RHODA OF THE UNDERGROUND

“He listened with her hand clasped in his.”

RHODA OF THE
UNDERGROUND

By
FLORENCE FINCH KELLY
Author of “With Hoops of Steel,” “The Delafield
Affair,” etc., etc.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
THE KINNEYS

New York
STURGIS & WALTON
COMPANY
1909

Copyright 1909
By STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1909
THE MASON-HENRY PRESS
SYRACUSE AND NEW YORK

ILLUSTRATIONS

RHODA OF THE UNDERGROUND

CHAPTER I

The benediction of God was in the sunshine that lay still and bright upon green fields and blooming gardens. The town, marshaled along the river side, nestled quietly under the caressing warmth. Down by the steamboat landing it stirred into sudden noisy activity as the up-river boat drew in and made ready to discharge cargo and passengers. But farther back, where the streets, lined with maple and butternut trees and white-blossomed locusts, climbed the long sloping hill, the May sunshine seemed to have kissed the earth into radiant peace. Here and there, from some white-painted cottage set in a grassy, tree-shaded yard, came the sound of a woman’s voice in speech or song, or the shrilly sweet accents of children at play floated out from porch or shady nook.

The lilac bushes in a yard at the top of the hill, hedging the walk from front door to gate, lazily stirred their lavender foam and sent forth waves of fragrance. The house, uncompromisingly white and square and solid-looking, with green shutters at the windows, had a wide, columned veranda across the southward front and down the eastern side. Upon the balmy stillness in which it too was enveloped there came a sound of dancing steps and girlish laughter, and a young woman ran out of the front door, teasing with a leafy switch a gray kitten that scampered at her side. Her spreading skirts, crinolined and beruffled, tilted back and forth, and with a sudden twist she caught the kitten within their cage. As it peeked out, with a half-frightened face, ready to spring away, she caught it by the back of the neck and lifted it to the bend of her arm.

“No, you didn’t, Prince of Walesy!” she laughed. “You’re not smart enough yet to get away from me like that!” Leaning against the veranda rail she gazed watchfully down the street while she pinched the kitten’s ears until it squeaked and then stroked it into purring content. The sunlight brought out reddish and golden gleams in her dark brown hair.

“Walesy, why don’t they come!” she exclaimed with an impatient frown, pulling the cat’s tail while it protested with growl and claw. “I heard the steamboat a long time ago.” Her eyes sought the glimpses of sparkling river between the trees and she descried a thin banner of smoke moving up-stream. “Yes, there it goes! They’ll surely be here soon! Now don’t make such a fuss about having your tail pulled. You’ll just have to get used to it!”

She began to whistle softly, stopped, cast a backward glance at the open door, made a little grimace and struck again into her tune, louder than before. Up the street, under the drooping white masses of locust bloom, came a two-seated carriage. “Mother! They’re coming! They’re right here!” she called. Then with the kitten still in her arm she scurried down the path between the walls of fragrant lilac, her crinolined skirt giving glimpses of trimly slippered feet as it tilted from side to side. Unlatching the gate she stepped upon its lower cross-piece and swung back upon it as far as it would go. “Father! Rhoda!” she called out joyously, and was herself welcomed with “Well, Charlotte!” and a kiss by her father and a laughing embrace by her sister. One of the tall, square gate-posts bore the sign, “Dr. Amos M. Ware.”

“Now let’s take in the things!” cried Charlotte. “I’m just dying to see what you’ve brought! Here, Jim,” to the negro who was holding the horses, “come and carry in these bundles.”

Within the house there was eager cross-fire of question and answer, punctuated by frequent exclamations of delight, as the two sisters and their mother unwrapped the parcels and examined their contents.

“This is for mother,” said Rhoda, shaking out a light wool wrap. “They’re wearing these little shawls so much this spring. Charlotte, doesn’t she look nice in it!” Throwing her arms around her mother’s shoulders Rhoda kissed her twice and then rushed back to the table piled with packages. “And I’ve got the sweetest bonnet for you, Charlotte!” she went on, opening a bandbox. “There! isn’t that lovely, mother?” She tied the strings under Charlotte’s chin and all three clustered about the mirror as the girl critically surveyed herself therein.

The bonnet covered her head, in the fashion of the days “before the war,” and the wreath of flowers inside its front made a dainty frame that seemed to be trying to compel into demureness the saucy face with its tip-tilted nose and mischievous brown eyes.

The two sisters, reflected side by side in the mirror, looked oddly unlike. Charlotte’s deep tones of hair and eyes and rich coloring paled in her elder sister into light brown and gray, and faint rose-bloom upon her cheek. But Rhoda’s straight, thin-nostriled nose gave to her countenance a certain dignity which the other’s lacked, while her mouth, with its curved upper lip, just short enough to part easily from its full red fellow, had a piquant sweetness more attractive than her sister’s more regular features. Her eyes, large and gray, and indeed all the upper part of her face, had a serious expression. At the corners of her mouth there was just the suggestion of an upward turn, like that in the Mona Lisa. It gave to the lower part of her face an expression curiously contradictory of the grave upper part, as if sense of the joyousness of life were always hovering there and ready at any moment to break forth in laughter. When she did smile there was a sudden irradiation of her whole countenance. The short upper lip lifted above white teeth, the faint upward curve at the corners of her mouth deepened and her eyes twinkled gaily. But no one ever accounted Rhoda so handsome as her younger sister. Even those who admired her most thought her forehead too high and her cheek bones too prominent for beauty.

“And this muslin is for a dress for you, Charlotte,” Rhoda went on, holding it up for their inspection. “Isn’t this vine a lovely pattern, mother? We must make it with three wide flounces, from the foot to the waist, and the skirt even wider than these we’re wearing now. And this white silk is to make a drawn bonnet for you, mother. I saw several of them in Cincinnati—they’re quite the latest thing. I have the pattern and directions and I’m sure I can do it.”

There were only three of them, but as they moved about in their big, balloon-like skirts, examining, comparing, discussing the purchases, they seemed to pervade the whole large room with the essence of femininity and to fill it with their bodily presence.

“What’s this?” said Charlotte, taking up a small package. “It feels like a book.” And she began to undo its wrappings.

Rhoda looked, then half turned away. “It is a book—one father bought for me. You won’t care about it.”

Charlotte glanced at her curiously and with increased interest went on with the unwrapping. “Oh! ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin!’” she exclaimed disdainfully as she tossed the book away. “What do you want to read that for? Walesy, stop it!” And with a backward jump and a downward swoop she extricated the kitten from beneath her hoopskirt, boxed its ears and then cuddled it in her arm, whence in a moment more issued sounds of distress and anger.

Her mother spoke reprovingly, in soft tones that betrayed southern birth: “Charlotte, don’t hurt the little thing! Do try to remember that you’re grown up!”

The girl rubbed the kitten against her face and cooed: “Well, it was its own Charlotte’s precious Prince of Walesy kitty-cat and if it wants to say that ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ is just a nasty old Black Republican mess of lies it shall, so it shall! Shan’t you, Walesy?”

The kitten’s vehement response, slyly inspired, went unheeded as she turned again to her sister, demanding, “What do you want to read it for, Rhoda, when you know it’s just a lot of stuff with no truth in it?”

“I don’t know that, Charlotte. I’ve wanted to read it for a long time, because it’s talked about so much. And while we were in Cincinnati we went to Levi Coffin’s, and they told us so much about Mrs. Stowe, and how she got some of the incidents for the story and talked such a lot about—the darkies who—try to go to Canada that it made me very anxious to read the book.”

“Who’s Levi Coffin?” asked Charlotte, regarding her sister closely and noting a brief hesitation as Rhoda carefully folded the white silk before she replied: “Oh, just a friend of father’s. They’re Quakers and they wouldn’t interest you.”

Charlotte reached for the book and turned its leaves over carelessly. “Humph! If they’re friends of Mrs. Stowe they’re probably just some more nigger-stealers! You’ll soon be a black abolitionist yourself, Rhoda, if you keep on. And then we won’t associate with her, will we, Walesy! Didn’t you meet any nice people?”

Rhoda paid no heed to her sister’s aggressive tone. “Oh, yes! Mrs. Benjamin Harrison—Carrie Scott, you know—she and I were such good friends while I was at Dr. Scott’s Institute—happened to be visiting in Cincinnati and she and I had a long talk. And I saw several other girls whom I knew at Dr. Scott’s. And—oh, mother! You’ll be so pleased!” Her color warmed and her face brightened as she went on. “It was most romantic! We met Mr. Jefferson Delavan!”

“Oh, did you! Where? How did it happen? Tell me all about it!” Mrs. Ware’s eager questions and delighted face showed how nearly the information touched her heart. But Charlotte merely demanded, with puzzled interest, “Who is he?”

