CHAPTER XXVIII.

DORA’S DIARY.

“May 31st, 1863.—I did not think when last I closed this book, that I

could ever be as happy as I am now,—happy in everything, happy in

Richard’s love, happy in the love of God, for my precious husband has

been the means of leading me to the source of all happiness. He says I

was a Christian before, but I cannot believe it. At least, it was a

cold, tame kind of Christian, such as I never wish to be again! Dear

Richard, how good and true he is, and how he tries to make me happy.

Every day I see some new virtue in him, and the tears often come as I

wonder why God should have blessed me above the generality of womankind.

I know I have the kindest, and best, and dearest husband in the world.

He has gone for a few days to Fortress Monroe, where Robert is at

present with his men, while Mother West has gone into the hospital as

nurse. She felt it was her duty, and we did not oppose her, knowing how

much good she would do to the poor, suffering soldiers. My heart bleeds

for them, and yet I cannot feel it the doctor’s duty to go. Somebody

must stay at home, and when I see how his patients cling to him, and how

useful he is here, I think it is his place to stay. If I am wrong and

selfish, may I be forgiven.

“In the autumn our new house will be completed, and then I shall leave

Margaret’s family, but not alone, for Jessie is actually coming to be

John’s wife, and is now at home making her preparations. Does Margaret

know? If so, she surely feels kindly now toward the little girl, who

will make the best of mothers to the children.

“It was very strange, and though Richard and I had laughed together over

the possibility, it took me wholly by surprise. I was sitting in my room

one night last April, waiting for Richard, when Jessie came rushing in,

her eyes red with weeping, and her frame quivering with emotion. I was

startled, particularly as she threw herself on the floor beside me, and

exclaimed:

“‘O Dora, I’ve done the silliest thing, and father will scold, I know,

and call me a fool, and say _I_ proposed, when I didn’t, though I am

afraid I said yes too quick! Do you think I did? Tell me, do.’

“Then I managed to get from her that she was engaged to Squire Russell;

that Johnnie inveigled her in by saying his father wanted her; that she

asked if he did, and he told her, ‘Yes, he wanted her for his little

wife; wanted to keep her always!’ and she was so frightened.

“‘Oh, you don’t know anything about it!’ she said. ‘I felt just as I did

once when I took chloroform to have a tooth out, and acted just so, too,

foolish like, for I talked everything and told him everything; how I was

a little bit of a body who did not know anything, who had never learned

anything, but had always done as I pleased and always wanted to; how I

could not be sober if I tried, and would not if I could; how I was more

fit to be Johnnie’s wife than his; how father was not as rich as some

thought, but had two apoplectic fits ever so long ago, and might have

another any time and die, while Bell and I would have to take care of

ourselves,—go out governesses, or something; and, maybe, if he knew that

he would not want me, but if he didn’t, and I ever had to be a

governess, perhaps he would let me come here to teach his children, and

that was so silly for me to say, and I knew it all the time, just like

chloroform. And then, O Dora, how ridiculous the next thing was. He only

laughed at the governess, and held me tighter, and I guess,—I am most

sure,—he kissed me; and I am awfully afraid I kissed him back! Do you

think I did?’

“I thought it quite likely, I said, and with a groan Jessie continued:

“‘The very silliest thing of all was my telling him I could not darn his

socks, nor make his shirts, and he would have to wear big holes in them

or go without; and,—oh, do you believe, he laughed real loud, and said

he would go without? Do you think he meant it?’

“‘Yes, Jessie, undoubtedly he meant it,’ and Richard’s merry laugh broke

in upon us.

“So absorbed had I been in Jessie that I had not heard the doctor, who

entered in time to hear the last of Jessie’s confession, and who at the

recital of John’s magnanimity could restrain himself no longer, but

laughed long and loud, while Jessie wept silently. At last, however, we

managed to draw from her that in spite of all her faults, every one of

which she acknowledged, even to the fact that sometimes when going to

parties she powdered her arms, and that four of her teeth were filled,

John had persisted in saying that he loved her, and could not live

without her; that as to powder, Margaret always used it; that he knew a

place on Broadway where he could get the very best article in use; that

most everybody’s teeth were either false or filled by the time they were

twenty, and he guessed she was quite as genuine as any of the feminine

genus.

“‘Did you tell him about the cotton?’ Richard asked, wickedly, but

Jessie innocently replied:

“‘I don’t know what you mean, but if it’s the sheets and pillow-cases I

am expected to furnish, Bell bought four pieces just before the rise,

and I know she will let me have some. Any way, I shall not ask Squire

Russell to buy them,’ and thus Richard was foiled and I was glad.

“‘And so it is finally settled, and you are to be my little sister?’

Richard said, and Jessie replied:

“‘Yes; that is I told him to ask my father, and please, Dr. West, will

you write too and tell him how I did not do the courting, or ever think

of such a thing? Father will scold, I know, and maybe swear. He always

does, but I don’t care, I—’

“There was a call for Dr. West, who went out leaving us alone; and then

winding my arm around Jessie, I said:

“‘And are you sure you love Squire Russell well enough to be his wife?’

This question threw Jessie into another impetuous outburst, and she

exclaimed:

“‘That is just what he asked me, too; and if I had not loved him before

I should have done so when he said, “I wish you to be certain, Jessie,

so there need be no after-repentance. I have borne one disappointment,”

and he looked so white and sad. “A second would kill me. If I take you

now, and then have to give you up, my life will go with you. Can you

truly say you love me, Jessie, and are perfectly willing to be mine?”

“I was foolish then, Dora, for I told him straight out how it was very

sudden; but the knowing he loved me brought into life a feeling which

kept growing and growing so fast, that even in a few minutes it seemed

as if I had loved him all my life. He is so good and kind, and will let

me do just as I please. Don’t you believe he will?”

