Chapter 5

Roberta fairly screamed: "It's my mamma; it's my own darling mamma! Now I know how much you love her, or you wouldn't carry her picture about with you."

"It has never been away from me an instant, never one instant."

"Why did you stay away from her so long if you loved her so dearly?" Her great brown eyes were lifted in wonder to his face. "I can't stay away from her a single day. Sometimes, even when I'm just out in the yard playing, I have to come back and peep at mamma, to be sure she is there."

A red flush mounted to Colonel Marsden's temples.

"I must tell her first, little daughter; and if she forgives me, will not you?"

"O yes!" cried the child delightedly. "I won't wait for you to tell me. I'll forgive you right now, before I know, and so will mamma. Mam' Sarah says it makes you feel good all over to forgive people, 'sho' 'nuff.'" Then, her tender heart touched by the appealing look in Colonel Marsden's eyes, she added: "Mamma says we must have faith in people and not blame 'em, but believe that nearly everybody does the very best they can. And we don't know, even when they do _wrong_, what makes 'em. You know, Papa," continued the little theologian gravely, "nobody ever does _exactly_ right in this world."

When old Squire and Roberta returned home they found Aunt Betsy very sick, and Mrs. Marsden entirely occupied at her bed-side. It was a great disappointment to the child, she was so eager to bring father and mother together, but Mrs. Marsden was firm.

"Your father does not need me, darling; but she does. And it is right always to take up the duty that is nearest."

It was an anxious night; but when morning came the sick woman was better, and resting easily. Soon after breakfast, as Mrs. Marsden and Roberta were standing by the window in the sitting-room, and looking out at the yard, bathed in light and sparkling with dew, an ambulance appeared in the avenue. It stopped in front of the porch; two officers descended from it and assisted a third one down the steps, then they supported him to the door.

"It's papa," cried Roberta; "he is like me, he couldn't wait."

She ran to meet him, beaming with joy, and led him to the sitting-room, opened the door for him, and, with strange tact in a child so young, left father and mother alone together. Robert Marsden was once more in the quaint old room where he first courted his wife. He was ready to do the courting all over again, glad of the opportunity and thankful for the familiar associations that would naturally appeal to both. The room was very little changed. The wear is less in the country, and then Dame Fashion, our capricious queen, is not so absolute there. When he last saw it, 'twas in the early morning. He remembered so well what took him there. The night before they had one of their heated discussions about selling the negroes, selling the old place, and moving north. When his wife turned to leave the room there was something in her figure and bearing that stirred him strangely. Before he retired, feeling that he had a strong additional claim upon her, as one would reasonably have, upon whom rested the responsibility of providing for a family, he wrote to her, and of course in his masterful way urged her to accede to his request. "Sleep on it," he wrote, "and let me know before I leave in the morning" (he was going north on business). "Send your reply to the sitting-room, only a line, telling me I am free to make my business arrangements in New York, and return for you."

As he recalled the way in which he expressed himself, a qualm of shame crossed his heart. "A selfish brute!" he groaned in spirit: "never occurring to _him_ to yield, always trying to bend _her_." Well, there was nothing for him that morning, and he had gone off with a hot heart, feeling that any thing was better than the life of disinclination he was forced to lead, if he remained. Yes, the room was as little changed as she, there, coming toward him with outstretched hands.

Although her eyes fell beneath his searching glances, and hot blushes suffused her cheeks, she, the mother of his child and many years gone his wife, he did not move one step to meet her advances. O, her pitiable confusion!

"Our child," he said, "the beautiful little daughter you have given me, tells me you still care for me, though, God knows, I don't see how you could, except that it is your nature and you can't help it. But what I want to know is this, has the outrage I put upon you caused the fire, that once burned in your heart for me, to smoulder to ashes, where only a pleasant warmth remains, or is there still fire there that I can rekindle to the old-time blaze, no matter what the effort required? What I want, Julia, is my old place in your heart, if I can have it. I was never a man that could do things in moderation; and, God help me, undeserving as I am, that and that alone will satisfy me."

"The fire still burns, my husband; O, how can you doubt it?"

And then the hungry arms closed about her. After a little, when she had fixed him cosily on the couch and was kneeling beside him, he said:

"I am not by nature an humble man, nor one glib at confession; but there is one thing I will say, my love, this choleric temperament of mine has been to me severer flagellation than was ever administered by priestly hands in expiation of heinous offenses. But I will _down_ it yet, my love; God helping me, I will down it yet."

The door opened and a golden head was visible.

"May I come in, dear Mamma?"

Colonel Marsden stretched forth his disengaged hand and drew the child to him.

"She is like you, love," he said fondly.

"Her eyes are yours, Robert. I remember, when she was a baby, how I used to hang over her, longing for her to awaken, that I might see her eyes."

Colonel Marsden's grasp tightened on his wife's slender white fingers.

"Mam' Sarah was afraid I would make her nervous. She would steal her away, carry her down to the loom-house, and rock her to sleep on her lap."

"I remember it perfectly, Mamma," said Roberta, grave as an owl. "I wore the same robe and cloak and cap that I dressed the gun in that time."

Colonel Marsden laughed heartily; her diverting words, coming just at that moment, were a relief to both. The negroes had talked to the child so much about her birth and babyhood, she had come to believe that she remembered them herself. Every date of late years went back to the time "fo' Lil Missus wuz born'd," or the time "sence she was born'd," or the time "when she was born'd." Old Squire especially humored the conceit:

"Lemme see, Lil Missus; what room?"

"The front room up stairs, Uncle Squire, with the sweet-brier roses climbing in the window, and the beautiful red and black rag carpet Mam' Sarah made."

"Jes' so, Lil Missus; what bed?"

"The great high bed, with the posts and tester and muslin ruffle, I remember Aunt Betsy put a little Bible in my hand as soon as I was born, and shut my fingers down tight on it, because she wanted me to love the Bible first, before every thing."

"Jes' so, Lil Missus; jes' so. I allers sed you wuzer sharp one. But who'd s'poze, now, you cud rikerlec so fur back? He-he-he."

Roberta cuddled down, like a kitten, on the rug before the blazing fire, and looked delightedly at her mother and father.

"Real papas are so much nicer than make-believe papas. I don't think I can play that way again; it makes me hungry to see the difference. O, I wish Uncle Charlie was here, too, and that other one."

"I would like to see Uncle Charlie, too" (Colonel Marsden turned laughingly to his wife), "but I don't wish he was here. I remember what a pet he was of yours in the old days, love--the curly-haired scamp. He could wheedle you and Aunt Betsy out of any thing he wanted. Such a tender heart he had--mad as fire one minute, and tears in his eyes the next--but withal so fearless and high-minded and lovable."

"God bless and watch over him," Mrs. Marsden softly added, "and bring him back safely to us all, my dear, my only brother."

"Amen," responded Colonel Marsden.

Good-bye to Roberta Marsden's child-life on the old farm! Good-bye to the child mind that thought no evil; to the child-heart that reached out to all other hearts, and drew them within a charmed circle of affection! Good-bye to the kindly black faces that the child loved, and the simple, homely lives she saw so much beauty in! Good-bye to the old house that she loved, with Carlo, the watchdog, dozing on the porch in the sunshine; and the peafowl close by, spreading his wondrous-hued tail and strutting; to the old parlor, with its quaint papering and quaint furnishing suggesting dead and gone generations!

Good-bye to the old farm, with its peaceful, busy days; its glad days and its sad days; its merry songsters and its whip-poor-wills; its old-time industries and its hearty hospitalities! Good-bye!