“Don’t you remember, Charlotte?” Rhoda went on. “His mother was Adeline Fairfax, mother’s dear friend when they were girls together in Virginia. My middle name is after her, you know, and it’s her miniature that mother has on her dressing table.”

“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Charlotte. “It was at her home that we visited, wasn’t it, a long time ago, in Kentucky?”

“Yes—Fairmount, they call it. Such a beautiful place, just beyond Lexington. Mother and you and I visited there for a month, twelve years ago, wasn’t it, mother, when we first came here to Hillside. You were only six years old then, so I suppose you don’t remember much about it. But I remember it all very well and what a good time we had.”

“Poor, dear Adeline!” Mrs. Ware was wiping her eyes. “She and I did enjoy that visit so much! And we never saw each other again, for she died the next year. If she had lived you and her children would have seen a great deal of each other. But do tell me about Jeff, Rhoda! Where did you see him? And how did he know who you were? He was such a fine boy—about twelve years old, wasn’t he?—when we were there. Just two years older than you, Rhoda. Did you meet him in Cincinnati?”

“No. He was on the steamboat when we went down and the captain—it was Captain Laidlaw, father’s friend, you know—introduced him to us, and then he remembered who we were and we had great fun talking over the good times we had at Fairmount.”

“Was his sister Emily with him? She was named for me, you know. Is either of them married yet?”

“No, she wasn’t with him, and neither one of them is married. He told me his father’s sister has lived with them ever since his mother died. His father died too last year and now he manages the plantation.”

“Is he handsome?” queried Charlotte.

“N—no, not exactly handsome. But very fine-looking, and so courteous!”

“Then you saw more of him after you left the steamboat?”

“Yes. He called on us in Cincinnati, and we went out together several times and then it happened that he finished his business there in time to take the same steamboat back that we did.”

Charlotte regarded her sister with dancing eyes. “Is he coming up here to visit—us?” she demanded. Rhoda reddened under her scrutiny. She did not always find it easy to keep her composure under Charlotte’s habit of making audacious deductions and voicing reckless intuitions. But she had learned long before that to betray embarrassment was to invite more questioning. She answered with apparent unconcern:

“Father asked him to come and told him how pleased mother would be to see him, and he said that he expected to be up near the river before long and he would cross over and call on us.”

“Dear boy! Indeed, I shall be glad to see him! Adeline’s son—how time does fly!”

“Does he own slaves?” said Charlotte, her eyes still on her sister’s face.

“Of course!” replied Mrs. Ware. “You evidently don’t remember the place, Charlotte. It is a large tobacco plantation, and when we were there Mr. Delavan had a great many slaves.”

Charlotte sprang to her feet and poised the kitten on her shoulder. “Then you won’t like him, Rhoda—and I shall!” Whistling merrily, she took some dancing steps toward the door.

“Charlotte!” called her mother reprovingly, “Do try to remember that you’re not a child any more! I’ve told you so often it’s not ladylike to whistle!”

Rhoda smiled at her fondly. “Don’t you know, sister, what happens to whistling women and crowing hens?”

“Oh fudge! That’s all nonsense. I heard a better one the other day—

‘Girls that whistle and hens that crow

Catch the pleasures as they go.’

There’s some truth in that! I’m going to show father my new bonnet, and he doesn’t care if I do whistle!”

Mrs. Ware gazed after her as she floated down the veranda and disappeared around the corner of the house, tilting her skirts and whistling.

“I did hope Charlotte wouldn’t be so trying after she became a young lady!” she said in soft, plaintive tones.

“Never mind, mother. She doesn’t really mean to be trying. She does it just the same as she pinches the kitten’s tail, to make it meaow. If you don’t pay any attention to her she’ll quit much sooner.”

Mrs. Ware crossed the room to her daughter, pressed an arm around her waist and kissed her cheek. “I’m so glad you happened to meet Jeff Delavan,” she murmured. “If he comes to see us, and I’m sure he will—” she glanced at the warmer color that flushed Rhoda’s face, smiled, and went on, “What did you buy for yourself, dear?”

CHAPTER II

“Father! Can these things be true? Oh, how terrible it is! Do such things really happen now, in this country?”

Rhoda Ware rushed into her father’s office, her cheeks wet with recent tears, her voice vibrating on the verge of sobs. Dr. Ware looked up from the medical work he was reading in some surprise. For it was unusual for her to give way, at least in his presence, to so much agitation. His professional eye took quick note of her excited nerves. In the same glance he saw that she held a book tightly grasped in her trembling hands and read its title. But he did not betray in either words or manner the fact that he had noticed it or the satisfaction that it gave him.

“Sit down, Rhoda, and calm yourself,” he said quietly. “What is it you want to know about? Something you’ve been reading?”

“Yes. It’s ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ Father, isn’t it exaggerated? Can it be true?”

Appeal sounded in her tones, the longing of a sensitive nature to be assured that what it has suffered in imagination no human being has been called upon to suffer in the thousandfold of reality. He noted her hurried breathing, with the catch of a half-sob in it now and then, and as he looked into her appealing eyes the man and the father in him drew back from saying what he wished to say lest he add to her hurt and the physician counseled not to increase her excitement. But the believer in a cause urged him to strike while the iron was hot. And it was the believer that won, after a mere moment of hesitation.

“You heard what they said at Levi Coffin’s, about many of the incidents of the book being based on fact. But what you have read there is only a drop in the bucket!”

As he leaned toward her across his desk and she, seated at the other side, bent her face toward him, even a casual observer might have seen their relationship. For her countenance was a copy of his, a young, soft, feminine copy, but yet formed clearly upon the same plan, even in the details of feature and coloring. His eyes, large and gray like hers, were calm and cool and judicial in expression, even when, as now, they were alight with earnestness. His shaven upper lip, also, was short, but it pressed upon the lower in a firm line, while all his countenance expressed a sort of austerity that seemed to bespeak a mind informed with intense moral conviction rather than hardness or coldness of nature. But looking at the two faces thus, one could see in hers the kindling fires of an emotionalism which would be forever foreign to him, an incipient power of emotional exaltation which would never be within his possibilities. But if there was less of warmth in his eyes and of spirituality in his brow, poise and cool judgment were written there, and far-sightedness, their inevitable offspring. Of the intellectual, judicial type Dr. Ware’s countenance showed him to be, and however much or little of such qualities his daughter had inherited from him, along with her remarkable physical resemblance, from elsewhere had come the emotional forces which now were trembling in the sensitive curves of her mouth and glowing in her tear-wet eyes.

“There’s nothing in that book that couldn’t be duplicated right now in the South, every day in the week,” Dr. Ware was saying in low, even tones that nevertheless held such intensity of conviction that she felt her nerves thrilling with it. “And even then, Rhoda, it’s only a beginning! There are such horrors perpetrated under slavery as a young girl like you can’t begin to realize!”

She shuddered, and he watched her silently as she pressed her lips together and deliberately held her breath for a moment in the effort to master her emotion.

“I don’t think I’ve ever quite realized anything about it before,” she said in calmer voice, “although I’ve always believed, ever since I’ve known anything about it, that it is wrong. But I’ve never felt, all through me”—and she shivered again—“just how wrong it is, until this book has made it seem all real and alive.”

She hesitated, leaning her arms upon the desk, and a puzzled expression crossed her face. “But, father,” she presently went on, “why doesn’t mother feel as you do about it? Her father owned slaves, and until she married you she had always lived on the plantation with slaves all around her. And she still thinks that slavery is right and that the negroes are happier and better off in it than they would be if they were free. She’s so kind and gentle, how can she feel as she does if this book is true?”

“Your mother and I, Rhoda, have never discussed the question. Her father was a kindly man and treated his slaves well, and so the only conditions that she knew anything about were of slavery at its best. She had such a happy girlhood on her father’s plantation, where the slaves were all eager to do anything for her, that her memories of it are very pleasant. I’ve never wanted to disturb them, because it wouldn’t do any good and it might spoil the pleasure she takes in thinking about those days; and so I’ve never talked about it with her, although she knows, of course, what I think.”

Rhoda threw him an admiring glance, which he, with his eyes averted in semi-embarrassment at having revealed a glimpse of his inner self to his offspring, did not see.

“Mother has told us, Charlotte and me,” Rhoda went on thoughtfully, “so many things about her girlhood and her father’s plantation, and she has always been so pleased in recalling those days, that I couldn’t help wondering sometimes if anything could be wrong that made everybody as happy as they seemed to have been in her home. And Charlotte, you know, is quite convinced that slavery is all right.”

“Oh, Charlotte!” Dr. Ware exclaimed in an amused tone. “She’s just a little fire-eater! But she doesn’t mean half she says.”

“Sometimes she doesn’t, but she seems to be getting quite in earnest about it lately.”

“Like all the rest of us, on both sides,” her father appended.

“Mother says her father never sold a negro,” Rhoda went on, “and that his slaves were always contented and happy and that the same things were true on the other plantations where she visited.”

Dr. Ware’s face darkened. “He didn’t, while he lived. But he left his affairs in such a tangle when he died that most of his slaves were sold to satisfy his debts. Your mother was ill then—it was about the time you were born—and I did not tell her, and as we were living in the North nobody else did, anything about that part of it. To this day she doesn’t know”—he was clipping off his words in a tone of impersonal resentment—“that her old mammy, of whom she was so fond, was sold to a trader who was buying for a cotton plantation in the South. When I found out about it I tried to have her traced, so as to buy her myself, bring her North and free her. But I finally found that she was dead and that her fate, though different, had been no better than Uncle Tom’s.”

The girl drew back with an exclamation of horror, and her eyes filled. “Oh, father! That good, kind creature, who loved mother so much!”

“Don’t ever tell your mother,” he cautioned. “It would do no good and it would make her unhappy. You see, Rhoda, how impossible it is for one man, no matter how good his intentions may be, to keep back the evil that is inherent in slavery. He can’t make his own affairs better than the system very long.”

Rhoda was looking out through the open door, her brow puckered in a thoughtful frown, the pain in her heart evidenced by the droop and the quiver of her sensitive lips. Dr. Ware’s office was on the eastern side of the house and faced a gate, opening from the cross street, through which a young man was now striding hastily.

“There’s Horace Hardaker!” she exclaimed. “How excited he looks! Oh, do you suppose he’s had bad news from Julia?”

They sprang to their feet and rushed out upon the veranda. “Very likely,” her father answered. “The border ruffians are overrunning eastern Kansas. What is it, Horace? What has happened?” he went on, grasping the young man’s hand as he mounted the steps. They pressed close to him, expectant, their faces anxious.

“Julia—have you had bad news?” Rhoda threw in breathlessly.

Hardaker’s face was working with suppressed excitement and it was a moment before he could speak.

“You haven’t heard?” he broke out. “Oh, it’s frightful! Senator Sumner was attacked yesterday in the senate chamber and beaten almost to death!”

“My God, Horace! Who did it?” cried Dr. Ware, gripping the other’s hand, his face paling.

“Preston Brooks—”

“Of South Carolina—yes, go on!”

“Senator Butler’s nephew—that speech of Sumner’s the other day—”

“Yes, yes! The crimes of the South! Brooks has killed him?”

“No, but he may not live. Brooks came upon him from behind, as he sat at his desk, and while he was penned there pounded him over the head with a heavy cane.”

“Will the North stand this insult?” Dr. Ware exclaimed, dropping the other’s hand, which unconsciously he had been gripping and shaking during their colloquy. With quick steps and short turns he marched this way and that as they went on talking, running his fingers through his hair until it stood upright. Rhoda shared in their excitement, her nerves still tingling from her recent emotion, mind and heart alike ready to be deeply impressed by the news. With brief, sharp sentences they broke across one another’s speech, turning pale faces and glittering eyes from one to another.

“Brooks’s companions held back those who tried to go to Sumner’s help!”

“Oh, what a brutal and cowardly—”

“If the North is not utterly craven—”

“It’s the most atrocious thing they’ve dared yet!”

“Beecher’s bibles are the thing to answer it with!”

“The sooner the better!”

“If there’s any manhood at all in the North!”

After a little they grew calmer and went into the office, where Hardaker related the details of the event which was about to set both sections of the country in an uproar. Presently Rhoda asked what news he had had from his sister Julia, lately married—Rhoda had been her bridesmaid—and gone with her husband to Kansas. North and South were in the midst of their bitter struggle for the embryonic state, and from each settlers were pouring into it, there to translate their convictions into guerrilla warfare, while their friends at home waited fearfully each day as news came of battle, murder, the burning of houses, the sacking of towns.

“We’ve heard nothing worse, so far, than you’ve seen in the papers already. But it won’t be long. They’re cooking up some dastardly outrage and any day we may hear that Lawrence has been burned and all the people killed. Mother never opens the ‘Tribune’ herself now. She waits for me to look in it first and then tell her what the Kansas letters say.”

Hardaker was asked to stay to dinner, and Rhoda went to tell her mother of the guest. Then the two men drew their chairs close together and spoke in low tones.

“I saw Conners this morning,” said Horace, “and he told me that they’re watching his place so close now that it isn’t safe to have them come there any more. And he’s made up his mind to go out to Kansas anyway, and expects to leave in a month or two. So we’ve got to have a new station.”

“Yes,” mused Dr. Ware, “there must be some place not too far from the river where they can hide as soon as possible after they cross. I wonder if I could manage it here. If I could, this would be just the place. The house sets up so high that they could steer their course for it from the other side, and, once across, they could easily make their way up here after dark.”

“But could you take care of them safely?” the other asked with evident surprise.

“I couldn’t heretofore, but it may be different now!” and he leaned forward with a smile of satisfaction. “You saw how moved Rhoda was just now. She’s been reading ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ and it’s had a profound effect upon her, just as I hoped it would. She went down to Cincinnati with me last week and I took her to Levi Coffin’s. She was very much interested in the talk there—you know about what it was. After she’s had time to think about it—Rhoda doesn’t do things on impulse, you know—I believe, Horace, my girl will be ready to help me out!”

“But what about—” Hardaker began, then stopped, embarrassed.

“I know what you mean. I wouldn’t, of course, ask Mrs. Ware to concern herself actively in the matter, or to know any more about it than she wanted to. But we could depend on her to keep her own counsel. Charlotte need not know anything about it—although she’d be pretty sure to find out all about it before long. Then she’d tell me frequently and forcibly, just what kind of a pickpocket she considers me—” He stopped a moment, smiling indulgently, but went on, conviction in his tone: “But she wouldn’t tell. She’d be loyal to me. And as for my colored man Jim and his wife Lizzie, in the kitchen, they’ll do anything under the sun to help the thing along. They bought their freedom, only a few years ago. I think, Horace, it will be all right!”

Rhoda found her mother and sister in the big, cool sitting-room, Mrs. Ware darning stockings and Charlotte at the piano, playing “The Battle of Prague.” She wheeled round at Rhoda’s announcement of the guest for dinner.

“That Black Abolitionist!” she exclaimed scornfully, her eyes flashing. “I shall not sit at the table with him!”

“Charlotte!” her mother chided. “Your father’s guest! Be ashamed!”

“Why don’t you decline to sit at the table with father?” Rhoda asked quietly, but with an unaccustomed tone in her voice that made the other look at her sharply. Her face and manner still betrayed signs of her recent agitation. Charlotte saw them and wondered if anything had been happening between her and Horace Hardaker. She did not know that he had more than once plead his suit with Rhoda and had been denied.

“Where is he now?” she asked.

“In the office, with father.”

Had he then been making love to Rhoda and was he now getting the matter settled with their father? Then it would be impossible not to be present at the dinner table. But for the present she would stick to her guns. She rose and moved toward the door, giving her hoopskirts an angry swish.

“No!” she paused to say, with emphasis, “you cannot expect me, thinking as I do about Horace Hardaker, to sit at the same table with him. I shall ask Lizzie to save my dinner for me and eat it after he goes away.”

But when they met in the dining-room Charlotte was already there, arranging flowers on the table, a rose in her hair and another at her throat and Hardaker’s place set beside her own. At first his manner toward her was courteous, though formal, but as the meal progressed and she smiled upon him, rallied him, and talked to him and at him with audacious little speeches, his reserve melted and his attention was gradually centered upon her. Every now and then she stole a glance at Rhoda, secretly wondering and discomfited that her sister did not seem more disturbed or make some effort to prevent her from monopolizing Hardaker’s attention. She reassured herself with thinking, “But she never does show things out much.”

After dinner Dr. and Mrs. Ware left the three young people together upon the veranda. Horace asked Rhoda about her visit to Levi Coffin’s in Cincinnati, but Charlotte cut in with some saucy remarks that set them to laughing and when presently she strolled off across the lawn to a grape arbor at the other side of the yard, he was in close attendance. Rhoda brought her sewing from the house and began hemming the flounces for Charlotte’s gown.

There was a suggestion of triumph in Charlotte’s expression and manner when they came back and all three stood under the butternut tree beside the east gate, where Dr. Ware’s carriage was waiting for him to dismiss a patient. Had she not taken young Hardaker away from her sister at once and herself appropriated all his attention? But when she could not help seeing that the ordinary friendliness between the two was neither disturbed nor accentuated, she began to think that perhaps her previous surmise had been mistaken. And when Horace bade them a casual good-by, in which her keen eyes could discover no trace of any unusual sentiment, and drove away with their father, she decided that after all it had not been worth while. “But anyway it was more fun than eating dinner alone,” she thought. “And when Mr. Jefferson Delavan comes—”

CHAPTER III

We blundering humans are much given to looking back over our lives and saying, “There we made a mistake. If it were to do over again we would do thus and so, and then things would turn out much better and happier.”

