and almost with tears, to Hugh's plan of selling the Spring
Bank farm and removing with his negroes to some New England town, where
Alice, he knew, would be happier than she had been in Kentucky. This was
one object which Hugh had in view in going to Kentucky then, but a
purchaser for Spring Bank was not so easily found in those dark days;
and so, doing with his land the best he could, he called about him his
negroes, and giving to each his freedom, proposed that they stay quietly
where they were until spring, when he hoped to find them all employment
on the farm he went to buy in New England.
Aunt Eunice, who understood managing blacks better than his timid mother
or his inexperienced wife, was to be his housekeeper in that new home of
his, where the colonel and his family would always be welcome; and
having thus provided for those for whom it was his duty to care, he bade
adieu to Kentucky, and returned to Snowdon in time to join the Christmas
party at Terrace Hill, where Irving Stanley was a guest, and where, in
spite of the war clouds darkening our land, and in spite of the sad,
haunting memories of the dead, there was much hilarity and
joy--reminding the villagers of the olden time when Terrace Hill was
filled with gay revelers. Anna Millbrook was there, more beautiful than
in her girlhood, and almost childishly fond of her missionary Charlie,
who she laughingly declared was perfectly incorrigible on the subject of
surplice and gown, adding that as the mountain would not go to Mahomet,
Mahomet must go to the mountain; and so she was fast becoming an
out-and-out Presbyterian of the very bluest stripe.