The Missing BrideSouthworth, Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte
General
The Missing Bride
Southworth, Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte
Fiction
Different constructions have been put upon this simple answer--first,
that Lukkinnuf was the original Indian name of the tract; secondly, that
Alexander Kalouga christened his manor in honor of Loekenoff, the native
village of his wife, the heroic Marie Zelenski, the companion of all his
campaigns and voyages, and the first lady of his manor; thirdly, that
the grateful and happy soldier had only meant to express his perfect
satisfaction with his fortune, and to say:
"Yes, this is luck enough! luck enough to repay me for all the past!"
Be it as it may, from time immemorial the place has been "Luckenough."
The owner in 1814 was Commodore Nickolas Waugh, who inherited the
property in right of his mother, the only child and heiress of Peter
Kalouga.
This man had the constitution and character, not of his mother's, but of
his father's family--a hardy, rigorous, energetic Montgomery race, full
of fire, spirit and enterprise. At the age of twelve Nickolas lost his
father.
At fifteen he began to weary of the tedium of Luckenough, varied only by
the restraint of the academy during term. And at sixteen he rebelled
against the rule of his indolent lymphatic mamma, broke through the
reins of domestic government, escaped to Baltimore and shipped as cabin
boy in a merchantman.
Nickolas Waugh went through many adventures, served on board
merchantmen, privateers and haply pirates, too, sailed to every part of
the known world, and led a wild, reckless and sinful life, until the
breaking out of the Revolutionary War, when he took service with Paul
Jones, the American Sea King, and turned the brighter part of his
character up to the light. He performed miracles of valor--achieved for
himself a name and a post-captain's rank in the infant navy and finally
was permitted to retire with a bullet lodged under his shoulder blade, a
piece of silver trepanned in the top of his skull, a deep sword-cut
across his face from the right temple over his nose to the left
cheek--and with the honorary title of commodore.
He was a perfect beauty about this time, no doubt, but that did not
prevent him from receiving the hand of his cousin Henrietta Kalouga, who
had waited for him many a weary year.
No children blessed his late marriage, and as year after year passed,
until himself and his wife were well stricken in years, people, who
never lost interest in the great estate, began to wonder to which among
his tribe of impoverished relations Nickolas Waugh would bequeath the
manor of Luckenough.
His choice fell at length upon his orphan grandniece, the beautiful
Edith Lance, whom he took from the Catholic Orphan Asylum, where she had
found refuge since the death of her parents and placed in one of the
best convent schools in the South.
At the age of seventeen Edith was brought home from school and
established at Luckenough as the adopted daughter and acknowledged
heiress of her uncle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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