But if we could go back and live our lives over again, at how many of the turning points would we have the courage, or the desire, to take the other direction? How often would we care to risk any different combination of events than that which we had formerly dared? For experience has taught us, at least, how endless and how momentous is the line of events, not only for ourselves but also for a growing multitude of others, that we set in motion with each choice of the forking road. Moved by our own desires and the compelling force of outward circumstances we travel over the course the first time, choosing our route with little thought for the intricate coils of consequence that hang upon our steps. But if we were to journey over it again would not our feet drag at the turnings and waver back to the path we already knew, rather than venture blindly upon some new chain of events, leading none could tell whither and ending only with the end of time?

Thus did it happen that Dr. Amos M. Ware in after years sometimes debated with himself as to whether he made a mistake in not speaking sooner to his daughter Rhoda about the work, of deep concern to him, in which he hoped to enlist her sympathy and help. Often did he ask himself if perhaps it would not have been better for her had he laid his plan before her at once, on the very day of Hardaker’s visit, when her mind and heart were so deeply impressed that there would have been little doubt of her acquiescence. But he wanted to talk with her more, to give her more things to read, and so to lead her deeper into the heart of the fires with which North and South were burning. And in the meantime came Jefferson Delavan.

Afterwards he was wont to say to himself that if he had spoken, and everything had been arranged and the work started before that event happened, the young man’s coming would have made little difference to Rhoda, that then he would simply have gone away again and that would have been the end of it. But he was wont also to reassure himself with the thought that perhaps Delavan would have come again anyway, and that, even if he had not returned, perhaps it would have been no better for Rhoda. But the “ifs” and “perhapses” so tangled up his reflections that he always ended by thinking he would not quite like to risk acting differently if it were to do over again.

Of course, there would have been a story anyway, no matter what Dr. Ware might have done at that particular juncture, nor what the consequences of his action might have been. It would not have been the story I am about to relate, and perhaps Jefferson Delavan would not have been in it. But given Rhoda Ware and given her environment, it would have been bound to be a story somewhat out of the ordinary. As to that, however, in every human life there is a story that needs only adequate telling to make it seem more interesting than life does to the most of us.

Rhoda Ware’s father did not know what she thought, nor, indeed, whether or not she had any conviction, upon the right or wrong of the system of helping and hasting fugitive slaves through the northern states to Canada and freedom which in that day was known, and has passed into history, as the Underground Railroad. He did feel sure, and his pride in her increased with the thought, that if she were not convinced of its righteousness, although it was in defiance of the law, she would not engage in it. But he also felt sure that if she saw the matter as did he and his co-workers, as a question of the right of the individual conscience above the general law, she would come to his assistance with courage and enthusiasm. And therefore before broaching the subject he wished to make sure of her convictions upon all the points that led up to this practical climax.

Like thousands upon thousands of others, her first keen feeling upon the subject of slavery was aroused by the reading of Mrs. Stowe’s fateful book. She was only one of the unnumbered host for whom its emotional appeal was the first incentive to active opposition. The influence of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” upon the course of events preceding the Civil War is proof of how much more ready we Americans are to be moved by our emotions than by argument, of how much more willing we are to think with our hearts than with our heads.

Dr. Ware put into her hands Senator Sumner’s speech on “The Crime against Kansas,” the cause of the assault upon him, which was being read all through the north by the hundred thousand copies, and he brought her reports of the huge meetings of indignation held in Boston, New York, and other cities, and presided over and addressed by men of national fame. From Kansas the news of the sacking of Lawrence added fuel to the flame of anger that was sweeping over the North, and to the feeling of horror and reprobation in which Rhoda joined there was added in her mind the note of personal resentment. For a letter from her friend Julia Hammerton, Horace Hardaker’s sister, gave an intimate account of the attack and told of the indignities and loss herself and her husband had suffered at the hands of the border ruffians.

Rhoda was deeply moved by these events and day by day became more keenly interested, while her father, watching her closely, decided that soon he would speak to her upon the project he had so much at heart. He purposed to lay before her the whole question, tell her of the part which it was his desire to take in the work of the Underground Railroad, and ask for her coöperation.

Underneath the apparent peace in which the Ohio river town of Hillside basked in the sweet May sunshine of that day when Rhoda and her father drove up the hill on their return from Cincinnati, feeling on the slavery question ran deep and bitter. And the events which had happened since that day had intensified the heat and the bitterness until, just as all over the country, men felt that they were dwelling over a volcano which might break out at any moment, none could tell with what violence and destruction. The pro-slavery element of the town, quick to seize every opportunity of expressing its friendliness for the South, held a meeting at which resolutions were passed lauding Representative Brooks for his chivalry in coming to the defense of his kinsman and his state, and declaring that he deserved the admiration of all who believed in honor and manliness for the justly deserved punishment he had meted out to a notorious abolitionist. And then money was donated with enthusiasm for the purchase of a cane to be presented to him which should bear the inscription, “Use knock-down arguments” and the device of a broken human head.

The anti-slavery element planned to hold a meeting two nights later at which they proposed to express their feelings in denunciation of Brooks and in praise of Sumner and his speech, to voice their indignation over the course of events in Kansas, and to ask for money for the relief of the free-state settlers and for the sending of more colonists with whom to swell their numbers. It was Dr. Ware’s intention to take Rhoda to this meeting, at which he was to make the principal speech, and immediately afterward to have with her the conversation which he believed would secure her help.

But in the afternoon of that day Jefferson Delavan appeared at the door of his office and hoped he might present his respects to Mrs. Ware and Miss Rhoda.

CHAPTER IV

“‘A felon’s blow,’ indeed! O, la, you horrid thing!”

Charlotte Ware, alone in the living-room, rocked violently back and forth a few times, apparently as an outlet for her indignation, then turned her flushed cheeks and snapping eyes again upon the New York “Tribune” in her hands. She stayed her rocking for a moment, absorbed in the article which had aroused her anger, but presently broke out again:

“‘The symbol of the South is the bludgeon!’ Oh, you wretch!”

She struck the page with her fist, but went on reading again until she came to some sentiment which gave a still deeper prod to her anger. Then springing to her feet, she crushed the journal into a ball, whipped off her slipper and began to spank vigorously the offending news. The paper flew from her hands and the kitten, which had tumbled from her lap, whisked after it. She pursued and sent it across the room with another blow, ran after it and beat it again, exclaiming, “There! That’s what you deserve!”

“Charlotte, what are you doing?” It was her father’s voice at the door, and without looking up she answered, between her whacks at the tattered paper:

“It’s that old meeting in New York about Sumner and I’m giving that horrid Beecher person’s speech what it deserves, and I wish it was him!”

“Bravo, Miss Charlotte!” came quick response in a strange masculine voice, followed by a hearty laugh and two or three little handclaps.

She wheeled, her slipper in her hand, and saw a young man beside her father in the doorway, a good-looking young man, broad-shouldered and erect of stature. It flashed upon her that this must be Mr. Jefferson Delavan. Under cover of picking up the kitten she adroitly slipped on her shoe. As she came forward, blushing and confused, trying to cover her embarrassment with an extra tilting of her hoopskirt and a pouting, defiant little smile, she seemed to Delavan to be little more than a spoiled, amusing child, so sweet and dainty to look at that to indulge her would be a pleasure.

Mrs. Ware was delighted by Delavan’s coming, and would listen to no other arrangement than that he should stay with them, at least over night. When she heard this Charlotte considered whether or not she should deny herself the excitement of attending the meeting that night. She had already accepted the escort of a young admirer whose sentiments were as vehemently pro-slavery as her own, and he had confided to her that something interesting was likely to happen. Perhaps it would be just as interesting to stay at home and prevent Mr. Delavan from showing Rhoda too much attention. But there would be opportunity for that afterward, and the meeting would be only that evening. So she decided not to send word to her escort that she had changed her mind. When she came downstairs ready to go, her father, meeting her in the hall, said, with more gravity than he was accustomed to use toward her:

“I hope, Charlotte, you won’t let that young Saunders forget who you are.”

“Don’t you worry, father,” she responded assuringly. “I won’t let him hiss you, anyway.”

With much inward regret Dr. Ware gave up his plan of taking Rhoda to the meeting with him. She and her mother sat on the veranda with their guest and Mrs. Ware told them anecdotes about her own and his mother’s girlhood and of the intimacy which had caused the young women to be known among all their acquaintance as “the two alter egos.” “And after awhile,” said Mrs. Ware, in happy reminiscence, “they always called one of us ‘alter’ and the other ‘ego,’ without making any distinction as to which was which.”

