A heroine of 1812 : $b A Maryland romanceBlanchard, Amy Ella
History
A heroine of 1812 : $b A Maryland romance
Blanchard, Amy Ella
Maryland -- Juvenile fiction; United States -- History -- War of 1812 -- Juvenile fiction
Lettice laughed. “Patsey might spare you a goose; she tells me she has
already a brood of young goslings.”
“I don’t have to go to Patsey to find a goose,” replied Betty, saucily;
“you haven’t taken your eyes from that note you just received. I
suppose it is from that precious Yankee of yours. Is it a receipt for
brown bread? Mother promised me a hen; she actually has two whole
ones left, and if I can get eggs I’ll have some chicks before long.
And father has a heifer which he traded for, with some old Tory or
other, and which he has promised me. But I can’t promise you any great
fixings, Lettice, dearly as I want to have you married from our house.
Will you come?”
Lettice shook her head. “No, we shall be married at St. Paul’s. I
think I would rather not go down again just now, Betty.” And Betty
understood. “There should be no sad memories to mar the girl’s
wedding,” she reflected.
Yet Lettice did go down once more to her old home, and she stood with
her lover in the old graveyard which had been the scene of so many
experiences.
“Do you remember the night we first came here together?” Ellicott
asked. “I loved you then and was desperately jealous of Robert Clinton.”
“Were you really?” said Lettice. She stood thinking it all over. “You
had some reason to be, sir,” she acknowledged. Then she drew closer to
him. “But there can never be a cause for that again. No one can ever
come between us now, my beloved.” And what answer he made, only the
mating birds in the trees above them heard.
A pretty wedding it was, with a goodly array of uniforms to offset
the bright gowns. The church was crowded, many bronzed faces were to
be seen, and more than one empty sleeve. Lutie, carried away by the
occasion, bore her mistress’s train half-way up the aisle, and when she
discovered what she had done, she retreated, overcome by confusion, to
be scolded by Aunt Hagar, who made her first journey to Baltimore to
see “Mars Jeems’s Miss Letty git ma’ied.”
“I prosefy dat match long whiles ergo,” she said to Mammy who, in all
her glory, was in charge of Betty’s baby, and waiting to ride to church
“lak white folkses.”
“Yass, ma’am, I prosefy dat,” Aunt Hagar reiterated.
“Go ’long,” said Mammy. “Ennybody prosefy dat. Hit don’ tek no preacher
ner no luck-ball ter jint dem two f’om de fust. I see dat whilst I
nussin’ him dat time.”
“Humph!” Aunt Hagar gave a mighty grunt. “Ef I ain’ hed de prosefyin’
an’ de ’intment, an’ de cunjurin’ o’ dey inimies, whar yuh reckon dem
young folkses be now?”
But Mammy had no answer to make, for the carriage was ready, and it was
too important an occasion to spend time in “argyfyin’.”
“Lettice certainly has a lot of friends,” said Betty, as the carriage
bearing the newly wedded pair drove off. “I believe the entire American
army must have reserved their discarded footwear to throw after that
couple. Did you ever see such a pile of old shoes?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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