An unexpected turn in Hugh's affairs made it no longer necessary for him
to remain in the sultry climate of New Orleans, and just one week from
his mother's departure from Spring Bank he reached it, expressing
unbounded surprise when he heard from Aunt Eunice where his mother had
gone, and how she had gone.
"Fool and his money soon parted," Hugh said. "I can fancy just the dash
Ad is making. But who sent the money?"
"A Mrs. Johnson, an old friend of your mother's," Aunt Eunice replied,
while Hugh looked up quickly, wondering why the Johnsons should be so
continually thrust upon him, when the only Johnson for whom he cared was
dead years ago.
"And the young lady--what about her?" he asked, while Aunt Eunice told
him the little she knew, which was that Mrs. Johnson wished her daughter
to come to Spring Bank, but she did not know what they had concluded
upon.
"That she should not come, of course," Hugh said. "They had no right to
give her a home without my consent, and I've plenty of young ladies at
Spring Bank now. Oh, it was such a relief when I was gone to know that
in all New Orleans there was not a single hoop annoyed on my account. I
had a glorious time doing as I pleased."
"And yet you've improved, seems to me," Aunt Eunice said.
"Oh, I'll turn out a polished dandy by and by, who knows?" Hugh
answered, laughingly; then helping his aunt to mount the horse which had
brought her to Spring Bank, he returned to the house, which seemed
rather lonely, notwithstanding that he had so often wished he could once
more be alone, just as he was before his mother came.
On the whole, however, he enjoyed his freedom from restraint, and very
rapidly fell back into his old loose way of living, bringing his dogs
even into the parlor, and making it a repository for both his hunting
and fishing apparatus.
"It's splendid to do as I'm mind to," he said, one hot August morning,
nearly three weeks after his mother's departure.
"Hello, Mug, what do you want?" he asked, as a very bright-looking
little mulatto girl appeared in the door.
"Claib done buyed you this yer," and the child handed him the letter
from his mother.
The first of it was full of affection for her boy, and Hugh felt his
heart growing very tender as he read, but when he reached the point
where poor, timid Mrs. Worthington tried to explain about Alice, making
a wretched bungle, and showing plainly how much she was swayed by 'Lina,
it began to harden at once.
"What the plague!" he exclaimed as he read on. "Suppose I remember
having heard her speak of her old school friend, Alice Morton? I don't
remember any such thing. Her daughter's name's Alice--Alice Johnson,"
and Hugh for an instant turned white, so powerfully that name always
affected him.