Chapter XXIII: Adelaide’s Consolation

Within that heavy heart of thine,
Love’s thrilling pulse is ever leaping;
So ebbs and flows the eternal brine,
Though winds lie calm, and earth is sleeping!
And o’er the gloom thy soul which shrouds,
Hope like a star her watch is keeping;
So sits the Iris in the clouds
And all the landscape smiles—though weeping.—_Sillery._

In due time letters came from Orville Deville, for Lady Elizabeth—none for Adelaide.

“Lady Adelaide, I have heard from my son—he sends his respects to you,” said the mother of Orville, coldly, addressing her daughter-in-law.

“I thank him; when you write, please return my best wishes for his happiness,” said the latter, quietly, though she trembled at holding out this “right hand of fellowship.”

It was the day succeeding the arrival of these letters that, in the cool of the morning, Adelaide ordered her little sail-boat, and went for a trip up the coast, as far as the mouth of Bush Creek. When she had arrived thither the beauty of the shaded stream tempted her on, and for the first time, she entered the mouth of Bush Creek for a sail up the stream.

“How far can we go, Nero?” she asked of her old helmsman.

“When de tide’s high as ’tis now, up far’s de mill, ma’am, and even furder.”

“Then we will go up to the mill and pay Kate a visit.”

“Ay, ay, ma’am!”

“This is enjoying at once a sail on the salt-water and a ramble through the forest,” said Lady Adelaide, looking with delight up at the thicket of tall trees that grew upon each bank, and whose upper branches met and overshadowed the deep but narrow stream. Nothing could be more singular, picturesque and beautiful than the effect of that little graceful shallop skimming the surface of the creek—her white sail gleaming in and out among the dark green foliage.

“We are navigating the forest instead of the ocean, Nero!” said the young lady, with a smile—“but when we get up a little farther will not the foliage interfere with the sail?”

“No, ma’am—they never meets low enough.”

They were going before a fresh wind, and might have flown, but for the necessity of constant tacking in follow—the serpentine windings of the stream.

At length, however, in an hour they reached the bridge below the mill, and secured the boat to the posts.

The helmsman sprang upon the bank and assisted his mistress to land.

Adelaide looked up at the old house, once so lone and desolate, now in

“Solitude no more; but peopled by the furies,”

in the forms of four savage-looking men, with tall, spare figures, harsh features, darkly-bronzed complexions, and long, wild, black elf-locks and beards that hung upon their shoulders and breasts. They were clad in tunics and leggins of ill-dressed buckskin, and were lounging about the broken doorway and walls of the house.

“Who _are_ those barbarians?” inquired Adelaide, with some degree of uneasiness.

“Dem? Why, dey must be Miss Kate’s older brothers come back from de hunting-grounds.”

“Gracious! they look much more savage than the savage Indians themselves.”

“So do all white men when dey grow wild,” was the sapient and truthful observation of Nero.

“Ay! the Anglo-American race are bound to excel in every thing they attempt—even when they try to be savages!” remarked Adelaide, as she entered the yard and approached the door.

The said “savages” showed their civilization by giving way and retiring with respectful bows, which Adelaide answered by a nod as she entered the house.

Kate sprang from the inner room to meet and greet her.

“Oh, Lady Adelaide, I am so glad to see you! Oh, Lady Adelaide! my brothers have come home! all safe! every one of them safe!” exclaimed the wild girl, tears of joy rushing to her dark eyes!

“I rejoice with you, Kate! with all my heart, I rejoice with you! When did they come, my dear?”

“They got here yesterday evening! And oh, Lady Adelaide, the oddest thing—” exclaimed Kate, with a laugh and a blush, and above all a look of ludicrous embarrassment.

“Well, what is it, dear?”

“Such a find!”

“A _find_?”

“Yes! such a waif!”

“_Waif?_”

“Such a treasure trove!”

“I don’t in the least understand you, my dear.”

“Well, then, my brothers have found—open your eyes wide and look for a soft place to faint on—a baby in the forest!”

Adelaide’s eyes opened sufficiently wide; but instead of fainting, she only continued to stare in silent amazement at her informant.

“It is some poor squaw’s papoose,” at length the young lady ventured to say.

“Come in the parlor, and sit down, while I tell you; but, first of all, have you had breakfast?” asked Kate, as she installed her visitor in a pleasant seat beside the breezy front window.

“Oh, yes; before I left home,” replied her guest.

“Well, then, now listen. It is such a ‘cock-and-a-bull story,’ that if Nim’, my eldest brother, did not tell it, and my other three brothers swear to it, I shouldn’t believe it, that’s all——”

“Excuse me for interrupting you, but where _is_ the baby?” asked Lady Adelaide, looking around.

“On my bed, in my own room, asleep, the poor little starveling!”

“Well, go on, dear; I am listening.”

“Well, you see, they—my brothers, I mean—were on their way home, travelling on foot, when they came to a stream of water whose name they did not know. You may judge they meet many such in the wilderness.”

“Yes; well?”

“It was late in the evening, and they walked some distance up and down the banks to find a good fording-place; and while they were so hunting, the dogs pointed a place in the rocks, and when my brothers came up they found the brutes at the mouth of a dark cavern in the side of the mountain—I forgot to tell you that this stream ran at the foot of the mountain.”

“Yes; but proceed!”

“The dogs continued to point, and my brothers, with their guns cocked, crept close and listened for some sound to come from the cavern to help them judge what sort of a beast might be concealed within; for, you see, experienced hunters like them can tell from the very character of the growl what manner of beast may be in lair.”

“Yes, I know.”

“But this time never the sound of a growl issued from the cavern! That looked ugly, they thought; so Nim’, who is an impatient sort of a fellow, swore a big oath that he would bring the varmint out. So he crept closer, with his gun cocked, and—fired into the cavern——”

“Ugh!” shuddered Adelaide.

——“expecting fully to see a wild beast bound forth. But never a thing came forth! ‘The mountain’ did not even give birth to a mouse!—only the piteous, weak, wailing voice of a new-born baby, that smote their hearts with horror, for they feared no less than that they had mortally wounded an infant.”

“Oh, oh, go on! Was the child hurt?” exclaimed Adelaide, clasping her hands in excess of pity.

“Why, of course it wasn’t! Do you think I’d take it so easy telling you the story if it _was_? In a word, when the smoke cleared away, my brothers entered the dark cavern, and struck a light, and looked around. And there on a bearskin, on the floor, lay this little female Orson, too young, and wee, and helpless, even to hold out its arms to its preserver!”

“Its perfect helplessness being its greatest strength and strongest appeal.”

“Yes; well, there was not a black hair of its little head hurt. From all the savage surroundings—wampums, pouches, belts, rattlesnakes’ skins and rattles, buffaloes’ tusks, scalps, and other Indian devilisms—my brothers thought it was the home of an Indian ‘medicine,’ and that the infant was a white child, stolen from some settler’s cabin, or carried off from a massacre.”

“And they determined to rescue and take charge of the child, although it must have been a great, great care! It was very merciful of them!” said the young lady.

“My poor, rough brothers are as merciful and as gentle as—as the Lady Adelaide Deville herself.”

The young lady blushed intensely at this compliment, while Kate resumed:

“With the very best care of its rough, inexperienced nurses, the poor infant must have suffered, for when they brought it to me you never saw such an object! But come, I will show you my waif!” and so saying, Kate Kyte conducted her visitor across the front passage to her own room, on the other side of the house, where, on the bed, lay the little foundling—a wretched looking little creature, thin as a skeleton, dark as an Indian, with black hair, and great, wild, black eyes.

As Adelaide looked upon those wondrous eyes, a thrill of emotion shook her frame—her bosom heaved—her color fluctuated. Turning to Kate, in a stifled voice, she asked:

“What day was it that this child was found?”

“On the seventeenth of August,” replied Kate, looking in wonder at the agitated countenance of Lady Adelaide.

“And Lionne died suddenly on the _fifteenth_,” murmured the poor bride to herself.

“Now, what _ever_ shall I do with this infant, Lady Adelaide? If my brothers had brought me as a present a young bear, or a young panther, I might have raised the cub—but a baby! As I am a human woman, and a _humane_ woman to boot, I don’t know what to do with it! Seriously, I am sure it will perish in my inexperienced keeping!”

“Poor little lost one!” exclaimed Lady Adelaide, gazing with deep pity upon the child. “I am afraid indeed, Kate, that you will——”

“Kill it! I am sure I shall!”

“If I were my own mistress—if I could—if I dared——”

“Ah, if you only _would_, Lady Adelaide, what a mercy it would be to this poor little wretch! what a blessing it would bring you!”

“I will consult Lady Elizabeth.”

“But—are you not the mistress of River-view? Can you not do as you please?”