In the days of that friendship they had had their miniatures painted, each for the other, and Delavan had brought, from his dead mother’s possessions, that of Mrs. Ware.

“I thought you might like to have it again, Mrs. Ware, madam,” he said, in his slightly ceremonious manner, “either for yourself, as a memento of your girlhood, or to give to Miss Rhoda.”

Rhoda bent over it with eager, tender interest. “Oh, mother!” she exclaimed, “does this really look as you did then? How you have changed!” And, indeed, in her matronly figure, short and plump, there was little suggestion of the trim and graceful outlines of the young girl in the picture. The brown hair had grown quite gray, the bright color had faded from the face, and the dainty contour of cheek, chin and throat had been despoiled by the quarter-century which had since passed over her head. But although the years had stolen her beauty they had left in its place a worthy gift. For motherliness informed her features, her look was tender, and the grace of gentleness controlled her manner.

Delavan was at Rhoda’s elbow, looking at the miniature with her, and now and then stealing a glance from the portrait to the girl’s face. “You needn’t do that, Jeff,” Mrs. Ware smiled at him, “for you can’t find the least resemblance to me in Rhoda’s features. She’s like her father in looks and disposition and everything,” and her eyes rested fondly upon her first-born.

“But how much it is like Charlotte!” Rhoda insisted, and pointed out the likeness in mouth and chin, nose and brow, in expression and in coloring.

Moved to tender retrospection by the memories that came crowding upon her, she told them about her courtship and marriage. “It was at White Sulphur Springs that I first met your father, Rhoda,” she said, “and from the very start he never seemed to have eyes for anybody but me. He was from the North, you know, from Providence, and he was taking a horseback trip through the South for his health. He had letters to the Colbys, good friends of ours who were there too, and so I soon met him. Ah, what happy times we used to have at White Sulphur!” and she went on to tell of rides and dances and flirtations in which they heard the names of gay young gallants, known to them now as men of prominence in Washington or capital cities in the South.

“But father—what became of him?” reminded Rhoda.

“Oh, he was always wherever I was, as long as he stayed at the Springs, that summer. Afterwards he was with the Colbys, who owned the next plantation to ours, tutoring their boys. That was such a gay winter—something going on all the time—dear me!” She broke off into a happy little laugh and the spirit of that long dead time flared up again in the instinctive coquetry with which she tossed her head, moved in her chair and flourished her fan. Delavan looked at her and smiled, thinking of the Amos M. Ware of those days and wondering what would be his account of that winter. Rhoda’s eyes noted the movement and the expression and she thought, “That’s just like Charlotte!”

“My people did not want me to marry him,” Mrs. Ware went on, “because he was a northerner. But one day he came to take me to ride—two such splendid black horses they were, and how they could travel! Well, we went, for I always had my own way, and such a wild ride we had! We galloped and galloped, and I was very gay, as I always was, but your father, Rhoda, looked so serious and strange that I was a little frightened inside of me, though I wouldn’t have let him know it for the world. I suppose that made me—a little—worse than usual, and he didn’t say anything, but just made the horses go faster and faster, and after a while he rode close beside me and seized my arm and said— O, never mind what he said!”—her voice trembled and almost broke and it was a moment before she went on. “Well, the end of it was that we ran away and were married. Of course my people were very angry about it, but they forgave me, as I knew they would, though they never did quite forgive him. He took me away at once to New York, where he wanted to study medicine, and I never lived in the South again.”

Rhoda listened with a little tremor in her nerves and her heart beating faster. Vividly the vision came before her—the pretty, gay young woman with her wilful coquetries and the masterful young man urging their horses faster and faster—and they were her father and mother! How strange it seemed to think of them under the stress of such a wild, compelling love. That, then, was what love was like—for its sake her mother had dared the anger of her people, and had given up them and their love and her home and all her early associations which had meant to her such great happiness. The moon was swimming upward through a sea-like expanse of dim blue sky and casting its spell of beauty over the flower-decked yard, the solemn tree shapes guarding the street and the glimpses of river beyond. Fireflies were weaving patterns of light down among the shrubbery and behind it the white palings of the fence gleamed, unreal as the walls of a dream palace. Up from the rose-laden bushes, on the softly stirring air, came waves of fragrance.

Mrs. Ware was going on with a story about Delavan’s mother and herself and Rhoda heard her mention her “old mammy”! Instantly the girl’s thought flashed to what her father had told her a little while before, and the tears came to her eyes at the realizing sense of how his love had shielded for his wife her memories and her pleasure in them. This, then, was what love was like—but suddenly imagination drove thought away and again she saw the vision of those two young lovers galloping faster and faster, while love plied whip and spur. Then without warning her mind played a trick upon her and there flashed across it a memory of her own—of children playing pirates, herself and the other girls princesses in short dresses and pantalettes, and the man now sitting beside her, a long-legged boy, bearing down upon their palace, singling her out and bearing her away to his treasure cave.

They strolled down into the yard, but Mrs. Ware did not like the dew on the grass and went back to the veranda. Rhoda and Delavan idled on through the moonlight.

“Do you know what I’ve just been thinking of?” he questioned.

“No. How could I? But—” she plucked a red rose and held it toward him, her upper lip lifting in a smile that sent a brightness over her face, “a flower for your thoughts!”

He took it, pressed it to his lips and fastened it in his buttonhole. They were passing a great bed of white petunias, gleaming like ghost flowers in the moonlight and sending forth sweet odors that filled the air all round about.

“I was thinking,” he began, and to Rhoda the sweetness of their fragrance seemed suddenly to be translated into his tones and to be coursing through her own veins. Never again was she to be able to sense the odor of petunias without darting memory of how he pressed her rose to his lips and said, “I was thinking of that evening when we played pirates. Do you remember?”

They had come to the entrance of the grape arbor, at the western side of the yard. It was dark with the heavy foliage of the vines, and Rhoda hesitated an instant as she glanced at the shadows within, checkered here and there with gleams of light, and gave a faint exclamation at his words. A dim prescience, barely realized, crossed her consciousness, as of something, some destiny, waiting for her within those shadows. A broad band of moonlight, shining through the entrance, lay across the seat.

“You startled me, a little,” she said, sitting down in the white glow, “because—it’s very curious—I thought of that evening myself, just now!”

“You did? What a coincidence! Then you must remember how hard I had to work to beat Lloyd Corey, the other pirate, to your palace, and how I chose you out of all the princesses and carried you off? Do you remember? Lloyd and I had a duel about you, with cornstalks, that evening, after you girls went in, and I won, and after that he had to let me pick you out every time—do you remember—Rhoda—that I did always choose you? The very first day that you came, Harry Morehead and Lloyd and I talked over you and all the other girls that were there, comparing you and saying which we thought we would like best, and I told them that I liked Rhoda Ware the best of them all and that I was going to marry her some day. That was just boy’s talk, of course, but—Rhoda—Rhoda Ware—we are man and woman now, and I love you, and I—still mean to marry you, if you will have me—will you?”

He had been standing before her, bending low, speaking in quick, soft tones, in which she felt a passionate masterfulness that set her own pulses throbbing. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had a dim memory of her father seizing her mother by the arm and galloping—galloping— Unconsciously she moved to one side and nervously swept her wide skirts from the bench. He sat down beside her, and as the moonlight fell full upon her figure he saw that her bosom was heaving and her hands trembling.

“Have you—not been—too hasty?” she asked, in a troubled voice. “We know so little of each other!”

“I know I love you and want you for my wife. I knew that when we were together on the boat, and in Cincinnati, and I know it now more surely even than I did then. But if you are not so sure of yourself, if you want to know more about me, I will wait for your answer. But you won’t deny me at once—you won’t send me away for good, now, will you, Rhoda?”

He bent toward her, his masterfulness all gone, face and voice full of pleading. She gave him one swift, smiling glance, bright in the moonlight, and whispered, “No, not now—let us wait a little.”

He seized her hand. It was cold and trembling. She let him hold it for a moment in both of his. “Rhoda, Rhoda, you love me a little!” he exclaimed, as he felt it fluttering within his palms.

“Perhaps, a little—I don’t know,” she hesitated. From down the hill came the sound of voices. “They are coming home,” she went on in steadier tones. “Let us go back to the house.”

The fact had not yet presented itself to Rhoda Ware’s remembrance that Jefferson Delavan was a slaveholder. She knew that he owned a plantation which he worked with slave labor, but her thoughts had been filled by his personality alone, without reference to his surroundings or conditions. And during the evening his presence and her mother’s reminiscences had swept all her thoughts and emotions away from the immediate present and the outer world. For the time being it was quite outside her consciousness that he had any connection with the institution of slavery.

