"
Mrs. Custis drew her bank-book from under her head, and began to cry, as
she took a single look at its former total.
"Darling mamma," Vesta said, "seeing you so miserable yesterday on
account of papa's failure, and your portion gone with it, I accepted an
offer of marriage, and have a rich man's promise that, first of all,
your part shall be paid to you. This house, and our manor, and
everything as it is--the servants, the stable, and the movables--belong
to me, in my own name, paid for in papa's notes, and by him transferred
to me to be our home forever, so that a revulsion like yesterday may not
again cross the sill of our door. Does not that deserve a kiss, mamma?"
"I don't believe a word of it," said Mrs. Custis. "This is another trick
to deceive me. I don't accuse you of it, Vesta, but you are the victim
of somebody and your father. Now, who can this man be, so free with his
ready money? It's not the style in Baltimore to promise so liberally as
all that. Have you accepted young Carroll?"
"No, nor thought of him, mamma."
"Then it must be that widower fool, Hynson, ready to sell his negroes
for a second wife like you."
"He has neither been here in body or mind," Vesta said; "never in my
mind."
"That would be a marriage to make a talk: it wouldn't be like you to
bestow so much beauty on a widower. I think there is a certain vulgarity
about an elegant girl marrying a widower.
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