“Not to that extent, perhaps. And I please not to abuse my prerogative. But, indeed, I should like to adopt this poor, desolate little one. True, I do not know more of infants than yourself, Kate; but then Lady Elizabeth does; and besides, we have experienced servants and nursing mothers among our people, some one of whom would take this infant to her bosom. I will speak to Lady Elizabeth.”

“_Do_, dear Lady Adelaide! But please don’t think that I am anxious to get rid of the poor, dear little waif! I am only desirous that it should be in better keeping than my own.”

“I know it, Kate. And at all events I—I will find _some_ way of providing the babe with a proper nurse,” said the gentle girl, and stooping until her golden ringlets touched the dark cheek of the infant, she silently vowed to protect its feeble life.

Then she announced her intention of returning home, and attended by her young hostess, she left the room and the house.

“Put up the helm for River-view, Nero,” was the order given her dark helmsman as she re-entered the boat.

An hour’s sailing down the thickly shaded stream, and then a half hour’s run up the river, brought them to the landing-place at River-view.

It was now noon, and Lady Elizabeth was standing upon the front piazza, on the look-out for her son’s wife.

“You have been absent four hours; you should not have stayed so long. I feared some accident had happened,” said her ladyship.

“I went up Bush Creek—it was such a tempting sail—as far as the mill, and saw Kate. I am very sorry to have caused you any uneasiness,” replied her daughter-in-law.

“Seriously, Lady Adelaide, in one way and another, you give me a great deal of uneasiness.”

“I truly regret it; please forgive me.”

“Well, lunch is waiting. Go take off your things and cool yourself, and come to the table,” said Lady Elizabeth, somewhat mollified.

The young lady obeyed and soon joined her mother in the sitting-room.

There was never an hour in which, all other things being as usual, in which Lady Elizabeth was so good-humored as at lunch. Adelaide knew this, and therefore chose this very opportunity to speak of the little foundling at the mill. She told the story as it had been related by the Kytes, and if she had any private suspicions as to the parentage of the child, she reserved them to herself. She finished by saying—

“There is no one about here capable of taking charge of the poor baby; it is, in a manner, thrown upon our mercy; if we do not save it, it will perish.”

“In a word, you would like to adopt this motherless infant? Having neither parrot nor poodle, you would like to take this baby for a pet.”

“Indeed, I would like to succor the poor thing. And what says our Saviour—‘Whoso receiveth one such little one in my name, receiveth me.’”

“Well, Adelaide, I tell you honestly that if this child were an ordinary city-foundling, I would have nothing more to do with it than to send it to the county poor-house; but being, as it probably is, the child of honest parents, stolen from some cabin, and rescued from an Indian wigwam——”

“Grotto.”

“Well, from a squaw’s lair of some sort—I—have no objection to your taking it home. Yes, I think it would be a meritorious act. Polly, who has a young child and is hearty enough to nurse two, can take it to her breast. And if the pet give you pleasure, I shall be glad, my dear.”

Adelaide’s eyes filled with tears of gratitude; she suddenly took the hand of her mother-in-law and pressed it to her lips, then impulsively put her arms around the lady’s neck, and said:

“I have displeased you lately, how unwillingly you do not know. Oh, forgive me, and let us be the tender friends of old.”

“Dear child, I was displeased with you, as I might have been with a child of my own blood, who did not know her own mind, or heed the matters that involved her own interest. Let us trust to time and Providence to remedy all our evils. And—let our estrangement be forgotten,” said Orville’s mother, drawing her daughter-in-law to her bosom.

And thus the two were reconciled.

In the cool of the afternoon Lady Elizabeth ordered her carriage, and attended by the mulatto woman Polly, went up to Bush Creek Mill to fetch the babe.

Half smiling, half crying, Kate gave up her little charge, with the words—

“To think that in twenty-four hours I should have grown so attached to the little thing!”

“That is natural,” said the lady from River-view.

“But to think that I should be so good-for-nothing as to be incapable of taking care of one little baby!”

“Your incapacity in this single respect does not imply general worthlessness, though I should advise you, as your best friend, my dear, to apply yourself more to feminine occupation than has been your custom,” said Lady Elizabeth.

“La! what odds? Who cares what I do, or leave undone?”

“Yourself should care more than all, Kate. All who like you care. Above all, your Saviour cares,” said the lady, launching into a little lecture on the beauty of Christian womanhood and woman’s sphere, to which Kate Kyte listened in silent respect.

