Founded Upon a Rock

If Mrs. Sutton had raised horrified eyes and despairing hands upon
learning the date of her nephew's proposed marriage, it was because
she miscalculated his executive abilities, and the energy she had
never until now seen fairly put forth. Within three days after his
return, the homestead was alive with masons, carpenters, painters,
and upholsterers, engaged by the prompt bridegroom on his passage
through Richmond; and so explicit were his orders as to the minutest
detail of the work appointed to each, that he could safely leave the
scene of action at the time appointed for the flying trip northward,
to which he had referred in his dialogue with Mabel on the afternoon
of his arrival.

The party of visitors had emigrated to other regions, a couple of
days after Frederic Chilton's departure, with the exception of Rosa
Tazewell, who accepted Mabel's invitation to prolong her sojourn,
the more willingly since she "flattered herself she could be of use
in the general upheaving of the ancient foundations, and
establishment of the new. If there was one thing she enjoyed above
another, it was a tremendous bustle--a lively revolution."

She made her boast of personal utility good by installing herself
forthwith as Mrs. Sutton's aid-de-camp, and rendering herself so far
indispensable in the work of reconstruction that Mr. Aylett deigned
to ask her not to desert her post in his absence.

"Yours is the genius of renovation, Miss Rosa," the potentate was
pleased to say in his handsomest style. "Do not, I beg of you,
forsake my aunt and sister in their need. Let me feel that I leave
one head as the motive-power of the multitudinous hands."