[Illustration: A CERTAIN QUALITY OF ATTRACTION ABOUT BLAIR WHICH MADE WOMEN LOVE HIM.--_Page 22_] Children of Destiny _By_ MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL [Illustration] WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. B. WENZELL _A. L. BURT COMPANY_ _Publishers_ _New York_ COPYRIGHT 1893 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY COPYRIGHT 1903 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY APRIL _Children of Destiny_ CHILDREN OF DESTINY. CHAPTER I. The hot June sunshine poured down upon the great fields of yellow wheat at Deerchase, and the velvet wind swept softly over them, making long billows and shadowy dimples in the golden sea of grain. The air was all blue and gold, and vibrating with the music of harvest time--the reedlike harmonies of the wind-swept wheat, the droning of many bees, the merry drumming of the cicada in the long grass, and, above all, the song of the black reapers, as they swung their glittering scythes in the morning sun. One side of the vast field was skirted by purplish woods, through which went constantly a solemn murmur--the only sad note in the symphony. On the other side rose great clumps and groves of live oaks and silver beeches and feathery elms, shading a spacious brick house with innumerable peaks and gables. Beyond this house and its pleasure grounds a broad and glittering river went merrily on its way to the south Atlantic. Nature in this coast country of Virginia is prodigal of beauty, and bestows all manner of charms with a lavish hand. Here are found blue rivers and bluer skies, and pale splendours of moonlit nights and exquisite dawns and fair noons. Here Nature runs the whole gamut of beauty--through the laughing loveliness of spring mornings, the capricious sweetness of summer days, when the landscape hides itself, like a sulky beauty, in white mists and silvery rains, to the cold glory of the winter nights; there is no discord nor anything unlovely. But in the harvest time it is most gracious and love-compelling. There is something ineffably gay in harvest, and the negroes, those children of the sun, sang as merrily and as naturally as the grasshoppers that chirped in the green heart of the woods. The long row of black reapers swung their scythes in rhythm, their voices rising and falling in cadence with the cutting of the wheat. The head man led the singing as he led the reapers. After them came a crowd of negro women, gathering up the wheat and tying it into bundles--it was as primitive as the harvesting in the days of Ruth and Boaz. It was not work, it was rather play. The song of the reapers had an accompaniment of shrill laughter from the women, who occasionally joined in the singing-- “When I was young, I useter to wait Behine ole marster, han’ he plate, An’ pass de bottle when he dry, An’ bresh away dat blue-tail fly.” The men’s voices rolled this out sonorously and melodiously. Then came the chorus, in which the high sweet voices of the women soared like the larks and the thrushes: