med her
memory of the wedding-ring, and at the next suggestion a blush coursed
through her being like a redbird in the apple-blossoms: perhaps he had
stolen from her chamber stealthily as he came, while she, drowned in
deep slumber, wotted not.

A glance into the mirror again revealed those blushes repeating each
other, like the Aurora in the northern dawn, till, with a searching
consciousness, and her voice raised above the whisper, she said,

"Be still, silly _girl_!"

Opening the door, she found Virgie lying on the rug without, warmly
wrapped in her mistress's blanket-shawl, but wide awake.

"Virgie, no one has passed?" asked Vesta.

"No, Miss Vessy. Nobody could have stepped over me, for my mind has been
too awake, if I did sleep a little. Maybe _he_ ain't a-coming, Miss
Vessy. Maybe he's ashamed!"

"Hush, Virgie," Vesta said, "you are speaking of your master."

Throwing her morning-robe around her shoulders, the maiden bride tripped
noiselessly to her mother's apartment; the door was open, the night
taper floating in its vase, and Mrs. Custis lay asleep with her
bank-book under her pillow.

"Shall I awake her?" Vesta thought. "Yes, if I do not need her
experience, I do want her confidence, and not to give her mine would
seem deceit now."

Vesta kissed her mother softly, and placed her cheek beside that lady's
thin, respectable profile as she awoke, and said:

"Daughter, mercy! why, what has become of you? It seems to me I have
seen nobody for days, and I wanted to express my indignation even in my
dreams. Where have you been?"

"Oh, mamma," Vesta said, taking Mrs. Custis's head in her arms, "I have
been finding your lost fortune, which troubled us all so much. It is to
be given back to you, dearest--my husband has promised to do so."

"Your husband? Whom have you selected, that he is so free with his
money? How could you hear from Baltimore so soon? Now, don't tell me a
parcel of stuff, thinking to comfort me. Your father is a villain, and
my connections shall know it."

Mrs. Custis drew her bank-book from under her head, and began to cry, as
she took a single look at its former total.

"Darling mamma," Vesta said, "seeing you so miserable yesterday on
account of papa's failure, and your portion gone with it, I accepted an
offer of marriage, and have a rich man's promise that, first of all,
your part shall be paid to you. This house, and our manor, and
everything as it is--the servants, the stable