When the lady had finished her little sermon, she bade her woman Polly wrap up the child, and precede her, into the carriage. And as she prepared to follow her attendant, she suddenly turned to Kate, and said:

“You do not know whether the child has been baptized, or what is its name?”

“Of course we don’t! There is no mark upon its linen, and—it is so very young, that the probability is, it has never been christened.”

“It would be safer at least to baptize it,” said the orthodox Lady Elizabeth, as she entered her carriage.

She ordered the coachman to drive fast; and in an hour they were at home.

Lady Adelaide sprang from the front door to meet them.

The babe was carried into the house, and under the directions of Lady Adelaide, preparations for its accommodation were immediately commenced.

The family crib was brought down from the garret and made up in Adelaide’s chamber.

And from that day to the end of the month, the nimble fingers of the young lady were engaged in making up for her protégé an ample set of baby linen.

The afternoon of the first Sunday in every month was set apart in their parish church for the baptism of infants.

Accordingly during the last week in September, Lady Elizabeth said to her daughter—

“We should have your little charge baptized next Sunday. Have you thought of a name for her?”

“Yes, madam,” said Adelaide, with some hesitation, “as she also was left to perdition, we will call her after the great bard’s beautiful creation—Perdita!”

“A pretty name, as well as a rare one—it will do.”

“And, as she has no ascertained family name, we will add our own—Deville—that is if you have no objection.”

“None whatever, my dear.”

Accordingly, the next Sabbath, the infant was taken to church and given in baptism the name of Perdita Deville—a name that the negroes forthwith contracted first into “Pert,” and afterwards into “Ditto.”

As the weeks passed, the infant Perdita grew in health and beauty, and in favor with all the household. One circumstance only, connected with the babe, troubled the ladies; it was this:—There had been no time for consulting Orville, and the child had been adopted without the consent of the master of the house, and there was just a possibility that this addition to his family might not be acceptable to Mr. Deville.

Circumstances soon occurred that required the presence of Adelaide’s husband at home. As the fogs and rains of November came upon them, the Lady Elizabeth suffered a return of the malady that had so nearly proved fatal to her on the preceding winter.

Notwithstanding all the medical science of the village doctor, and all the skill and attention of her best of nurses, Adelaide, the strength of Lady Elizabeth rapidly declined. From her easy chair she took to the sofa, and from that to the bed. Singularly enough, now that her life was in imminent danger, she never thought of dying.

“I suppose I shall be ailing all the winter, and get well in the spring, as I did before,” she said to Adelaide.

“God grant it, dear mother,” replied her sorrowing daughter.

Still her strength decayed. She was no longer able to raise herself up in bed.

Doctor Williams, her physician, visited her twice a day. After one of his morning visits, as Adelaide attended him to the door, he suddenly said to her—

“My dear, you had better write at once for your husband to come home.”

“I—I wished to summon Mr. Deville; but Lady Elizabeth will not hear of such a thing as his visit South being cut short,” said Adelaide.

“Nevertheless, _write_, or permit me to do so, which will be still better. Shall I write to him?”

“I thank you, doctor, very much—pray do so,” replied Adelaide, as the physician entered his carriage, hurrying away to conceal her tears. Well she knew that in the doctor’s words she had heard the death-sentence of her beloved friend. A long time she wept before she could compose herself sufficiently to venture into the sick-room.

When at last she did, she was shocked to hear the invalid, unconscious of doom, speak only of worldly matters, and talk of sending to Bell Haven for drygoods, and a dressmaker to make up their winter suits! Alas, what would be their probable winter suits? A shroud for her, and deepest mourning for the rest!

The doctor kept his word, and the same night wrote to Orville Deville.

Adelaide also wrote to him. But long before either of those letters could have reached their destination, the malady of the invalid had brought her close upon the confines of the grave. She now required watching by night as well as by day.

One night, while Adelaide sat beside her, she suddenly said:

“Adelaide, my child, I feel something within my chest—giving—giving away—like the breaking up of the very central core of life. Adelaide! Adelaide! quick! I am going!”

“It is nothing but a fainting-spell, dear mother, drink this!” said the tender nurse, placing a cordial to the lips of the invalid.

“No fainting-fit was ever like this, my child! It is the breaking up of the wreck!” said the sick woman, as she took and drank the cordial.

“You feel better now?”

“A little, dear; but, Adelaide, this is death! I feel it, I know it, I am sure of it!”

“No, no, do not say so; let me send for the doctor.”

“Useless, dear, useless! nay, I will not have him sent for! Oh, that my son were here!”

“Oh, that he were!” said Adelaide.

