, being reclaimed again, but at the
penalty of a new member of the family and he an intruder. To the library
Vesta and her father went, and he threw some wood upon the low fire, and
lighted the lamp and candles; then turning, he took his daughter in his
arms and sobbed bitterly, repeating over the words: "What shall I do! O
what shall I do!" She also yielded to the luxury of grief, but was
speechless till he said:

"My darling, I have dreamed of your wedding-day many a time, but it was
not like this. Music and joy, free-heartedness, a handsome, youthful
bridegroom, our whole connection gathered here from the army and navy,
from South, West, and North, and all happy except poor Daniel Custis,
about to lose his child!"

"Your child is not to go," Vesta whispered; "is not that a comfort?"

"I do not know. Is it my pure, poor child? Had I seen you waste with
consumption, day by day, like a dying lilac-tree, with its clusters
fewer every year till it deadened to the root, I could have wept in
heavenly sympathy, and learned from you the way I have not walked. But,
in your flower to be a forester's plucking, stripped from my stem and
trodden in the sand, your pride reduced, your tastes unheeded, your
heart dragged into the wigwam of a savage and made to consult his
maudlin will---- Oh, what shall I do!"

"I do not fear my husband like that," Vesta said, opening his arms. "My
mind, I think, he will rather raise to serious things, for which I have
some desire, though, I fear, no talent. Papa, something tells me that
this old life we have led, easy and happy, comfortable and independent,
is passing away. Our family race must learn the new lessons of the age
if we would not see it retired and obscure. Is that not so?"

"I fear it is God's truth, my darling. The life we have led is only a
remnant of colonial, or, rather, of provincial dignity, to which the
nature of this republican government is hostile. Tobacco, which was once
our money, is disappearing from this shore, and wheat and corn we cannot
grow like the rich young West, which is pouring them out through the
canal the late Governor Clinton lived to open. Money is becoming a thing
and not merely a name, and it captures every other thing--land,
distinction, talent, family, even beauty and purity. The man you married
understands the art of money and we do not."

"Then are we not impostors, papa, if we assume to be so much better than
our real superiors? Surely we must p