As for Delavan, he did not know anything about Dr. Ware’s sentiments on that burning question. The subject had not been mentioned during their conversations on the boat and since his arrival in the afternoon he had seen but little of his host. Mrs. Ware, with her delight at his coming and her talk about his mother and their girlhood days, and Rhoda’s presence, had engrossed his attention. Moreover, Charlotte’s performance, upon which he and Dr. Ware had unexpectedly come, had been misleading to whatever thought he had given to the matter. And that young lady was about to make deeper the impression.

Seated on the veranda steps she lamented her mistake in going to the meeting. “There was no fun at all,” she declared. “It was as orderly and quiet as a funeral. I wish it had been old Sumner’s funeral! And how they did talk about ‘Bully Brooks’!” She caught up the kitten, which at the sound of her voice had come purring against her skirts, and exclaimed:

“Prince of Walesy, you’ve got to have your name changed! You’re going to be ‘Bully Brooks’ after this! Because he’s the best man out!”

“Good for you, Miss Charlotte! You’re a girl after my own heart!” Delavan heartily approved. They were alone on the veranda, Dr. Ware having hurried to his office, where a patient was waiting. At that moment Mrs. Ware and Rhoda returned, with cool drinks, and the talk turned to other subjects. But Delavan had gained a distinct impression that Dr. Ware’s family was pro-slavery in sentiment.

Later in the evening, when Rhoda went into her sister’s bedroom to say good-night, she found Charlotte sitting before a mirror with their mother’s miniature, carefully comparing it with her own reflection. “Come here, Rhoda,” she said, “and see how much this looks like me!”

Rhoda bent over her shoulder. The girl had arranged her hair like that in the picture, and the resemblance was striking. “I know,” said Rhoda. “I noticed it at once, but your hair this way makes it plainer. You must look very much like mother did when she was your age—when they were married.”

Charlotte cast a glance back into the other’s face. “Yes,” she said, “I must be the image of her. That’s why father loves me so much more than he does you.”

Rhoda turned sharply away. “Sister! He doesn’t! We are both his daughters, and he loves us both.”

“Of course he does,” Charlotte replied calmly. “But he loves me a great deal more than he does you.”

And in her secret heart Rhoda knew that her sister spoke the truth.

CHAPTER V

Never had Dr. Ware been more surprised than he was when Jefferson Delavan came to him the next morning and said, without preliminary:

“I wish to tell you, Dr. Ware, sir, that I love your daughter, Miss Rhoda, and desire to make her my wife.”

For a moment he gazed in speechless astonishment. “It seems to me, Mr. Delavan,” he presently found tongue to say, “that you are being rather precipitate. Have you spoken to Rhoda?”

“I have, sir. She asks for time to make sure of herself. But she does not leave me without hope. You must remember, sir, that we knew each other when we were children.”

“Oh, yes, for a few weeks, I believe! And you’ve been in each other’s company a few hours since! Do you think that is long enough for you to acquire such knowledge of each other as you ought to have before venturing upon this important step?”

“It has been long enough, sir, for me to discover that she has a sweet and noble nature and to know that I love her. And I do not ask from her at present any definite promise. I ask only for your permission to endeavor to win her love and her promise as soon as possible. You know who I am and I am sure you will acquit me of presumption, sir, if I remind you that my name is an honored one in my state and neighborhood. I trust you will have any inquiries made that you like concerning my personal character, and I shall be happy to give you at any time an account of my financial affairs, in order that you may satisfy yourself I can give your daughter a home and a position such as she deserves.”

“Your attitude is that of an honorable man, Mr. Delavan, and if the matter goes on I shall take advantage of your offer.”

Dr. Ware arose and began moving back and forth across the room. “But you are a slaveholder, I believe. Do you think it wise for two people to marry who hold such opposing opinions about a question that both think of importance?”

It was the young man’s turn to be surprised. He rose and looked at the other in astonishment. “What do you mean, Dr. Ware? I thought—Miss Charlotte—?”

“Yes, I understand. Charlotte likes to talk and she says a great deal more than she means. But Rhoda and I are in sympathy on the question of slavery, and I am what you southern people call a fanatic and a black abolitionist. If I had supposed that our meeting on the boat would lead to anything more than mere passing acquaintance I would have spoken of my sentiments then.”

“It seems to me, sir, that if husband and wife love each other truly, matters of opinion are of little consequence between them.”

Dr. Ware shook his head gravely. “A matter of opinion? My young friend, it is much more than that, for both of you. But this is something for you and Rhoda to settle between yourselves. As for me, it would grieve me deeply to see Rhoda marry you, just because you are a slaveholder, and I must tell you right now that whatever influence I have with my daughter shall be used against your suit. Nevertheless,”—he held out his hand, the young man gripped it, and they shook hands warmly, although each saw kindling in the other’s eyes the fires of opposition. “Nevertheless,” Dr. Ware went on, “you have my consent to win her if you can. Frankly, though, I don’t believe you can do it after she realizes that to be your wife she must be the mistress of slaves.”

While Delavan was having his interview with her father, Rhoda, clasped in her mother’s arms, was hearing exclamations of delight and forecasts of happiness: “Rhoda, dear! how happy this makes me! Yes, I know, you haven’t given him a final answer—and that’s quite right—keep him off for a while—don’t let him think you’re easily won—but of course you’ll have him finally! Oh, Rhoda, my little girl—to think that you’re going to marry Adeline’s boy! If she knows—up in heaven—she’s just as pleased over it as I am! If she could only have lived to see it! And he’s such a dear fellow! Rhoda, dear, you’ll be so happy, I know you will—and it is such a beautiful life down there!”

She heard her younger daughter whistling in the hall. “There’s Charlotte,” she exclaimed. “I think I’d better send her downtown on some errand.” And wiping tears of joy from her eyes she hurried out to complete her plan of eliminating Charlotte from the life of the household for the rest of the morning.

Rhoda went down to the veranda, taking with her the white silk out of which she was making a bonnet for her mother, with her heart full of tenderest emotion. Mrs. Ware’s delight and enthusiasm had made still warmer and deeper her own thrilling happiness. As her fingers flew over her work she listened to the faint tones of her lover’s voice, and a soft glow stole into her eyes. Delavan surprised it there when presently he came from her father’s office.

“Rhoda!” he exclaimed. She saw the love-light flame across his face and the color mounted to her brow. He sought to take her hand, but she drew it away, saying shyly, “Not yet.”

He went into the house to bid Mrs. Ware good-by, for he was going at once, in order to catch the forenoon trip of the ferry boat across the river. When he came out Rhoda put down her work and walked with him down the broad path between the hedges of lilac to the front gate.

“When can I have my answer?” he pleaded. “The next time I come?”

On the instant there sprang up in her heart a something she had never felt before. It was not the first time she had listened to the pleadings of a would-be lover, but never before had there been one who had not got his answer, frank and straightforward, at once; never one toward whom she had felt this instinctive impulse to enjoy his suspense. Serious-minded offspring of her father though she was, yet it was not for nothing that she was her mother’s daughter. Already she knew what her answer was to be and knew that she could give it to him at any moment. Her short upper lip lifted in a flashing little smile that illumined her whole face. Delavan drew toward her, his eyes upon the soft curves of her mouth.

“How can I tell?” she said. “There is so much to think over—I must have time.”

“Your mother would be very pleased!”

“Yes, dear mother, I know,” she murmured fondly. “She loved your mother so dearly. And father? You talked with him, just now?”

“He says that I may win you if I can.” It did not occur to him to say anything about the doubt Dr. Ware had expressed of his success, or the attitude her father had warningly declared he would take. All that had been swept out of his mind—he had not even thought it of much consequence at the time. And now, looking down upon Rhoda’s blushing face, he forgot everything but the hope that if he could induce her to lift her downcast eyes he might surprise surrender therein. But he was to be disappointed in that, for when presently he did look into their gray depths they were merely gentle and serious.

“When may I come again?”

“We shall all be glad to see you whenever you come—Mr. Delavan—”

“At least you might call me Jeff,” he interrupted, “as you did when we were children!”

“Well then, Jeff,” and her manner took on with the word a shade more of intimacy, which sent his eyes flying once more to hers. “I’m sure—Jeff—” this time she said it mockingly—“mother will be pleased if you come again soon. And we’ll all be glad to see you.”

“And you?”

“Of course! There’s so much we haven’t talked over yet about those happy days we had so long ago— And we might play pirates again—if you’ll bring Lloyd Corey with you! He was such a nice boy! I’d really like to see him again.”

“Confound Lloyd Corey! Shall I have to carry you off, as I did that time, or shall you have something to tell me then?”

