Then, the loss of Virgie was hardly less severe to Vesta than her own
mother's.
It was true that Roxy, pretty and loving, now poured all her devotion at
her mistress's feet, but there had been something in Virgie that Roxy
could never rise to--a dignity and self-reliance hardly less than a
white woman's. Vesta shed bitter tears at the news of that dear
comforter's flight, and on her knees, praying for the delicate young
wanderer, she felt God's conviction of the sins of slavery. Alas!
thousands felt the same who would not admit the conviction, and gave
excuses that welded into one nation, at last, the sensitive millions who
could not agree to a lesser sacrifice, but were willing to give war.
A little note from Snow Hill told Vesta that her maid had already
departed, and would only write again from free soil.
So the upbraided hat was worn more often than before, and Vesta had to
suffer much humiliation for it. Her husband now moved actively to
organize his railroad, and visited the Maryland towns of the peninsula,
taking her along, and wearing on the journey his King James tile, now
swathed in mourning crape.
At Cambridge, which basked upon the waters like an English Venice, he
applied the sinews of war to a listless public sentiment, and the county
press began to call for Joe Johnson's expulsion, and Patty Cannon's
rendition to the State of Delaware. At Easton, lying between the waters
on her treasures of marl, like a pearl oyster, the people turned out to
see the little man in the peaked hat, with the beautiful lady at his
side; and Vesta was more pained for her husband than herself, to feel
that his _outre_ dress was prejudicing his railroad, as business, no
less than beauty, revolts from any outward affectation.
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