Chapter IV

Seventy-five years have rolled by since last I met the reader, and
I am still a thoughtless girl. But oh, how changed! The raven of
despair has flapped his hideous brood over the halls of my
ancestors, and taken from them all that once made them beautiful.
When I look back I can see nothing before me, and when I look
forward I can see nothing behind me. Thus it is with life. We fancy
that each hour is a butterfly made to play with, and all is gall
and bitterness.

I was chastened by misfortune, and occupied a secluded cavern in
the city of New Orleans, when my faithful old nurse entered my
dressing-room, and burst into a fit of hysterical laughter.

"Sassafrina!" I exclaimed, half angrily.

"Please don't be angry, miss," responded the tired old creature;
"but I knew it would come all right at last. I told you Sir Claude
Higgins hadn't married his youngest sister, but you wouldn't
believe me. Now he's down stairs in the parlor waiting for you."

And the attached domestic fell dead at my feet.

After hastily putting on a pair of clean stockings and reading a
chapter in my mother's family Bible, I left the room, murmuring to
myself, "Be still, my throbbing heart, be still."