“I had no doubt of it, and I smoothed her short curls while she told me

how sorry she was that she ever thought Letitia stupid, or Jimmie less

interesting than the others.

“‘It seems as if they died just to be out of my way, and I do so wish

they were back.’

“Then she said that the wedding was to be the 25th of June, her

twentieth birthday, that is, if her father consented; that John had

promised to take her to Europe some time, but not this year, and they

were going instead to the White Mountains, to Newport, and lots of

places, and Johnnie was going with them. Then she settled her bridal

_trousseau_, even to the style of her gaiters, declaring she would not

have those horrid square toes, if they were fashionable, for they made

one’s foot so clumsy, and she put up her fairy little feet, which looked

almost as small as Daisy’s. Dear little Jessie, of whom I once was

jealous! What a child she is, and what a task she is taking upon

herself! But her heart is in it, and that makes it very easy. Had I

loved John one half as well as she seems to love him, I should not now

be Richard’s wife, waiting for him by the window as I wait for him many

nights, knowing that though he chides me for sitting up so late, he is

usually pleased to find me so, and kisses me so tenderly as he calls me

a naughty girl, and bids me hurry to bed.

“JUNE 28th.—The house is very still these days, for John and Johnnie are

gone, and with them all the bustle, the stir, and the excitement which

has characterized our home for the last few weeks. I invited Bell to

return with me from the wedding, but her father said no, he could not

spare both his daughters; and so she stayed, her tears falling so fast

as she said to me at parting: ‘You cannot guess how lonely I am, knowing

Jessie will never come home to us again, just as she used to come.’

“Poor Bell, I pity her; but amid her tears I saw, as I thought, a

rainbow of promise. As the clergyman at Morrisville chanced to be

absent, Mr. Kelly went down with us to perform the ceremony, and if I am

not mistaken he will go again and again until he brings Bell away with

him. The wedding was a quiet affair, save as Jessie and Johnnie laughed

and sported and played. The bride and groom were, however, perfectly

happy, I know, which was more than could be said for the Judge. At first

he had, as Jessie predicted, said all kinds of harsh things about the

match, but Bell and Jessie won him over, until he was ready to receive

his son-in-law with the utmost kindness, which he did, acting the

polite, urbane host to perfection, and only breaking down when Jessie

came to say good-by. Then he showed how much he loved his baby, as he

called her, commending her so touchingly to her husband’s patient care,

because ‘she was a wee, helpless thing,’ that we all cried, Richard and

all, while the Squire could not resist giving his fairy bride a most

substantial hug, right before us all, as he promised to care for her as

tenderly as if she were his little Daisy instead of his little wife. I

have no fears for them. It is a great responsibility which Jessie has

assumed, but her sunny nature, which sees only the brightest side, and

the mighty love which her husband and Johnnie have given her, will

interpose between her and all that otherwise might be hard to bear. God

bless her. God keep her in all her pleasant journeyings, and bring her

safely back to us, who wait and watch for her as for the refreshing

rain.

“DECEMBER 24th, 1863—CHRISTMAS EVE.—Just one year I have been Richard’s

wife, and in that time I cannot recall a single moment of sadness, or a

time when Richard’s voice and manner were not just as kind and loving as

at first. My noble husband, how earnestly I pray that I may be worthy of

him, and make him as happy as he makes me. We are in our new home now,

and I cannot think of a single wish ungratified. Everything is as I like

it. The furniture is of my own and Richard’s selecting, and is as good

as our means would afford,—not grand and costly like Mattie’s and

Jessie’s, but plain and nice, such as the furniture of a village

doctor’s wife ought to be. And Richard’s mother is with us now, resting

from the toils of life as nurse in the hospital. We would like so much

to keep her, but she says ‘No, not till the war is over; then if my life

is spared, I will come back to live and die with my children.’

“Captain Robert is coming to-night and to-morrow all take their

Christmas dinner with me; I said all, meaning John and Jessie, with

their four children, and Mr. Kelly, with his bride, Isabel. She has been

here just a week in the parsonage, which the people bought and fitted up

when they heard their clergyman was to bring his wife among them. Judge

Verner, too, is there, or rather at Squire Russell’s, where the children

call him grandpa, and where he seems very fond of staying. He will

divide his time between his daughters, and if that apoplectic fit of

which Jessie spoke ever does make its appearance, Richard will be near

to attend him, for the Judge will have no other physician. ‘Homœopathy

is all a humbug,’ he says, ‘but hanged if he will take any other

medicine.’ He has great pride now in Mrs. Squire Russell, who certainly

has developed into a wonderfully domestic woman, so that Richard even

cites her for my example. Perfectly happy at home, she seldom cares to

leave it, but stays contentedly with the children, to whom she is a

mother and a sister both. Johnnie calls her Jessie, but to the others

she is mamma to all intents and purposes, and could Margaret know, she

would surely bless the whistling, hoydenish girl, who is all the world

now to husband and children both.

“Dear Jessie! I might write volumes in her praise, but this is the very

last page of my journal, kept for so many years. The book is filled;

whatever there was of romance in my girl history is within its pages,

and here at its close I write myself a happy, happy woman. From the

church-tower on the common the clock is striking twelve, and Richard,

coming in from his long cold ride across the snow-clad hills, bids me a

merry Christmas; then glancing at what I have written, he says, ‘Yes,

darling, God has been very good to us. Let us love Him through the

coming year more than ever we have done before.’

“With a full heart I say Amen, and so the story is done.”

THE END.

THE RECTOR OF ST. MARK’S.

CHAPTER I.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON.

