The Arm Chair Library No. 79: The Haunted Homestead — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

» EE . ee Z THE HAWNTED HOMESTEAD. brought me many advantages, among which was the privilege of annual travel and change of scene. About the first of every July, Mathilde’s father and mother would leave their sugar plantation in Louisiana, and travel northward. ‘They usually ar- rived at the Newton Academy about the tenth of the month, in time to be present at the annual examination and exhibition of the pupils. Upon these occasions, Mathilde, who pos- sessed quickness and vivacity, rather than depth or strength of mind, gen- erally achieved a brilliant success; though she often told me that her triumph in being first at these mile- stones on the road to fame, was noth- ing more than the success of the swift-footed, careless hare over the slow and painstaking tortoise who vould win the race at the. goal. However this might be, Mr. and :s. Legare were equally proud of tLeir daughter’s genius and beauty, and to reward her “industry and ap- plication,” as they called it, they took her each year to spend the long vaca- tion of July and August with them in making a tour of the Virginia Springs, which are the most frequent- ed by Southerners, for the conven- lence of bringing their servants with them. Upon one occasion, however, that of-the vacation preceding the last year of Mathilde’s residence at school, Mr. Legare determined to vary their usual route by going to the Northern wa- tering places of Saratoga and Balls- ton. And, as usual, I, with the con- sent of my guardians, accompanied the party as their invited guest. We arrived at Saratoga at the very height of the season, In all, I sup- pose that there might have been sey- eral thousand. visitors at the springs. -The United States Hotel, at which we one And, though Mr. Legare grumbled in | a very old-gentlemanly way, and Mrs. Legare wished herself home again, Mathilde and I enjoyed the crowd for the crowd’s sake, and experienced the truth of the popular adage of “the more the merrit:.” At a place like that, even in the ballroom, “distinction” was almost as impossible as it is said to be in Lon- don, where now that the “Duke” is dead, no one is any one, Scarcely any- body was anybody at Saratoga that season. Many a village beauty, the toast of her own little circle, and many a city belle, the queen of her own coterie, who went thither, rea- sonably expected to make a “sensa- tion,” found herself and her claims to notice lost in a brilliant multitude all more or less expectant or disappoint- ed. | I thought Mathilde, with her tall and beautifully rounded form, stately head, pure olive complexion, shaded by jet-black ringlets, and lighted up by laughing, black eyes, bridged over with arch and flexible black eye-brows —would attract: some attention. | ' Not a bit of it! Heiress and beauty as she was, Mathilde Legare was mere- ly one in the crowd. There were hun- dreds with equal or greater claims to distinction. And so our beautiful Mathilde was not enthroned. Of course she scon attracted around her a circle of old and new acquaintances, and had from them a due share of at- tention. Among the first of these new ac- quaintances was a young gentleman of the name of Howard. is intro- duction to our party, without being romantic, was certainly marked by singularity. It occurred the third day after our arrival, at one of the weekly balls at the United States. It happened to be a fine, cool evening, stopped, was uncomfortably crowded. | and the assembly upon the occasion Eomichbooks.co