Legacies Read Online Free PDF

window Eliza waved her fan with renewed vigor. "Gracious, it has turned hot and sticky. Whatever became of that breeze we enjoyed earlier?" She peered out as if expecting to find it, then paused, stilling the fan's motion. "There's a rider coming up the lane." She leaned closer to the window. "I do believe it's Nathan. How wonderful." She was instantly all motion, bustling away from the window. "Shadrach, go fetch Reverend Cole some lemonade while I greet him."
    When she left the room, Kipp grumbled, "How many others has Eliza invited to dinner? I understood this was to be a family gathering."
    "Reverend Cole is like a member of the family, Kipp," Susannah reminded him. “He has been part of nearly every important occasion in our lives. Heavens, he even performed my parents' wedding ceremony—as well as The Blade and Temple's."
    Lije noticed that Susannah didn't mention that Reverend Cole had also officiated at Kipp's marriage and—less than a year later—read over the grave of Kipp's young wife after she died giving birth to their son, Alex. Lije had been too young to remember much of that time himself, but he had been told that Kipp had been almost happy during his short year of marriage. After his wife's untimely death, his uncle had retreated, and his bitterness had grown deeper.
    Alex lifted his glass and smiled at Susannah over the rim, a kind of taunting mockery in his eyes. "I guess that means Reverend Cole will be coming to your farewell party, too."
    "What farewell party?" Lije shot a questioning look at Susannah. "Where are you going?"
    "Mother hasn't told you the news?"
    "What news?"
    "I'll be attending Mount Holyoke this fall. Both Mother and Father are planning to accompany me on the trip to South Hadley. We leave in August."
    "I return and you leave."
    "I know." Some of the previous excitement faded from her eyes. "I wish—"
    But Susannah had no opportunity to complete the sentence before Eliza returned with the Reverend Nathan Cole. He was a tall, spare man with a bony face and gaunt cheeks. His smile, like the man, was gentle and retiring.
    "Welcome home, Elijah," Reverend Cole spoke softly, as always addressing Lije by his full given name. "It's good to have you back among us. You have been missed."
    "Thank you, Reverend Cole. It's good to be back—although I just learned Susannah will be leaving us."
    The reverend's attention swung to Susannah, his eyes brightening.
    "Then you have been accepted at Mount Holyoke."
    "I have. We leave in August."
    "Will and I will accompany her on the trip," Eliza explained. "This will be the first time I've been back to South Hadley since I left to teach the children of a Cherokee family named Gordon. What's that been, Nathan? Twenty-five years ago?"
    "Closer to thirty, I believe."
    "I guess it has been almost that long. I was barely twenty then and convinced my destiny in life was to teach. Little did I guess what the future would hold."
    "That is as it should be." He patted Eliza's hand. "We can only hope Susannah will have as stimulating an adventure herself."
    "You're right, of course. It will be good to take Susannah and visit the places of my childhood to see all the changes time has wrought. Will wants to spend some time with Payton Fletcher while we're in the area. We'll be staying with him after Susannah has settled in at Mount Holyoke." She smiled at her daughter. "You're going to like it there."
    "Is that where you went, Granny El?" Alex asked.
    "No. The female seminary didn't open its doors until four or five years after I had left South Hadley. That would have been in the late 1830s, I believe. But my mother taught there for years after it opened. If she hadn't passed on three years ago, she could have seen her granddaughter there." Everyone knew Eliza regretted that she hadn't returned earlier to see her mother before she died. "Now her granddaughter will be walking in the very same halls she did. I find that very fitting— though I