How changed
the scene! Her pale and wasted features could not be lighted up by
any thoughts of the past, and she was sorrowful at heart.
As usual, the servants in the kitchen were in ecstasies at the
announcement that "Miss Gerty," as they called their young
mistress, was in the house, for they loved her sincerely. Gertrude
had saved them from many a flogging, by interceding for them, when
her mother was in one of her uncontrollable passions. Dinah, the
cook, always expected Miss Gerty to visit the kitchen as soon as
she came, and was not a little displeased, on this occasion, at
what she considered her young mistress's neglect. Uncle Tony, too,
looked regularly for Miss Gerty to visit the green house, and
congratulate him on his superiority as a gardener.
When tea was over, Mrs. Miller dismissed the servants from the
room, then told her son-in-law what she had witnessed the previous
night, and demanded for her daughter that Isabella should be
immediately sent out of the State, and to be sure that the thing
would be done, she wanted him to give her the power to make such
disposition of the woman and child as she should think best.
Gertrude was Mrs. Miller's only child, and Henry felt little like
displeasing a family upon whose friendship he so much depended,
and, no doubt, long wishing to free himself from Isabella, he at
once yielded to the demands of his mother-in-law. Mr. Miller was a
mere cipher about his premises. If any one came on business
connected with the farm, he would invariably say, "Wait tin I see
my wife," and the wife's opinion was sure to be law in every case.
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