For whose sake?: A sequel to "Why did he wed her?"Southworth, Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte
General
For whose sake?: A sequel to "Why did he wed her?"
Southworth, Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte
Bigamy -- Fiction; England -- Fiction; Impostors and imposture -- Fiction
Jennie, straining her eyes to look forward, saw nothing for a while but
the black forms of her father and the driver against the darkness, but
presently fitful lights glanced in sight and disappeared. After a while
they grew more steady and stationary, and Jennie recognized
“The lights in the village,”
though they were still distant before her.
“Here we are,” said the curate blithely as the panting mule drew up
before a gate in a wall, all covered with ivy or some other creeping
plant, Jennie could not see what.
Beyond the gate and the wall was the front of a two-story, double stone
house, like the wall, all covered with creeping vines, but with a bright
firelight and lamplight gleaming redly from the windows of the lower
room on the right-hand side.
The curate lifted his daughter and her child from the carryall and
opened the gate that led between two low stone walls, also covered with
green creepers, up to the steps of the long porch before the house. But
some one in the house had heard the sound of wheels, for the front door
was flung open, a small, slender woman rushed out and threw herself,
sobbing, into the arms of Jennie.
“Oh, my darling! my darling! my darling!”
“Oh, mother! mother! mother!”
That was all they could say, as they clasped each other, sobbing.
Mr. Campbell went on before them into the house, carrying the baby out
of the night air.
“Come in, come in, come in! Oh, welcome home, my child! my child!”
sobbed the mother, as, with her arm around the waist of her daughter,
she supported her into the house, through the hall and into that warm,
bright room, where a sea coal fire was blazing in the grate, and a
chandelier hung from the ceiling just over a dainty white cloth that
covered the tea table, on which a pretty china service was arranged.
The parlor was furnished entirely in crimson—carpet, curtains, chair and
sofa covers were all crimson, which, in the lamplight and firelight,
gave a very warm, bright glow to the room, which the travelers had seen
from the carryall without.
Jennie was placed in an easy-chair, and her fur-lined cloak and beaver
hat taken off her by gentle mother hands. Even in that sacred moment of
meeting, the feminine instinct caused the curate’s wife to hold up and
admire the rich cloak and hat that had been given Jennie by her New York
friends.
“You haven’t looked at baby, mother dear,” said Jennie.
“Oh! so I haven’t! How could I forget!” exclaimed the young grandmother;
and down went cloak and hat, disregarded, on the floor, while she turned
to look for the little queen who was destined to ascend the throne of
the household.
Mr. Campbell, smiling at this impetuosity, placed the infant in her
arms.
And then—but I will spare my readers the rhapsodies that ensued.
Meanwhile, everything else was forgotten.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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