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She did not say all this in so many words, but Marcia found that impression left after the evening was over. With sweet dignity Marcia received her introductions, given in Miss Amelia’s most commanding tone, “Our niece, Marcia!” “Marshy! Marshy!” the bride heard old Mrs. Heath murmur to Miss Spafford. “Why, I thought ’twas to be Kate!”
Higher up stand the sugar-works of Amelia’s Waard, solitary and abandoned; and after passing these there is not a ruin to inform the traveller that either coffee or sugar has been cultivated.
She had suddenly become aware that they had been in their corner together a long time, and that Aunt Amelia’s cold eyes were fastened upon her in disapproval. “The farmers would be ruined, man alive!” Mr. Heath was saying. “Why, all the horses would have to be killed, because they would be wholly useless if this new fandango came in, and then where would be a market for the wheat and oats?”
Marcia had slipped into the shelter of Aunt Amelia’s black silk presence and wished she might run out the back door and away home. Suddenly a shimmer of gold with the sunlight through it caught her gaze, and a glimpse of sheeny purple. There, close behind David, standing upon the top step, quite unseen by him, stood her sister Kate.
For what would David say, and how could she ever tell him? Would he find it out if she did not? What would he think of her? Would he blame her? Oh, the agony of it all! What would the aunts think of her! Ah! that was worse than all, for even now she could see the tilt of Aunt Hortense’s head, and the purse of Aunt Amelia’s lips. How dreadful if they should have to know of it.
There were worse things in the world, after all, than salt-rising, and, when one could smother it in Aunt Amelia’s peach preserves, it was quite bearable. Aunt Clarinda slipped her off to her own room after supper, and left the other two sisters with their beloved idol, David.
From Amelia’s Waard an unbroken range of forest covers each bank of the river, saving here and there where a hut discovers itself, inhabited by free people of colour, with a rood or two of bared ground about it; or where the wood-cutter has erected himself a dwelling, and cleared a few acres for pasturage.
But there was a distinct relaxation about Miss Amelia’s mouth. She heaved a relieved sigh. Marcia was so much better than Kate, so much more classical, so much more to be compared with Hannah, for instance. “Well, I’m glad!” she allowed herself to remark. “David has been calling you ‘Kate’ till it made me sick, such a frivolous name and no sense in it either. Marcia sounds quite sensible.
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