The Sunday sermon was finished, and the young rector of St. Mark’s

turned gladly from his study-table to the pleasant south window where

the June roses were peeping in, and abandoned himself for a few moments

to the feeling of relief he always experienced when his week’s work was

done. To say that no secular thoughts had intruded themselves upon the

rector’s mind, as he planned and wrote his sermon, would not be true,

for, though morbidly conscientious on many points and earnestly striving

to be a faithful shepherd of the souls committed to his care, Arthur

Leighton had all a man’s capacity to love and to be loved, and though he

fought and prayed against it, he had seldom brought a sermon to the

people of St. Mark’s in which there was not a thought of Anna Ruthven’s

soft, brown eyes, and the way they would look at him across the heads of

the congregation. Anna led the village choir, and the rector was

painfully conscious that far too much of earth was mingled with his

devotional feelings during the moments when, the singing over, he walked

from his chair to the pulpit, and heard the rustle of the crimson

curtain in the organ-loft as it was drawn back, disclosing to view five

heads, of which Anna’s was the centre. It was very wrong he knew, and on

the day when our story opens he had prayed earnestly for pardon, when,

after choosing his text, “Simon, Simon, lovest thou me?” instead of

plunging at once into his subject, he had, without a thought of what he

was doing, idly written upon a scrap of paper lying near, “Anna, Anna,

lovest thou me more than these?” the these referring to the wealthy

Thornton Hastings, his old classmate in college, who was going to

Saratoga this very summer for the purpose of meeting Anna Ruthven, and

deciding if she would do to become Mrs. Thornton Hastings, and mistress

of the house on Madison Square. With a bitter groan for the enormity of

his sin, and a fervent prayer for forgiveness, the rector had torn the

slips of paper in shreds and given himself so completely to his work,

that his sermon was done a full hour earlier than usual, and he was free

to indulge in reveries of Anna for as long a time as he pleased.

“I wonder if Mrs. Meredith has come,” he thought, as, with his feet upon

the window-sill, he sat looking across the meadow to where the chimneys

and gable roof of Captain Humphreys’ house were visible, for Captain

Humphreys was Anna Ruthven’s grandfather, and it was there she had lived

since she was three years old.

As if thoughts of Mrs. Meredith reminded him of something else, the

rector took from the drawer of his writing-table a letter received the

previous day, and opening to the second page, read as follows:

“Are you going anywhere this summer? Of course not, for so long as there

is an unbaptized child, or a bedridden old woman in the parish, you must

stay at home, even if you do grow as rusty as did Professor Cobden’s

coat before we boys made him a present of a new one. I say, Arthur,

there was a capital fellow spoiled when you took to the ministry, with

your splendid talents, and rare gift for making people like and believe

in you.

“Now, I suppose you will reply that for this denial of self you look for

your reward in heaven, and I suppose you are right; but as I have no

reason to think I have stock in that region, I go in for a good time

here, and this summer I take Saratoga, where I expect to meet one of

your lambs. I hear you have in your flock forty in all, their ages

varying from sixteen to fifty. But this particular lamb, Miss Anna

Ruthven, is, I think, the fairest of them all, and as I used to make you

my father confessor in the days when I was rusticated out in Winsted,

and fell so desperately in love with the six Miss Larkins, each old

enough to be my mother, so now I confide to you the programme as marked

out by Mrs. Julia Meredith, the general who brings the lovely Anna in

the field.

“We, that is, Mrs. Meredith and myself, are on the best of terms. I

lunch with her, dine with her, lounge in her parlors, drive her to the

park, take her to operas, concerts, and plays, and compliment her good

looks, which are wonderfully well-preserved for a woman of forty-five. I

am twenty-six, you know, and so no one ever associates us together in

any kind of gossip. She is the very quintessence of fashion, and I am

one of the danglers whose own light is made brighter by the reflection

of her rays. Do you see the point? Well, then, in return for my

attentions, she takes a very sisterly interest in my future wife, and

has adroitly managed to let me know of her niece, a certain Anna

Ruthven, who, inasmuch as I am tired of city belles, will undoubtedly

suit my fancy, said Anna being very fresh, very artless, and very

beautiful withal. She is also niece to Mrs. Meredith, whose only brother

married very far beneath him, when he took to wife the daughter of a

certain old-fashioned Captain Humphreys, a pillar, no doubt, in your

church. This young Ruthven was drowned, or hung, or something, and the

sister considers it as another proof of his wife’s lack of refinement

and discretion, that at her death, which happened when Anna was three

years old, she left her child to the charge of her parents, Captain

Humphreys and spouse, rather than to Mrs. Meredith’s care, and that,

too, in the very face of the lady’s having stood as sponsor for the

infant, an act which you will acknowledge as very unnatural and

ungrateful in Mrs. Ruthven, to say the least of it.

“You see I am telling you all this, just as if you did not know Miss

Anna’s antecedents even better than myself; but possibly you do not know

that, having arrived at a suitable age, she is this summer to be

introduced into society at Saratoga, while I am expected to fall in love

with her at once, and make her Mrs. Hastings before another winter. Now,

in your straightforward way of putting things, don’t imagine that Mrs.

Meredith has deliberately told me all this, for she has not; but I

understand her perfectly, and know exactly what she expects me to do.

Whether I do it or not depends partly upon how I like Miss Anna, partly

upon how she likes me, and partly upon yourself.

“You know I was always famous for presentiments or fancies, as you

termed them, and the latest of these is that you like Anna Ruthven. Do

you? Tell me, honor bright, and by the memory of the many scrapes you

got me out of, and the many more you kept me from getting into, I will

treat Miss Anna as gingerly and brotherly as if she were already your

wife. I like her picture, which I have seen, and believe I shall like

the girl, but if you say that by looking at her with longing eyes I

shall be guilty of breaking some one of the ten commandments,—I don’t

know which,—why, then, hands off at once. That’s fair, and will prove to

you that, although not a parson like yourself, there is still a spark of

honor, if not of goodness, in the breast of

“Yours truly,

“THORNTON HASTINGS.

