"
"Milburn was drunk at the ceremony, I saw that," Judge Custis said, "but
it was no excuse. In fact, what good can come of this violent alliance?
It seems to me that we have leaped from the frying-pan into the fire. I
feel ugly, my daughter, and there is no concealing it."
"Then you are in the mood to talk to mother this morning," Vesta said,
"while you have some unusual will and spirit. This resentful sullenness
she is showing I fear more than your passing emotion, papa. Be firm, yet
kind, with her, and I will go to find my husband. Yes, that is my place.
He may be more justly complaining of my absence now, than we of his
neglect."
"You don't mean that you are going to visit him at his den?"
"I shall go there first. It would have been my home last night if he had
required it. To tell the truth," Vesta said, blushing, "the poor man was
so kind to me yesterday, in spite of his object, and so quaint, and, as
it seemed, dependent on me, that my charity is enlisted for him, and I
could almost have married him from pity."
The Judge's temper fell a little in the study of his daughter's
blushing.
"Wonderful! wonderful!" he thought to himself; "that poor corn-bred
fellow has already made more impression on this girl's pride than a
hundred cavalier gallants. Truly, we are a republic, Vesta," he
continued aloud, "and you lay down the Custis character as easily as our
old connection, Lord Fairfax, accepted the democracy of his hired
surveyor, Mr.
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