The invalid subsided into a soft slumber.

Adelaide slipped down-stairs and despatched a man in haste for the doctor.

When she returned to the sick-room the patient was still slumbering. From that slumber she awoke with a start, exclaiming:

“Adelaide!—quick!—some stimulant, or I sink into death!”

With the speed and silence of lightning the young lady placed the cordial to her lips.

She was somewhat revived by the draught, and as she sank back upon the pillow she said:

“Oh, Adelaide, I must not die until Orville comes!”

“Orville?” repeated the young nurse, in her perplexity not knowing what her mother-in-law meant.

“Yes, my child, though this is death, I shall live till Orville comes! for he is on his way! Far off I hear the gallop of his steed!”

“Oh, that the doctor were here,” groaned Adelaide to herself.

“I know you think I rave; but I do not! You see me dying here, and you think Orville two thousand miles away, and that I wander when I say I shall live till he comes. Oh, Adelaide, the spirits of the dying reach out to their beloved; mine has met my only son thundering through the forests of St. Mary’s, on fire to reach home! He knows not what it is that attracts, that pulls him onward—though it is the spirit of his dying mother that cannot be released until she blesses him!”

Exhausted by this long and rambling speech, the dying woman sank into a slumberous state, in which way she lay for nearly an hour.

“Oh, that the doctor were here!” said Adelaide, in despair, “surely my messenger could not have found him at home, and must have gone to seek him elsewhere—there, I do believe he is come!” she exclaimed, as the sound of horses’ hoofs were heard approaching the house.

In another minute a servant came to the sick-room door and rapped.

Adelaide opened it.

“Has the doctor come, Keziah?”

“No, ma’am—but some one wants to see you in the parlor,” said Keziah, mysteriously.

“Who is it?—wait here with your mistress until I return,” said Adelaide, in a breath, as she hurried down-stairs and opened the parlor-door. The room was dimly lighted by one wax candle that stood upon the mantle-piece; but its direct rays fell upon the tall and elegant figure of Adelaide’s husband.

“Mr. Deville! Oh, thank God that you have come!” exclaimed Adelaide, eagerly.

“How is my mother, Adelaide?”

“Oh, very, very ill! How providential that you should have come! Thank God! Oh, thank God!”

“Your letters mentioning my mother’s ill health, and the absence of all letters from her, made me very uneasy. At length I could bear the anxiety no longer, and set off for home. And here I am.”

“Oh, surely it was the leading of Divine Providence!”

“Can I see my dear mother at once?”

“I think so. Let me go to her first,” said Adelaide, and stealing a glance at the pale and anxious face of her husband, she left the room and hurried into the sick-chamber.

With astonishment and terror she found Lady Elizabeth sitting up in bed.

“I feel that my son has come! bring him to me, Adelaide!” she said.

Orville, who was just without the door, heard these words, hurried in and dropped on his knees by the bedside, exclaiming, as he kissed her hand:

“My dear mother! my dear, dear mother!”

“Adelaide, come hither,” said the dying woman, retaining her hold upon her son’s hand.

The young lady came and knelt beside her husband.

“Adelaide, whatever Orville’s offences against you may have been, you will forgive him by the death-bed of his mother!” she said, as she placed the hand of her daughter in that of her son.

“I am not my husband’s judge, dear mother; but while I live, by God’s grace I will be to him a true wife,” said the gentle lady.

“Thank God! And as you are merciful to each other’s faults, may he be merciful to you, as it is written—‘Unless ye forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you.’ ‘Forgive that ye may be forgiven.’ Now may the Lord bless and comfort you! may the Lord love you and lead you through all the trials of earth to the eternal bliss of heaven! Amen,” said the dying woman, sinking back upon her pillow.

After this she subsided into calm repose that lasted several hours, and then softly sank to her eternal rest.

Bitter was the grief of the bereaved young couple. Let us draw the vail of silence before such sacred sorrow.

The funeral of Lady Elizabeth Deville was solemnized upon the third day, and her remains were laid in the family burial-ground on the wooded hill behind River-view. During the sacred days of death and burial, not to disturb her husband by any new subject of interest, Lady Adelaide had ordered the little Perdita to be kept in the nursery or walked out into the back lawn. Thus the infant had escaped the notice of Mr. Deville.

It was the day after the funeral, while the young pair sat at breakfast in the sitting-room so often mentioned, that Lady Adelaide rung the bell and ordered the babe to be brought in.

“What babe?” inquired Mr. Deville.