“If you were here this afternoon, I’d take you to drive after a pair of

bays, which are to sweep the stakes at Saratoga this summer, and I’d

treat you to a finer cigar than often finds its way to Hanover. Shall I

send you out a box, or would your people pull down the church about the

ears of a minister wicked enough to smoke. Again adieu.

“T. H.”

There was a half-amused smile on the face of the rector as he finished

the letter, so like its thoughtless, light-hearted writer, and wondered

what the Widow Rider, across the way, would say of a clergyman who

smoked cigars, and rode after a race-horse with such a gay scapegrace as

Thornton Hastings. Then the amused look passed away, and was succeeded

by a shadow of pain, as the rector remembered the real import of

Thornton’s letter, and felt that he had no right to say, “I have a claim

on Anna Ruthven; you must not interfere.” For he had no claim on her,

though half his parishioners had long ago given her to him, while he had

loved her, as only natures like his can love, since that week before

Christmas, when their hands had met with a strange, tremulous flutter,

as together they fastened the wreaths of evergreen upon the wall, he

holding them up, and she driving the refractory tacks, which would keep

falling, so that his hand went often from the carpet or basin to hers,

and once accidentally closed almost entirely over the little soft white

thing, which felt so warm to his touch.

How prettily Anna had looked to him during those memorable days, so much

prettier than the other young girls of his flock, whose hair was tumbled

ere the day’s work was done, and whose dresses were soiled and

disordered; while hers was always so tidy and neat, and the braids of

her chestnut hair were always so smooth and bright. How well, too, he

remembered that brief ten minutes, when, in the dusky twilight which had

crept so early into the church, he stood alone with her and talked, he

did not know of what, only that he heard her voice replying to him, and

saw the changeful color on her cheek as she looked modestly into his

face. That was a week of delicious happiness, and the rector had lived

it over many times, wondering if, when the next Christmas came, it would

find him any nearer to Anna Ruthven than the last had left him.

“It must,” he suddenly exclaimed. “The matter shall be settled before

she leaves Hanover with Mrs. Meredith. My claim is superior to

Thornton’s, and he shall not take her from me. I’ll write what I lack

the courage to tell her, and to-morrow I will call and deliver it

myself.”

An hour later, and there was lying in the rector’s desk a letter, in

which he had told Anna Ruthven how much he loved her, and had asked her

to be his wife. Something whispered that she would not refuse him, and

with this hope to buoy him up, his two miles’ walk that warm afternoon

was neither warm nor tiresome, and the old lady by whose bedside he read

and prayed was surprised to hear him as he left her door, whistling an

old love-tune which she, too, had known and sang fifty years before.

CHAPTER II.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

Mrs. Julia Meredith had arrived, and the brown farm-house was in a state

of unusual excitement; not that Captain Humphreys or his good wife, Aunt

Ruth, respected very highly the great lady who so seldom honored them

with her presence, and who always tried to impress them with a sense of

her superiority, and the mighty favor she conferred upon them by

occasionally condescending to bring her aristocratic presence into their

quiet, plain household, and turn it topsy-turvy. Still she was Anna’s

aunt, and then it was a distinction which Aunt Ruth rather enjoyed,—that

of having a fashionable city woman for her guest,—and so she submitted

with a good grace to the breaking in upon all her customs, and uttered

no word of complaint when the breakfast-table waited till eight, and

sometimes nine o’clock, and the freshest eggs were taken from the nest,

and the cream all skimmed from the pans to gratify the lady who came

very charming and pretty in her handsome cambric wrapper, with rose-buds

in her hair. She had arrived the previous night, and while the rector

was penning his letter, she was running her eye rapidly over Anna’s face

and form, making an inventory of her charms, and calculating their

value.

“A very graceful figure, neither too short nor too tall. This she gets

from the Ruthvens. Splendid eyes and magnificent hair, when Valencia has

once taken it in hand. Complexion a little too brilliant, but a few

weeks of dissipation will cure that. Fine teeth, and features tolerably

regular, except that the mouth is too wide and the forehead too low,

which defects she takes from the Humphreys. Small feet and rather pretty

hands, except that they seem to have grown wide since I saw her before.

Can it be these horrid people have set her to milking the cows?”

These were Mrs. Meredith’s thoughts that first evening after her arrival

at the farm-house, and she had not materially changed her mind when the

next afternoon she went with Anna down to the Glen, for which she

affected a great fondness, because she thought it was romantic and

girlish to do so, and she was far from having passed the period when

women cease caring for youth and its appurtenances. She had criticised

Anna’s taste in dress,—had said that the belt she selected did not

harmonize with the color of the muslin she wore, and suggested that a

frill of lace about the neck would be softer and more becoming than the

stiff white linen collar.

“But in the country it does not matter,” she added. “Wait till I get you

to New York, under Madam Blank’s supervision, and then we shall see a

transformation such as will astonish the Hanoverians.”

This was up in Anna’s room; and when the Glen was reached Mrs. Meredith

continued the conversation, telling Anna of her plans for taking her

first to New York, where she was to pass through a reformatory process

with regard to dress. Then they were going to Saratoga, where she

expected her niece to reign supreme, both as a beauty and a belle.

“Whatever I have at my death I shall leave to you,” she said;

“consequently you will pass as an heiress expectant, and I confidently

expect you to make a brilliant match before the winter season closes,

if, indeed, you do not before we leave Saratoga.”

