The grief of Vesta for Virgie was quiet, but long, and as that of an
equal, not a mistress, though she may have never known how equal.
In the fatalities thronging about her marriage Vesta observed one signal
blessing--the complete reform of her father's habits.
He drank nothing whatever, supplying with fruit the pleasures of wine,
and with exercise and business, on her husband's behests, the vagrant
tours he once made in the forest for politics and amours.
Aware of his sociable and voluptuous nature, Vesta desired to see him
married again, to complete and secure his reformation; and, while she
was yet puzzling her brain to think of a wife to suit him, he solved the
problem himself by cleanly cutting out Rhoda Holland from under the
attentions of William Tilghman.
Rhoda had rapidly learned, and had corrected her grammar without losing
her humor and her taste for dress, and her free, warm spirits soon made
her an elegant woman, in whom, fortunately or unfortunately, a very
decided worldly ambition germinated,--at once the proof and the
vindication of _parvenues_.
She may have patterned it upon her uncle, or it may have emanated from
his ambitious family stock, which, in and around him, had wakened to the
vigor of a previous century; but it was so different from Vesta's nature
that, while it but made nobler her soul of tranquil piety and ease of
ladyhood, Vesta was interested in Rhoda's self-will and business
coquetry.
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