lect."

"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. Washington, before he died."

"I laid down the Custis name yesterday," Vesta said, "though not their
better character, I hope. Papa, there is only one law of marriage; it is
where the wife follows the husband."

She looked a little archly at him, wiping her eyes of recent tears, and
though she may not have meant it, he was reminded of his own fear of his
wife.

Aunt Hominy now came in, having been told by Virgie to prepare coffee,
and she followed Roxy, who brought it into the library. The old cook had
a strange look, as of one who had been up all night at a fire, or a
"protracted meeting," and she poked her head in as if afraid to come
farther, till Vesta went out and kissed her kindly.

"Poor Aunty Hominy! did you think I was sold, or abused, because I had
been married? Dear old aunty, I shall never leave you!"

Aunt Hominy had a countenance of profound, almost vacant, melancholy,
mixed with a fear that, the Judge remarked, "he had seen on the faces of
niggers that had stolen something."

"Miss Vessy," she stammered, at last, "is you measured in by ole
Meshach? Is he got you, honey? Dat he has, chile! He's gwyn to bury you
under dat pizen hat. Po' little girl! Po' Miss Vessy!"

"Oh, Aunt Hominy," Vesta said, "he will be a kind master in spite of his
queer hat, and take good care of you and all the children; for he is my
husband, and will love you all for me."

A dumb, terrified look adhered to the old black woman's face.

"No, he won't be kind to nobody," she gasped. "You has gwyn been lost,
Miss Vessy. You is measured in. De good Lord try an' bress you! Hominy
ain't measured in yit. Homi