“O aunt,” Anna exclaimed, her eyes flashing with unwonted brilliancy,

and the rich color mantling her cheek. “You surely are not taking me to

Saratoga on such a shameful errand as that?”

“Shameful errand as what?” Mrs. Meredith asked, looking quickly up,

while Anna replied:

“Trying to find a husband. I cannot go if you are, much as I have

anticipated it. I should despise and hate myself forever. No, aunt, I

cannot go.”

“Nonsense, child. You don’t know what you are saying,” Mrs. Meredith

retorted, feeling intuitively that she must change her tactics and keep

her real intentions concealed if she would lead her niece into the snare

laid for her.

Cunningly and carefully for the next half hour she talked, telling Anna

that she was not to be thrust upon the notice of any one,—that she

herself had no patience with those intriguing mammas who push their bold

daughters forward, but that as a good marriage was the _ultima thule_ of

a woman’s hopes, it was but natural that she, as Anna’s aunt, should

wish to see her well settled in life, and settled, too, near herself,

where they could see each other every day.

“Of course there is no one in Hanover whom you, as a Ruthven, would

stoop to marry,” she said, fixing her eyes inquiringly upon Anna, who

was pulling to pieces the wild flowers she had gathered, and thinking of

that twilight hour when she had talked with their young clergyman as she

never talked before. Of the many times, too, when they had met in the

cottages of the poor, and he had walked slowly home with her, lingering

by the gate as if loth to say good-by, she thought, and the life she had

lived since he first came to Hanover, and she learned to blush when she

met the glance of his eye, looked fairer far than the life her aunt

marked out as the proper one for a Ruthven.

“You have not told me yet. Is there any one in Hanover whom you think

worthy of you?” Mrs. Meredith asked, just as a footstep was heard, and

the rector of St. Mark’s came round the rock where they were sitting.

He had called at the farm-house, bringing the letter, and with it a book

of poetry, of which Anna had asked the loan.

Taking advantage of her guest’s absence, Grandma Humphreys had gone to a

neighbor’s after a receipt for making a certain kind of cake, of which

Mrs. Meredith was very fond, and only Esther, the servant, and Valencia,

the smart waiting-maid, without whom Mrs. Meredith never travelled, were

left in charge.

“Miss Anna’s down in the Glen with Mrs. Meredith. Will you be pleased to

wait while I call them?” Esther said, in reply to the rector’s inquiries

for Miss Ruthven.

“No, I will find them myself,” Mr. Leighton rejoined. Then, as he

thought how impossible it would be to give the letter to Anna in the

presence of her aunt, he slipped it into the book, which he bade Esther

take to Miss Ruthven’s room.

Knowing how honest and faithful Esther was, the rector felt that he

could trust her without a fear for the safety of his letter, and went to

the Glen, where the tell-tale blushes which burned on Anna’s cheek at

sight of him more than compensated for the coolness with which Mrs.

Meredith greeted him. She, too, had detected Anna’s embarrassment, and

when the stranger was presented to her as “Mr. Leighton, our clergyman,”

the secret was out.

“Why is it that since the beginning of time girls have run wild after

young ministers?” was her mental comment, as she bowed to Mr. Leighton,

and then quietly inspected his _personnel_.

There was nothing about Arthur Leighton’s appearance with which she

could find fault. He was even finer-looking than Thornton Hastings, her

_beau ideal_ of a man, and as he stood a moment by Anna’s side, looking

down upon her, the woman of the world acknowledged to herself that they

were a well-assorted pair, and as across the chasm of twenty years there

came to her an episode in her life, when, on just such a day as this,

she had answered “no” to one as young and worthy as Arthur Leighton,

while all the time the heart was clinging to him, she softened for a

moment, and by the memory of the weary years passed with the rich old

man whose name she bore, she was tempted to leave alone the couple

standing there before her, and looking into each other’s eyes with a

look which she could not mistake. But when she remembered that Arthur

was only a poor clergyman, and thought of that house on Madison Square

which Thornton Hastings owned, the softened mood was changed, and Arthur

Leighton’s chance with her was gone.

Awhile they talked together in the Glen, and then walked back to the

farm-house, where the rector bade them good-evening, after casually

saying to Anna:

“I brought the book you spoke of when I was here last. You will find it

in your room, where I asked Esther to take it.”

That Mr. Leighton should bring her niece a book did not seem strange at

all, but that he should be so very thoughtful as to tell Esther to take

it to her room struck Mrs. Meredith as rather odd, and as the practised

war-horse scents the battle from afar, so she at once suspected

something wrong, and felt a curiosity to know what the book could be.

It was lying on Anna’s table as she reached the door on her way to her

own room, and pausing for a moment, she entered the chamber, took it in

her hands, read the title page, and then opened it where the letter lay.

“Miss Anna Ruthven,” she said. “He writes a fair hand;” and then, as the

thought, which at first was scarce a thought, kept growing in her mind,

she turned it over, and found that, owing to some defect, it had become

unsealed, and the lid of the envelope lay temptingly open before her. “I

would never break a seal,” she said, “but surely, as her protector, and

almost mother, I may read what this minister has written to my niece.”

And so she read what he had written, while a scowl of disapprobation

marred the smoothness of her brow.

“It is as I feared. Once let her see this, and Thornton Hastings may woo

in vain. But it shall not be. It is my duty, as the sister of her dead

father, to interfere, and not let her throw herself away.”

Perhaps Mrs. Meredith really felt that she was doing her duty. At all

events she did not give herself much time to reason upon the matter,

for, startled by a slight movement in the room directly opposite, the

door of which was ajar, she thrust the letter into her pocket, and

turned to see—Valencia, standing with her back to her, and arranging her

hair in a mirror which hung upon the wall.

