He passed on through to his seat in
Albemarle without stopping in our valley longer than over night. Part of
the next morning I spent in writing a letter to my agents at Huntington,
with the request that they should inform Colonel Meriwether at once on
the business situation, since now he was in touch by mail. The
alternative was offered him of taking over my father's interests through
these creditors, accepting them as partners, or purchasing their rights;
or of doing what my father had planned to do for him, which was to care
individually for the joint account, and then to allot each partner a
dividend interest, carrying a clear title.
All these matters I explained to my mother. Then I told her fully what
had occurred at the village the night previous between Ellen Meriwether
and my fiancee. She sat silent.
"In any case," I concluded, "it would suit me better if you and I could
leave this place forever, and begin again somewhere else."
She looked out of the little window across our pleasant valley to its
edge, where lay the little church of the Society of Friends. Then she
turned to me slowly, with a smile upon her face. "Whatever thee says,"
was her answer.
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