United States or France ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Stevens was so busily engaged with the ladies from Greensprings that she did not even bid them adieu. Dark days were in store for Dorothe Stevens. She heeded not the constant reduction of her money until it was gone.
He was silent and would have borne a second misfortune like the first uncomplaining; but when he learned that she was to bring one to take the place of that father who slept beneath the sea, he rebelled. Dorothe knew the disposition of her children, and she decided to get them out of the way until after the wedding. At last she hit upon a plan.
He explained that it was a matter of business which a woman could not perform; but Mrs. Stevens became unreasonable, declaring: "You wish to go to London and pass your time in gay society." "I do not," he answered. "Verily, you do. You tire already of your wife; you would seek another." "Dorothe, I would wed no other woman living," answered John, with a sigh.
There's such a charm in melancholy, I would not, if I could, be gay. Dorothe Stevens was not a woman to take misfortune much to heart. She watched the ship in which her husband sailed until it vanished from sight, shed a few tears, heaved a few sighs and went home to see if the negro slave had prepared breakfast. She smiled next day, and before the week was past she was quite gay.
Almost heartbroken, yet proud, Dorothe with her children set out for the distant plantation in the county in which lived the relatives of her husband. Political changes were coming, which were to have a marked effect on Dorothe, who gave up her husband for dead and donned the widow's weeds. Those changes were the restoration. In 1658, Cromwell died and named his son Richard as his successor.
That sweet, gentle mother greeted her unhappy son with, tears. It was seldom Dorothe permitted him to visit her. His mother knew it and always assumed a cheerfulness she was far from feeling. Ofttimes poor John had a hard struggle between duty to his mother and fidelity to wife. It was a struggle in which no earthly friend could aid him. The day to sail came.
Fifteen years have come and gone fifteen long years since I left my home. My wife, no doubt, believing me dead, has ceased to mourn for me. Perhaps but no, Dorothe never believed in it. God knows what they may have suffered. I am powerless to aid them, and to His hands I entrust them." Heaving a deep sigh, he resumed his painful ruminations: "It might be worse; yes, it might be worse.
Ann Linkon, who had never forgiven Dorothe Stevens for the ducking she had caused her, now boldly declared that she had all along told the truth and, shaking her gray head, repeated: "She is a hussy. She hath driven John to sea and perchance to death. She is a hussy."
Jamestown was the gay city of the South; but the halcyon days promised on the restoration of Virginia to royalty were never realized. The common people were made worse for the change, and only the favorite few were bettered. At the home of Mrs. Dorothe Price matters went on fairly well. Her children from the first seemed to whisper rebellion; but the stern cavalier husband met them with firmness.
Dorothe was a thorough royalist, and she heard, while at the governor's, that Cromwell was in poor health, and there was a strong feeling that the exiled Prince Charles would be recalled to the throne. Berkeley had invited him to Virginia.
Word Of The Day