“She could not have seen me; and, even if she did, she would not suspect

the truth,” was the guilty woman’s thought, as with the stolen missive

in her pocket she went down to the parlor, and tried, by petting Anna

more than her wont, to still the voice of conscience, which clamored

loudly of the wrong, and urged a restoration of the letter to the place

whence it was taken.

But the golden moment fled, and when, later in the evening, Anna went up

to her chamber, and opened the book which the rector had brought, she

never suspected how near she had been to the great happiness she had

sometimes dared to hope for, or dreamed how fervently Arthur Leighton

prayed that night, that if it were possible, God would grant the boon he

craved above all others,—the priceless gift of Anna Ruthven’s love.

CHAPTER III.

SUNDAY.

There was an unnatural flush on the rector’s face, and his lips were

very white, when he came before his people that Sunday morning, for he

felt that he was approaching the crisis of his fate; that he had only to

look across the row of heads, up to where Anna sat, and he should know

the truth. Such thoughts savored far too much of the world which he had

renounced, he knew, and he had striven to banish them from his mind; but

they were there still, and would be there until he had glanced once at

Anna, who was occupying her accustomed seat, and quietly turning to the

chant she was so soon to sing: “Oh, come, let us sing unto the Lord; let

us heartily rejoice in the strength of His salvation.” The words echoed

through the house, filling it with rare melody, for Anna was in perfect

tone that morning, and the rector, listening to her with hands folded

upon his prayer-book, felt that she could not thus “heartily rejoice,”

meaning all the while to darken his whole life, as she surely would if

she told him “no.” He was looking at her now, and she met his eyes at

last, but quickly dropped her own, while he was sure that the roses

burned a little brighter on her cheek, and that her voice trembled just

enough to give him hope, and help him in his fierce struggle to cast her

from his mind, and think only of the solemn services in which he was

engaging. He could not guess that the proud woman who had sailed so

majestically into church, and followed so reverently every prescribed

form, bowing in the creed far lower than ever bow was made before in

Hanover, had played him false, and was the dark shadow in his path.

That day was a trying one for Arthur, for, just as the chant was ended,

and the psalter was beginning, a handsome carriage dashed up to the

door, and had he been wholly blind, he would have known, by the sudden

sound of turning heads, and the suppressed hush which ensued, that a

perfect hailstorm of dignity was entering St. Mark’s.

It was the Hethertons, from Prospect Hill, whose arrival in town had

been so long expected. There was Mrs. Hetherton, who, more years ago

than she cared to remember, was born in Hanover, but who had lived most

of her life either in Paris, New York, or New Orleans, and who this year

had decided to fit up her father’s old place, and honor it with her

presence for a few weeks at least; also, Fanny Hetherton, a brilliant

brunette, into whose intensely black eyes no one could long look, they

were so bright, so piercing, and seemed so thoroughly to read one’s

inmost thoughts; also, Colonel Hetherton, who had served in the Mexican

war, and retiring on the glory of having once led a forlorn hope, now

spent his time in acting as attendant on his fashionable wife and

daughter; also, young Simon Bellamy, who, while obedient to the flashing

of Miss Fanny’s black eyes, still found stolen opportunities for

glancing at the fifth and last remaining member of the party, filing up

the aisle to the large, square pew, where old Judge Howard used to sit,

and which was still owned by his daughter. Mrs. Hetherton liked being

late at church, and, notwithstanding that the colonel had worked himself

into a tempest of excitement, had tied and untied her bonnet-strings

half a dozen times, changed her rich basquine for a thread lace

mantilla, and then, just as the bell from St. Mark’s gave forth its last

note, and her husband’s impatience was oozing out in sundry little

oaths, sworn under his breath, she produced and fitted on her fat, white

hands a new pair of Alexanders, keeping herself as cool, and quiet, and

ladylike as if outside upon the gravelled walk there was no wrathful

husband threatening to drive off and leave her, if she did not “quit her

cussed vanity, and come along.”

Such was the Hetherton party, and they created quite as great a

sensation as Mrs. Hetherton could desire, first upon the people nearest

the door, who rented the cheaper pews; then upon those farther up the

aisle, and then upon Mrs. Meredith, who, attracted by the rustling of

heavy silk and the perfume emanating from Mrs. Hetherton’s handkerchief,

slightly turned her head at first, and as the party swept by, stopped

her reading entirely, and involuntarily started forward, while a smile

of pleasure flitted across her face as Fanny’s black, saucy eyes took

her, with others, within their range of vision, and Fanny’s black head

nodded a quick nod of recognition. The Hethertons and Mrs. Meredith were

evidently friends, and in her wonder at seeing them there, in stupid

Hanover, the great lady forgot for a while to read, but kept her eyes

upon them all, especially upon the fifth and last-mentioned member of

the party, the graceful little blonde, whose eyes might have caught

their hue from the deep blue of the summer sky, and whose long silken

curls fell in a golden shower beneath the fanciful French hat. She was a

beautiful young creature, and even Anna Ruthven leaned forward to look

at her as she shook out her airy muslin and dropped into her seat. For a

moment the little coquettish head bowed reverently, but at the first

sound of the rector’s voice it lifted itself up quickly, and Anna saw

the bright color which rushed into her cheeks, and the eager joy which

danced in the blue eyes, fixed so earnestly upon the rector, who, at

sight of her, started suddenly, and paused an instant in his reading.

Who was she, and what was she to Arthur Leighton, Anna asked herself,

while, by the fierce pang which shot through her heart as she watched

the stranger and the clergyman, she knew that _she_ loved the rector of

St. Mark’s, even if she had doubted it before.