“Oh, I can’t promise—” she hesitated and her voice took on an intonation as she spoke his name that sent a thrill to his heart,—“Jeff—anything about it—what I shall say, or whether I can have anything to say then, more than now. But I would like to see Lloyd Corey again!”

Leaning upon the gate, Rhoda watched her lover’s figure as he swung down the long, tree-bowered street. When she turned she saw her father coming down the path and waited there, blushing and casting up at him now and again a shy glance.

“Young Delavan surprised me very much just now,” he began. “I told him, as I suppose he reported to you, that he had my consent to win you if he could. I don’t suppose, though, that he also told you I didn’t believe he could and that it would grieve me deeply to see you marry him.”

Rhoda bent upon him surprised eyes. “Why, father, what do you mean? Don’t you like him?”

“Yes, Rhoda, I like him well enough, personally, but you know how I feel about slavery and all who are responsible for it. Have you forgotten that Jefferson Delavan is a slaveholder?”

The color faded from her face, and into her wide, gray eyes, fastened upon his, there came a look, as of some wild thing suddenly stricken, that smote his heart. She flinched a little and he turned away, that he might not see her pain.

“I guess, daughter, you hadn’t thought about that,” he went on, kindly.

“No,” she repeated after him, “I—I hadn’t thought about that.”

“But you knew that he has slaves, that he works his plantation with slave labor?”

“Yes, father, I knew it, somewhere back in my mind, but I didn’t think anything about it. I didn’t think of anything but—just him!”

“But you’ll have to think about it now,” he said in a gently suggestive tone.

“Yes,” she assented dully, “I’ll have to think about it now”—she stopped, then went on with a flash of pain in her tone, “when I can think!”

“You must try to realize,” her father went on, “before it is too late, how you would like to be the mistress of slaves, supported by slave labor, your welfare and all your interests so bound up with the system of slavery that you will be forced to become one of its defenders.”

Her head drooped and she turned away with a little gesture of one hand as though begging him to stop. He waited a moment and she faced him again and said slowly, with little breaks and catchings of her breath: “Father! I don’t believe I could do it! I—love him—I want to be his wife—but—slaves! I couldn’t! I know I couldn’t!”

She broke down then and began to sob softly under her breath. He put his hand through her arm and led her up the path to the house.

Mrs. Ware came out to meet them, anxiety in her face. “What is it? What’s the matter?” she questioned.

Rhoda straightened up and rested one hand upon her mother’s shoulder. Mrs. Ware was short and plump of stature and Rhoda, tall and of slender build like her father, looked down into her face with tear-filled eyes.

“Mother,” she began, her tone already self-controlled, “I’m afraid you’ll feel badly about it, but—I don’t think I can marry Jeff Delavan, after all.”

“Rhoda! Child! What is the trouble? What have you been saying to her, Amos?”

“There, mother! You mustn’t blame father. He only reminded me that Jeff is a slaveholder. Of course, I knew it before, but I—just hadn’t thought about it. Mother, you’ll think me foolish, I know, but I don’t—I don’t think I can marry him.”

“Is that all? Dear child, you’re making a mountain out of nothing at all! Come with me, dear. Your father has been putting foolish notions into your head. Come, we’ll talk it over, and you’ll soon see there’s nothing in that to keep you apart!”

Rhoda bent her head for a moment upon her mother’s shoulder and, half reluctantly drawing herself from her father’s arm, which seemed even more unwilling to let her go, started into the house.

In their absorption they had not heard Charlotte coming up the walk. “What’s the matter?” she exclaimed, seizing her father’s hand. “Is Rhoda sick?”

“You may tell her, father,” Rhoda turned to say, as she and Mrs. Ware disappeared through the door.

“Well, what is it?” Charlotte demanded briskly, as her father hesitated.

“Jeff Delavan wants to marry her.”

“Humph! Is that anything to cry about?” she commented, sitting down on the veranda step. “Where is he? Is he crying too?”

“He’s gone home—he went a little while ago.”

She looked up surprised. “Oh, has he? I thought he’d still be here. But what’s Rhoda crying about? Because he’s gone away so soon? Then why didn’t she keep him? She didn’t refuse him, did she?”

“No, she didn’t give him a definite answer. And since he went away she has remembered that he is a slaveholder. You know how she and I feel about slavery.”

Charlotte sprang to her feet excitedly. “You don’t mean to say she’s going to take that into account! I didn’t think she could be such a goose!” She looked up at him with twinkling eyes. “Father, why didn’t you take me down to Cincinnati with you, so he could have seen me first? Oh, well, I suppose he’ll come back again, won’t he?” And with a toss of her head she ran into the house, stopping at the door to throw back at him an audacious laugh.

He gazed after her, an indulgent smile on his face. Did the look of her and the ring of her saucy laugh awaken some memory of the long ago wherein flitted another dainty, girlish figure so much like her that she sometimes startled him? At any rate, a still warmth took possession of his heart and drove out the slight resentment that just now crept in when his wife took Rhoda away to try to induce her to a course of action so directly opposed to his own convictions.

CHAPTER VI

“That’s just right, Rhoda.” Charlotte nodded at herself in the mirror and smiled with satisfaction as she turned this way and that, surveying her reflection at different angles. “I hope you won’t marry Jeff Delavan, for then I’d have to learn how to do this myself.”

“You ought to learn how to make your own clothes, anyway,” her mother commented reprovingly. The three of them were in an upstairs chamber used as a sewing-room, Rhoda fitting upon her sister the bodice of a white gown and Mrs. Ware, between stitches as she darned a three-cornered tear in the muslin window curtain which the kitten had just made, looking on and making suggestions.

Charlotte tossed her head and tilted her hoopskirts as she did some dancing steps in front of the mirror. “Oh, what’s the use, as long as Rhoda likes to sew and I don’t! You couldn’t, mother, when you were my age. I hope she won’t marry anybody as long as I’m at home. You’re an awful goose, Rhoda. Suppose Jeff Delavan is a slaveholder—what do you care about a pack of dirty niggers? They’re better off as slaves, anyway. Billy Saunders has lived in South Carolina and he says you couldn’t find anybody anywhere more contented and happy than the nigger slaves down South and that they’re no more fit to be free and take care of themselves than so many babies.”

“Yes,” assented Mrs. Ware, “it has always seemed to me that they need white masters to provide for their welfare. They really are not competent to take care of themselves.”

Rhoda listened to their talk as she adjusted a ruffled fichu about her sister’s shoulders, but made no comment. Nobody but she knew how wistfully, during these days, she was hearkening to arguments in favor of slavery.

Charlotte surveyed herself critically in the glass once more and patted the fichu with approval. “It’s lovely, Rhoda, and I’m so glad you’re a Black Abolitionist! No good-looking young slaveholder would need to ask me more than once—that is, he wouldn’t need to if he knew it, but it’s more interesting to make them ask several times—didn’t you use to think so, mother? The more slaves he had the better I’d like him—and the more times I’d let him propose. Oh, la! How lovely it would be to have a dozen or so slaves ready to come the minute you call, and every time you look out of a window to see droves of them, all working for you! That would just suit us, wouldn’t it, Bully Brooks?” And she caught up the kitten from the floor in time to save the curtain, swaying in the breeze, from another attack.

“It’s perfectly silly of you, Rhoda,” she went on, as she tilted out of the room, the kitten on her shoulder, “to care any more about Jeff Delavan’s having a lot of slaves than you would if they were so many horses. Isn’t it, Bully Brooks?”

The kitten gave quick and loud response and Mrs. Ware, with a frown in her voice, called after her, “Charlotte!” But she heard in reply from down the hall only a merry laugh and the whistled strains of “Comin’ through the Rye.”

“Charlotte is not sympathetic,” said her mother fondly, putting an arm around Rhoda and pressing her cheek to her daughter’s, “but her ideas are certainly correct. And any one will tell you so, dear, who has lived in the South and knows what slavery really is. You’ve no right, Rhoda, as I’ve already told you, to set yourself up in judgment on a subject you know nothing about, and against those who know all about it. Why can’t you trust your mother, honey?”

She put her hands upon her daughter’s shoulders and looked up beseechingly into Rhoda’s troubled face. “I know all about slavery, dearie,” she went on, “for I lived in the heart of it until I was married, and I give you my word the niggers are far happier and better off under it than they would be if they were free. They don’t want freedom. And they are so grateful to their masters and mistresses and so fond of them! Why, dear, my old mammy loved me almost as much, I do believe, as my mother did!”

Rhoda recalled what her father had told her of that “old mammy’s” fate and pressed her lips together in sudden fear lest, in spite of his injunction, she might tell what she knew.

“I know, mother,” she said falteringly, “at your home it seems to have been as near right as it could be; but, mother, dear, they’re human beings, and I can’t make it seem right, no matter how much I think about it and try to see it as you do, that they should be bought and sold!”

