Bad Hugh

Twenty minutes passed, and then the streets were filled again; but now

the people were going home, talking as they went of the beauty of the

bride and of the splendid-looking bridegroom, who looked so fondly at

her as she murmured her responses, kissing her first himself when the

ceremony was over, and letting his arm rest for a moment around her

slender form. No one doubted its being a genuine love match, and all

rejoiced in the happiness of the newly-married pair, who, at the village

depot, were waiting for the train which would take them on their way to

Kentucky, for that was their destination.

In the distracted condition of the country, Hugh's presence was needed

there; for, taking advantage of his absence, and the thousand rumors

afloat touching the Proclamation, one of his negroes had already run

away in company with some half dozen of the colonel's, who, in a

terrible state of excitement, talked seriously of emigrating to Canada.

Hugh's timely arrival, however, quieted him somewhat, though he listened

in sorrow, and almost with tears, to Hugh's plan of selling the Spring

Bank farm and removing with his negroes to some New England town, where

Alice, he knew, would be happier than she had been in Kentucky. This was

one object which Hugh had in view in going to Kentucky then, but a

purchaser for Spring Bank was not so easily found in those dark days;

and so, doing with his land the best he could, he called about him his

negroes, and giving to each his freedom, proposed that they stay quietly

where they were until spring, when he hoped to find them all employment

on the farm he went to buy in New England.

Aunt Eunice, who understood managing blacks better than his timid mother

or his inexperienced wife, was to be his housekeeper in that new home of

his, where the colonel and his family would always be welcome; and

having thus provided for those for whom it was his duty to care, he bade

adieu to Kentucky, and returned to Snowdon in time to join the Christmas

party at Terrace Hill, where Irving Stanley was a guest, and where, in

spite of the war clouds darkening our land, and in spite of the sad,

haunting memories of the dead, there was much hilarity and

joy--reminding the villagers of the olden time when Terrace Hill was

filled with gay revelers. Anna Millbrook was there, more beautiful than

in her girlhood, and almost childishly fond of her missionary Charlie,

who she laughingly declared was perfectly incorrigible on the subject of

surplice and gown, adding that as the mountain would not go to Mahomet,

Mahomet must go to the mountain; and so she was fast becoming an

out-and-out Presbyterian of the very bluest stripe.