“A desolate infant rescued from the savages by Kate Kyte’s brothers, while the latter were on their hunting-expedition in the far West. I adopted the child, hoping that the act might meet your approbation. There was no time for consulting you, but the affair is of course at your disposal,” said Lady Adelaide.

As she spoke Keziah entered with the child, now a blooming infant six months of age.

“Bring her to your master, Keziah,” said the young lady.

And the babe was brought up in front of Mr. Deville for inspection. He looked not unfavorably upon the pretty creature; and then turning and meeting the eager eyes of his wife, he smiled and said—

“Well, love, you wish to keep her?”

“If you please—oh, yes!”

“Then keep her, love. The most troublesome pet you could find, perhaps; but that is your affair.”

“And my delight!” exclaimed Adelaide, with sparkling eyes, as she caught the infant from the nurse’s arms to her own bosom.

The child danced, and crowed, and laughed, as she clasped her rosy arms around her pretty foster-mother’s neck.

The face of Orville Deville was overshadowed.

“She will give her whole heart to that black-eyed infant,” was the jealous thought that crossed his mind.

He half regretted the consent he had given to the adoption of the child; but his word was pledged, and his pledge was sacred.

With the wife’s quick instinct, the Lady Adelaide divined the cause of the cloud upon her husband’s brow, and hastened to dispel it by putting the infant in the arms of her nurse, with the order to take her out for a walk.

From that day Lady Adelaide was careful to avoid exciting the jealousy of her husband against the child, and only lavished caresses upon her _protégé_ in the privacy of the nursery, or in the absence of her husband.

As the winter passed, the infant grew in strength, and beauty, and intelligence.

It was upon the afternoon of a pleasant day in May, that Orville Deville returned from the post-office and entered the sitting-room, holding an open letter in his hand.

“Our uncle, the Earl of Glen Lennark, has written to me; it is a very kind letter and a very sorrowful one!” he said, seating himself by the work-table of Lady Adelaide.

She looked up from her sewing, and he continued:

“Our uncle writes that the last of his children—his only daughter—lies in a foreign grave——”

“Oh, poor, bereaved father!” exclaimed Lady Adelaide.

“Yes, he has indeed been ‘a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.’ He has seen his king dethroned, and his throne given to a stranger. He has seen his own family impoverished, scattered, or destroyed by the sword or the axe. He has had his estates confiscated, his blood attainted, and himself outlawed. He has passed years in exile, poverty and solitude. And now that he—an old and gray-haired man—is restored to his country, his home and his old hereditary honors, he loses his last-remaining, his only daughter, and finds himself without a child to inherit his ancient name and title.”

“But—could his daughter have inherited his title and landed estates?”

“By the terms of his ancient patent of nobility, the females of his line are not excluded from the succession, and failing heirs-male, the title and estates ‘fall to the distaff,’ as it is called.”

“So that, at the death of her father, his only daughter would have become——”

“Countess of Glen Lennark and Baroness Lockburn, in her own right, with the power of transmitting both title and estates to her heirs.”

“_I_ think only of the personal bereavement—poor father.”

“Yes, but _he_ thinks of his line! and he writes and invites me, as his nearest kin, his nephew and his heir, to come with my wife and spend a year with him at his castle of Glen Lennark, in the Highlands of Scotland.”

“My dear, old home! Oh, how I should be pleased to revisit it!”

“Well, love, I think that we should go,” said Mr. Deville.

And thus the voyage was agreed upon.

Rapid preparations were made for the journey. A competent steward was engaged to take charge of River-view in the absence of the proprietor.

In the midst of all her bustle of preparation, doubt troubled the bosom of Lady Adelaide—the doubt whether Mr. Deville would permit her adopted child to accompany them—whether, in a word, he would be willing to suffer the annoyance of a child and nurse, and all their paraphernalia in the confined quarters of a packet ship. Indeed, she dreaded and deferred to put the question.

He surmised her embarrassment and relieved it, by saying, with a smile, as he caressed the little pet:

“This child will be taken for ours when we present her at Glen Lennark, Adelaide.”

She understood this pleasantry as a delicate manner of authorizing her to carry Perdita along with them; and accordingly she made arrangements.

It was upon the first Friday in June that they sailed, in a fine merchantman, from Baltimore to London.

I shall not fatigue my readers with any description of this voyage; it passed without incident worth recording; and at the end of four weeks, a rapid run for those days, the “Thetis” entered the Thames and dropped anchor off St. Katherine’s Docks.