" Willie went hastily up to this,
and stood, absorbed, before it. "Francesca is very like her mother,"
said Ercildoune, coming to his side. It was his own thought, but he made
no answer.
"I will tell you something of her and myself; a very little story; you
can draw the moral. My father, who was a Virginian, sent my brother and
me to England when we were mere boys, to be trained and educated. After
his fashion, doubtless, he loved us; for he saw that we had every
advantage that wealth, and taste, and care could provide; and though he
never sent for us, nor came to us, in all the years after we left his
house,--and though we had no legal claim upon him,--he acknowledged us
his children, and left us the entire proceeds of his immense estates,
unincumbered. We were so young when we went abroad, had been so tenderly
treated at home, had seen and known so absolutely nothing of the society
about us, that we were ignorant as Arabs of the state of feeling and
prejudice in America against such as we, who carried any trace of negro
blood. Our treatment in England did but increase this oblivion.
"We graduated at Oxford; my brother, who was two years older than I,
waiting upon me that we might go together through Europe; and together
we had three of the happiest years of life. On the Continent I met
_her_. You see what she is; you know Francesca: it is useless for me to
attempt to describe her.
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