The snows of ten winters had powdered the nameless stranger's grave
in the servant's burial-ground of the Ridgeley plantation. For nine
years the wallet taken from his person had lain unopened in a hidden
drawer of Mabel Dorrance's escritoire, and the half-guessed secret
been hidden in her breast. Mammy Phillis had followed her mistress
to the tomb, six months after her removal from her beloved cottage
to the despised "quarters." She never held up her head from the day
of her degradation, died from a broken heart, murmured those who
best knew her--of a "fit of spleen," said Mrs. Aylett, in cool
reprehension of her unmannerly vassal.
Mabel had guarded the mystery well. Her husband examined
her--covertly, as he thought; awkwardly, according to her ideas--with
regard to the vagaries of her delirium, and was foiled by the grave
simplicity of her manner and replies.
"All she knows or remembers is substantially this," Herbert jotted
down in his notes for his sister's perusal: "she has associated in
some way--she cannot tell exactly how or why--the name with the
tramp who died in the garret. She is not sure that it was his
designation. Thinks it was not, or that, if used by him, it was an
alias. Has an impression that it was marked upon his clothing, or
upon a paper found in his pocket. Showed no agitation and little
interest in the subject, except when she inquired if I saw the
stranger at all--living or dead. Was glad I could reply truly,
'No.' Answer seemed to gratify her, which you may consider a
disagreeable augury. Am convinced that her illness resulted from
natural and unavoidable causes--that neither F---C---nor
J----L---had any connection with it. It will be months before mind
and body recover their tone."
"Lawyerly! ergo, absurd and unsatisfactory!" pronounced the reader,
to whom the foregoing leaf had been committed on the morning of her
brother's departure with his slowly-convalescing wife for their
Albany home. "But until the nettle pricks more nearly, I shall
continue to enjoy my roses."
They had blossomed thickly about her path during this decade. Her
matronly beauty was the wonder and praise of the community. The
changing seasons that had bleached the locks upon her husband's
temples and heightened his forehead had spared the bronzed chestnut
of her luxuriant tresses. Her figure was larger and fuller, but
graceful, and more queenly than of yore--if that could be. There
was not an untuneful inflection in her voice, or a furrow between
her brows. Under her careful management the homestead wore every
year an air of increased elegance. No other furniture for many miles
on both sides of the river could compare with hers; no other
servants were so well-trained, no grounds so beautifully ornamented
and trimly kept.