Such a creation as Miss
Vesta required a special sacrifice and success in the character of her
husband. The annual life of this peninsula could not match you, and a
monster had to be raised to carry you away."
"You are not exactly a monster," Vesta remarked, with natural
compassion, "and you compliment me so warmly that it relieves the strain
of this encounter a little. Do not draw a woman's attention to your
defects, as she might otherwise be charmed by your voice."
"That also is a part of my sacrifice," said Meshach, "like the money
which I have accumulated. Without a teacher, but love and hope, I have
educated myself to be fit to talk to you. It is all crude now, like a
crow that I have taught to speak, but encouragement will make me
confident and saucy, and you will forget my sable raiment--even my hat."
A chilliness seemed to attend this conclusion, and Vesta touched her
bell. Virgie, entering, took her mistress's instructions: "Bring a tray
and tea, and lights, and place Mr. Milburn's hat upon the rack!"
The girl glanced at the antique hat with a timid light in her eye, but
her mistress's head was turned as if to intimate that she must take it,
though it might be red-hot. Virgie obeyed, and soon brought in the tea.
"It is good tea," spoke Milburn, drinking not from the cup, but the
saucer, while Vesta observed him oddly, "and it is chill this evening.
Let me start your fire!"
He shivered a little as he stood up and walked across the room, and
poking the charred logs into a flame; and, setting on more wood, he made
the walls spring into yellow flashes, between which Vesta saw her
forefathers dart cold glances at her, in their gilt frames--yet how
helpless they were, with all their respectability, to take her body or
her father's honor out of pawn!--and she felt for the first time the
hollowness of family power, except in the ever-preserved mail of a
solvent posterity.
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