Anna was not an ill-tempered girl, but the sight of those gay city

people annoyed her, and when, as she sang the Jubilate Deo, she saw the

soft blue orbs of the blonde and the coal-black eyes of the brunette

turned wonderingly towards her, she was conscious of returning their

glance with as much of scorn as it was possible for her to show. Anna

tried to ask forgiveness for that feeling in the prayers which followed;

but when the services were over, and she saw a little figure in blue and

white flitting up the aisle to where Arthur, still in his robes, stood

waiting for her, an expression upon his face which she could not define

she felt that she had prayed in vain; and with a bitterness she had

never before experienced, she watched the meeting between them, growing

more and more bitter as she saw the upturned face, the wreathing of the

rose-bud lips into the sweetest of smiles, and the tiny white hand,

which Arthur took and held while he spoke words she would have given

much to hear.

“Why do I care? It’s nothing to me,” she thought, and, with a proud

step, she was leaving the church, when her aunt, who was shaking hands

with the Hethertons, signed for her to join her.

The blonde was now coming down the aisle with Mr. Leighton, and joined

the group just as Anna was introduced as “My niece, Miss Anna Ruthven.”

“Oh, you are the Anna of whom I have heard so much from Ada Fuller. You

were at school together in Troy,” Miss Fanny said, her searching eyes

taking in every point as if she were deciding how far her new

acquaintance was entitled to the praise she had heard bestowed upon her.

“I knew Miss Fuller,—yes;” and Anna bowed haughtily, turning next to the

blonde, Miss Lucy Harcourt, who was telling Colonel Hetherton how she

had met Mr. Leighton first among the Alps, and afterwards travelled with

him until their party returned to Paris, where he left them for America.

“I was never so surprised in my life as I was to find him here. Why, it

actually took my breath for a moment,” she went on, “and I greatly fear

that, instead of listening to his sermon, I have been roaming amid that

Alpine scenery, and basking again in the soft moonlight of Venice. I

heard you singing, though,” she said, when Anna was presented to her,

“and it helped to keep up the illusion, it was so like the music heard

from a gondola that night when Mr. Leighton and myself made a voyage

through the streets of Venice. Oh, it was so beautiful,” and the blue

eyes turned to Mr. Leighton for confirmation of what the lips had

uttered.

“Which was beautiful?—Miss Ruthven’s singing or that moonlight night in

Venice?” young Bellamy asked, smiling down upon the little lady, who

still held Anna’s hand, and who laughingly replied:

“Both, of course, though the singing is just now freshest in my memory,

I liked it so much. You must have had splendid teachers,” and she turned

again to Anna, whose face was suffused with blushes as she met the

rector’s eyes, for to his suggestions and criticisms and teachings she

owed much of that cultivation which had so pleased and surprised the

stranger.

“Oh, yes, I see it was _Arthur_. He tried to train me once, and told me

I had a squeak in my voice. Don’t you remember?—those frightfully rainy

days in Rome?” Miss Harcourt said, the _Arthur_ dropping from her lips

as readily as if they had always been accustomed to speak it.

She was a talkative, coquettish little lady, but there was something

about her so genuine and cordial, that Anna felt the ice thawing around

her heart, and even returned the pressure of the fingers which had

twined themselves around her, as Lucy rattled on until the whole party

left the church. It had been decided that Mrs. Meredith should call at

Prospect Hill as early as Tuesday, at least; and, still holding Anna’s

hand, Miss Harcourt whispered to her the pleasure it would be to see her

again.

“I know I am going to like you. I can tell directly I see a

person,—can’t I, Arthur?” and kissing her hand to Mrs. Meredith, Anna,

and the rector, too, she sprang into the carriage, and was whirled

rapidly away.

“Who is she?” Anna asked, and Mr. Leighton replied:

“She is an orphan niece of Colonel Hetherton’s and a great heiress, I

believe, though I never paid much attention to the absurd stories told

concerning her wealth.”

“You met in Europe,” Mrs. Meredith said, and he replied:

“Yes, she has been quite an invalid, and has spent four years abroad,

where I accidently met her. It was a very pleasant party, and I was

induced to join it, though I was with them in all not more than four

months.”

He told this very rapidly, and an acute observer would have seen that he

did not care particularly to talk of Lucy Harcourt, with Anna for an

auditor. She was walking very demurely at his side, pondering in her

mind the circumstances which could have brought the rector and Lucy

Harcourt in such familiar relations as to warrant her calling him

Arthur, and appearing so delighted to see him.

“Can it be there was anything between them?” she thought, and her heart

began to harden against the innocent Lucy, at that very moment chatting

so pleasantly of her and of Arthur, too, replying to Mrs. Hetherton, who

suggested that _Mr. Leighton_ would be more appropriate for a clergyman:

“I shall say Arthur, for he told me I might when we were in Rome. I

could not like him as well if I called him Mr. Leighton. Isn’t he

splendid though in his gown, and wasn’t his sermon grand?”

“What was the text?” asked Mr. Bellamy mischievously, and with a toss of

her golden curls and a merry twinkle of her eyes, Lucy replied, “Simon,

Simon, lovest thou me?”

Quick as a flash of lightning the hot blood mounted to his face, while

Fanny cast upon him a searching glance as if she would read him through.

