When Rhoda declared, and her mother could not induce her to change her decision, that it would be impossible for her to go, the disappointment was so keen that it sent Mrs. Ware to bed with one of her severest headaches. Rhoda cared for her with all tenderness, and, in secret bitterness and tears that her mother must now think more hardly of her than she deserved, wished that Charlotte would offer to give back her promise. But she would not ask it of her sister, and to that young woman, in the height of girlish spirits, busy with the dressmaker and her own plans, there never occurred the faintest idea of making the offer. Mrs. Ware knew, even before she tried, that she could not induce her husband to accept the hospitality of a slave owner, and so, finally, it was only herself and her younger daughter who made the journey. As they were saying good-by Charlotte whispered to her sister: “This time next year, Rhoda, I’ll be inviting you to Fairmount!” CHAPTER XX Letters from Mrs. Ware and Charlotte told of much gaiety and of days that were an unceasing round of enjoyment. Charlotte wrote that it was “heaven upon earth” and that never before had she “even imagined how happy a girl could be.” But in her mother’s letters Rhoda detected a note of melancholy. Although at one with the life around her in memory, training, sympathy and belief, she yet seemed to feel herself an alien while in the midst of it and to be saddened by her own lack of complete accord. “Poor mother!” thought Rhoda. “She loves father and me so much that she can’t help feeling loyal to us with a part of her heart. Dear, dear mother!” Moreover, Mrs. Ware was not well, and declared she would be glad to return home. She related briefly that Jeff and Emily had divided the estate, two thirds of which, according to their father’s will, belonged to the brother. Emily had chosen some land and a number of slaves and, as her husband already has as many negroes as he needed, it was their intention to realize upon these at once and put the money into improvements upon his estate. “They’ll be sold ‘down south,’ I suppose,” said Rhoda, as she read the letter aloud to her father. “Very likely. Those big cotton, cane and rice plantations are an insatiable market for slaves. They can’t get enough labor. That is why the South is so anxious to reopen the African slave trade. It’s an open secret, which the North winks at, as it does at everything the South chooses to do, that the traffic is already going on. Since the Dred Scott decision there is nothing they stop at. It’s a pity Chad Wallace or Alexander Wilson isn’t in the neighborhood of Fairmount just now. If they were, Emily’s husband wouldn’t be able to make so many improvements!” A few days later Dr. Ware called Rhoda into his office, anxiety in his demeanor. “I’ve just received this letter from Wilson,” he exclaimed, “written in Louisville. See what he says: