"Roxy," said Vesta, as she left the kitchen, "do you go up to my mother
and stay with her all this night. Make your spread there beside her bed.
Virgie, put on your hood and carry a letter for me,--I will write it in
the library."
She sat before her father, he too undecided to speak, and seeing by her
fixed expression that it was no time for loquacity. She sealed the
letter with wax, and, Virgie coming in, her father heard the direction
she gave with curiosity greater than his embarrassment:
"Take this to Rev. William Tilghman. Give it to him only, and see that
he reads it, Virgie, before you leave him. If he asks you any questions,
tell him please to do precisely what this note says, and, as he is my
friend, not to disappoint me."
The girl's steps were hardly out of hearing when Vesta opened the drawer
of the library-table and took out a package of papers tied with a
string. She unloosed it, and her father recognized from where he sat his
notes of hand and mortgages.
"Gracious God, my darling!" exclaimed Judge Custis, "how came you by
those papers?"
"They are to be mine to-night, father--in one hour. The moment they
become mine they will be yours."
"Why, Vessy," said the Judge, "if they are yours even to keep a minute,
the shortest way with them is up the chimney!"
He made a stride forward to take them from her hand. She laid them in
her lap and looked at him so calmly that he stopped.
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