“That’s only because you don’t know much about niggers, dear child! They’re not really human beings, in the sense that we are. If you had grown up among them as I did you would understand that. Charlotte is quite right in saying they are no more to be considered than horses.”

They sat down on the black horsehair sofa and Mrs. Ware went on, her soft, southern tones full of pleading, one hand fluttering over the girl in little caressing touches: “If you knew them as I do, Rhoda, and knew how contented they are, you wouldn’t feel a moment’s hesitation. And everybody lives so happily down there! Such hospitality, such friendships, such enjoyment of life—everything so gracious and charming! There’s nothing like it in the North! How homesick it makes me, even yet, to think of it! Oh, honey! If I could only see you settled in the midst of it, you don’t know how happy it would make me! And Jeff—I don’t believe you realize, Rhoda, how much he loves you! You ought to have heard him talk to me about you! Jeff would do anything to make you happy!”

Rhoda’s head dropped to her mother’s shoulder. “Oh, mother!” she cried, “I wish—I wish you could convince me!”

When she carried her sewing down to the veranda a little later Mrs. Ware’s eyes followed her with a gaze of mingled longing and misgiving. “Now she will go and talk with her father,” was the mother’s thought, “and he will undo all that I’ve gained.”

Rhoda saw that her father’s carriage was at the east gate, waiting for him, and she had scarcely seated herself with her sewing when he came out from his door. “Oh, Rhoda,” he called, “will you come here a minute, please?

“I’d like you to do something for me this morning,” he went on as they stepped back into the office. “You know where the Mallard place is? The first one beyond Gilbertson’s. They have sent in for some more medicine for their sick child, but if there have been certain results I want to make a change in the treatment. The man who brought me the message didn’t know anything about it and I’ve got a hurry call that’s likely to keep me all day. I’ll give you two kinds of medicine,” and he began putting them up as he continued talking, “and if the child is sleeping well and has no fever you can leave this package—the directions are written here. But if not I want it to have this, until I go out there to-morrow. Don’t say anything about having the two kinds, but make your inquiries, and leave the package that the symptoms call for, and tell them I’ll call to-morrow.”

“All right, father. I can ride Dolly, I suppose? I’ll enjoy having a gallop this morning.”

“If she’d only been a boy,” he thought, as he hurried into the carriage and drove away, “I’d have made a doctor of her. It’s a pity she wasn’t—she’d make a first-class one, if she wasn’t a woman.” He held the thought regretfully for a moment. But, radical though he was upon many subjects, it did not occur to him that Rhoda could be a woman and a physician at the same time.

As he drove down the main street, past the law office of Horace Hardaker, that young man rushed out and signaled him to stop. “If you’ve got anything to tell me, Horace,” he said, reining up at the sidewalk, “jump in and come along for a few blocks. I’m in a hurry and can’t stop.”

“A piece of U. G. baggage came over the river last night,” Hardaker began as they drove on, his voice just above a whisper, “and went to Conners’ house, as he had been directed. You know they’ve been keeping a close watch on Conners lately, and this morning Marshal Hanscomb swooped down while the baggage was still there. But Mrs. Conners got him into a bonnet and veil and dress of hers, while Conners kept the slave catchers at the front door a few minutes. She did a lot of talking and laughing in the kitchen, as if she was saying good-by to some neighbor woman, and hustled him out of the back door, just as Conners had to let them in at the front. He got away all right, with directions for going on to Gilbertson’s. If he gets there they’ll hide him in their hollow haystack until the immediate danger blows over. But the marshal and his catchers are after him to-day, and it’s a chance if he makes it.”

Dr. Ware’s face was serious. “No, Conners’ house won’t do any longer—it isn’t safe,” he commented, in low tones. “We’ve got to find some other place. My house is the best, if things turn out all right. But I don’t know yet how it’s going to be. You met that young man from Kentucky there last week, the evening of the meeting. He’s a slaveholder, but he wants to marry Rhoda.”

Hardaker made a sudden, nervous movement and the doctor, casting a sidewise glance, saw a flush overspread his face. “I know, Horace—that is, I guessed,” he said kindly, “and I wish, from the bottom of my heart, that she might have felt differently about it.”

“So do I, doctor,” the other answered grimly, “but—she didn’t. Is she—does she—” he went on awkwardly and Dr. Ware took the burden of the question from him.

“She doesn’t know yet what she’ll do. If she decides to marry him that will put an end to my scheme. I’d have to have somebody in the house in sympathy with the work. Rhoda is so capable, she could take the thing right into her own hands and carry it on so quietly that nobody would know what she was about. I wish I’d got it started before Delavan appeared on the scene.”

“Delavan?” Hardaker repeated with sudden interest. “Is his name Jefferson Delavan?”

“Yes. He has a tobacco plantation down below Lexington.”

Horace slapped his knee. “The same one!” he exclaimed softly, and went on in reply to Dr. Ware’s look of inquiry: “He’s the owner of that slave they so nearly caught at Conners’ house this morning, and he’s out with Marshal Hanscomb following the fellow now!”

Dr. Ware pursed his lips in a subdued whistle. “Then he’s likely to come to my house again before he goes back. I’m sorry—he’s a taking sort of chap, and Rhoda likes him.”

The sun was hot and Rhoda, on her homeward way, slowed her horse to a walk and sought the shady side of the road. Her thoughts were busy with her mother’s recent pleadings and arguments. A little frown wrinkled the wide space between her level brows. “No,” she said to herself, “no, father’s right about slavery—and mother’s wrong—she doesn’t really know as much about it as he does, although she did live there so long.”

Her thoughts lingered over the stories her mother had told her of life on the southern plantations, its gaiety and refinement and gracious hospitality, and into her mind came the picture of the Delavan home as she had seen it on a spring afternoon of her childhood—the long, noble driveway, tree-arched, up which the carriage swept, the massive brick house with its wide verandas, half hidden among trees, the carriage circling the great lawn and drawing up at last at the steps, and Mrs. Delavan coming eagerly forward to receive them, her husband by her side and close behind her the two children, Jeff and Emily. And then, of a sudden, it was herself she saw in the mental picture, with Jeff Delavan at her side, standing on the wide veranda and welcoming their guests. A smile flashed across her face and a tender light shone in her eyes. “Oh, Jeff, Jeff!” she whispered. “I do want to be your wife!”

She looked about her, a sweet longing in her heart. Her horse was moving at a walk down a long, sloping hill. Her eyes followed the road up the opposite rise and she saw a man’s figure come across the top and start downward at a run. She wondered idly why any one should be running like that on so hot a day. As they neared each other at the foot of the hill she saw that he was a mulatto, very light in color, but with negro blood nevertheless plainly manifest in skin and eyes. The thought flashed through her mind that perhaps he was a runaway slave and at once her heart warmed with compassion.

He was near enough to see the expression of pity that swept across her face and he came toward her with a half-wary, half-questioning look.

“What is it? Can I help you?” she asked impulsively.

“Can you tell me, Miss,—am I on the right road to Gilbertson’s—is it much farther?” he panted.

“About three miles, right on, along this road.”

“Three miles!” His face fell and despair leaped into his eyes. He glanced at the trees which thinly clothed the hillside. “Is there any place in there where I can hide? Are there any houses—safe ones?”

She bent toward him, looking straight into his eyes. “Are you just running away from slavery? Have you done anything wrong?”

He held her gaze unflinchingly as he answered: “I’ve done nothing wrong—nothing but try to get my freedom—but that’s the worst of crimes, south of the Ohio River.”

“Then I’ll help you. I know where you can hide.” He assisted her to dismount and she gathered up her long riding skirt and began to climb the rail fence. “There’s a cave over here a little ways,” she went on. “I haven’t been there for years, but I think I can find it. Yes, here’s the path.”

“We must hurry,” he cautioned. “They’re coming after me, and they’re not far behind. If they turn off on that other road back there—I’ll be safe—this time.”

She led the way and they walked on rapidly through the straggling bushes and timber. The hill was steeper here and the path sidled and zigzagged toward its summit, for some distance in view of the road. Halfway up the hillside it made a sharp turn around a huge boulder and plunged into a thicker growth of shrubs and young trees. As the man, several paces in the rear, reached this point he cast a quick glance at the road and saw a horseman come into view across the top of the rise.

He sprang forward, exclaiming in a shrill whisper, “Hurry! My master is coming! I saw him cross the hill!”

She drew her skirts higher and broke into a run. “Did he see you?” she threw back at him, and her swift glance caught sight of a pistol in his hand.

“I don’t know. Show me the cave, and then you must get out of the way!”

“You won’t shoot him?” she demanded, turning sharply round.

“I will if I have to. I’m not going back into slavery!” was his answer in a dogged voice.