A certain quality of attraction about Blair which made
women love him.—Page 22
Children of Destiny
By MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL
With Illustrations By
A. B. WENZELL
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Copyright 1893
D. Appleton and Company
Copyright 1903
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
APRIL
Children of Destiny
CHILDREN OF DESTINY.
CHAPTER I.
The hot June sunshine poured down upon thegreat fields of yellow wheat at Deerchase, and thevelvet wind swept softly over them, making long billowsand shadowy dimples in the golden sea of grain.The air was all blue and gold, and vibrating with themusic of harvest time—the reedlike harmonies ofthe wind-swept wheat, the droning of many bees, themerry drumming of the cicada in the long grass, and,above all, the song of the black reapers, as theyswung their glittering scythes in the morning sun.One side of the vast field was skirted by purplishwoods, through which went constantly a solemnmurmur—the only sad note in the symphony. Onthe other side rose great clumps and groves of liveoaks and silver beeches and feathery elms, shadinga spacious brick house with innumerable peaks andgables. Beyond this house and its pleasure groundsa broad and glittering river went merrily on its wayto the south Atlantic. Nature in this coast countryof Virginia is prodigal of beauty, and bestows allmanner of charms with a lavish hand. Here are[2]found blue rivers and bluer skies, and pale splendoursof moonlit nights and exquisite dawns andfair noons. Here Nature runs the whole gamut ofbeauty—through the laughing loveliness of springmornings, the capricious sweetness of summer days,when the landscape hides itself, like a sulky beauty,in white mists and silvery rains, to the cold glory ofthe winter nights; there is no discord nor anythingunlovely. But in the harvest time it is most graciousand love-compelling. There is something ineffablygay in harvest, and the negroes, those children of thesun, sang as merrily and as naturally as the grasshoppersthat chirped in the green heart of thewoods.
The long row of black reapers swung their scythesin rhythm, their voices rising and falling in cadencewith the cutting of the wheat. The head man led thesinging as he led t