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Updated: May 20, 2025
He tried to picture the scene of their second meeting. He repeated again and again her formal title, Miss Ercildoune, that he might familiarize his tongue and his ear to the sound, and not be on the instant betrayed into calling the name which he so often uttered in his thoughts.
Surrey, and what's more, I believe in Miss Ercildoune, have reason to; and when I hear anybody mixing her up with these onry, good-for-nothing niggers, it's more'n I can stand, so don't let's have any more of it"; and turning with an air which said that subject was ended, Jim took up his forgotten coffee, pulled apart some brands and put the big tin cup on the coals, and then bent over it absorbed, sniffing the savory steam which presently came up from it.
Willie went hastily up to this, and stood, absorbed, before it. "Francesca is very like her mother," said Ercildoune, coming to his side. It was his own thought, but he made no answer. "I will tell you something of her and myself; a very little story; you can draw the moral. My father, who was a Virginian, sent my brother and me to England when we were mere boys, to be trained and educated.
Surrey knew him at once, knew that it was Francesca's father, and went up to him with extended hand. Mr. Ercildoune took the proffered hand, and shook it warmly. "I am happy to meet you, Mr. Surrey." "You know me?" said he with surprise. "I thought to present myself." "I have seen your picture." "And I yours. They must have held the mirror up to nature, for the originals to be so easily known.
Surrey away in New York, and Robert Ercildoune, as the papers asserted in their published lists, mortally wounded, having no indirect means of communication with him, and fearing to write again without some sign from him, was sorrowing in silence at home.
These two, mother and aunt, fearing the old fire had not yet burned to ashes, nay, from their knowledge of him, sure of it, hearing naught of his illness, for he did not care to distress them by any account thereof, were satisfied that he had either met, or was remaining to compass a meeting, with Miss Ercildoune.
Ercildoune, when he was a young man studying abroad, by an enthusiastic and nationally ignorant Englishman; "but then, sir," he added, "what very dark complexions you Americans have! Is it universal?" "By no means, sir," was Mr. Ercildoune's reply. "There are some exceedingly fine ones among my countrymen. I come from the South: that is a bad climate for the tint of the skin."
"A fine looking fellow! fighting has been no child's play for him," said Robert, looking, as he spoke, at the empty sleeve. Mr. Ercildoune advanced to meet the stranger, and Surrey beheld the same face upon whose pictured semblance he had once gazed with such intense feelings, first of jealousy, and then of relief and admiration; the same splendor of life, and beauty, and vitality.
In an instant he knew that his arms would be empty did they hold a universe in which Francesca Ercildoune had no part, and that with her head on his heart the world might lapse from him unheeded; and, with this knowledge, she held tenderly and caressingly, as he saw, another man's picture in her hand.
"What next?" said Willie. "Heaven preserve us! your favorite subject. Who would expect to tumble on such a theme here? 'Slavery; by Francesca Ercildoune. Odd name, and, by Jove! it's the beauty herself."
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