Fanny Hetherton would have given much to know the answer which Mr. Simon

Bellamy mentally gave to that question, put by one whom he had known but

little more than three months. It was not fair for Lucy to steal away

all Fanny’s beaux, as she surely had been doing ever since her feet

touched the soil of the New World, and truth to tell Fanny had borne it

very well, until young Mr. Bellamy showed signs of desertion. Then the

spirit of resistance was roused, and she watched her lover narrowly,

gnashing her teeth sometimes when she saw his ill-concealed admiration

for her sprightly little cousin, who could say and do with perfect

impunity so many things which in another would have been improper to the

last degree. She was a tolerably correct reader of human nature, and

from the moment she witnessed the meeting between Lucy and the rector of

St. Mark’s she took courage, for she readily guessed the channel in

which her cousin’s preference ran. The rector, however, she could not

read so well; but few men she knew could withstand the fascinations of

her cousin, backed as they were by the glamour of half a million; and

though her mother, and possibly her father too, would be shocked at the

_mésalliance_ and throw obstacles in its way, she was capable of

removing them all, and she would do it, too, sooner than lose the only

man she had ever cared for. These were Fanny’s thoughts as she rode home

from church that Sunday afternoon, and by the time Prospect Hill was

reached Lucy Harcourt could not have desired a more powerful ally than

she possessed in the person of her resolute, strong-willed cousin.

CHAPTER IV.

BLUE MONDAY.

It was to all intents and purposes “blue Monday” with the rector of St.

Mark’s, for aside from the weariness and exhaustion which always

followed his two services on Sunday, and his care of the Sunday-school,

there was a feeling of disquiet and depression, occasioned partly by

that _rencontre_ with pretty Lucy Harcourt, and partly by the

uncertainty as to what Anna’s answer might be. He had seen the look of

displeasure on her face as she stood watching him and Lucy, and though

to many this would have given hope, it only added to his nervous fears

lest his suit should be denied. He was sorry that Lucy Harcourt was in

the neighborhood, and sorrier still for her tenacious memory, which had

evidently treasured up every incident which he could wish forgotten.

With Anna Ruthven absorbing every thought and feeling of his heart, it

was not pleasant to remember what had been a genuine flirtation between

himself and the sparkling belle he had met among the Alps.

It was nothing but a flirtation he knew, for in his inmost soul he

absolved himself from ever having had a thought of matrimony connected

with Lucy Harcourt. He had admired her greatly and loved to wander with

her amid the Alpine scenery, listening to her wild bursts of enthusiasm,

and watching the kindling light in her blue eyes, and the color coming

to her thin, pale cheeks, as she gazed upon some scene of grandeur, and

clung close to him as for protection, when the path was fraught with

peril.

Afterwards in Venice, beneath the influence of those glorious moonlight

nights, he had been conscious of a deeper feeling, which, had he tarried

longer at the syren’s side, might have ripened into love. But he left

her just in time to escape what he felt would have been a most

unfortunate affair for him, for sweet and beautiful as she was, Lucy was

not the wife for a clergyman to choose. She was not like Anna Ruthven,

whom both young and old had said was so suitable for him.

“And just because she is suitable, I may not win her, perhaps,” he

thought, as he paced up and down his library, wondering when she would

answer his letter, and wondering next how he could persuade Lucy

Harcourt that between the young theological student, sailing in a

gondola through the streets of Venice, and the rector of St. Mark’s,

there was a vast difference; that while the former might be Arthur with

perfect propriety, the latter should be Mr. Leighton, in Anna’s

presence, at least.

And yet the rector of St. Mark’s was conscious of a pleasurable emotion,

even now, as he recalled the time when she had, at his request, first

called him Arthur, her birdlike voice hesitating just a little, and her

soft eyes looking coyly up to him, as she said:

“I am afraid that Arthur is hardly the name by which to call a

clergyman.”

“I am not in orders yet, so let me be Arthur to you. I love to hear you

call me so, and you to me shall be Lucy,” was his reply.

A mutual clasp of hands had sealed the compact, and that was the nearest

to a love-making of anything which had passed between them, if we except

the time when he had said good-by, and wiped away the tear which came

unbidden to her eye as she told him how lonely she should be without

him.

Hers was a nature as transparent as glass, and the young man, who for

days had paced the ship’s deck so moodily, was fighting back the

thoughts which whispered that in his intercourse with her he had not

been all guileless, and that if in her girlish heart there was feeling

for him stronger than that of friendship, he had helped to give it life.

Time and absence and Anna Ruthven had obliterated all such thoughts till

now, when Lucy herself had brought them back again with her winsome

ways, and her evident intention to begin just where they had left off.

“Let Anna tell me yes, and I will at once proclaim our engagement, which

will relieve me from all embarrassments in that quarter,” the clergymen

was thinking, just as his housekeeper came up, bringing him two notes,

one in a strange handwriting, and the other in the graceful running hand

which he recognized as Lucy Harcourt’s.

This he opened first, reading as follows:

“PROSPECT HILL, June —.”

“MR. LEIGHTON.—DEAR SIR:—Cousin Fanny is to have a picnic down in the

west woods to-morrow afternoon, and she requests the pleasure of your

presence. Mrs. Meredith and Miss Ruthven are to be invited. Do come.

“Yours truly,

“LUCY.”

Yes, he would go, and if Anna’s answer did not come before, he would ask

her for it. There would be plenty of opportunities down in those deep

woods. On the whole, it would be pleasanter to hear the words from her

own lips, and see the blushes on her cheeks when he tried to look into

her eyes.

The imaginative rector could almost see those eyes, and feel the touch

of her hand as he took the other note, which Mrs. Meredith had shut

herself in her room to write, and sent slyly by Valencia, who was to

tell no one where she had been.

A gleam of intelligence had shone in Valencia’s eyes as she took the

note and carried it safely to the parsonage, never yielding to the

temptation to read it as she had read the one found in her mistress’s

pocket, while the family were at church.

Mrs. Meredith’s note was as follows:

“MY DEAR MR. LEIGHTON:—It is my niece’s wish that I answer the letter

you were so kind as to enclose in the book left for her last Saturday.

She desires me to say that though she has a very great regard for you as

her clergyman and friend, she cannot be your wife, and she regrets

exceedingly if she has in any way led you to construe the interest she

has always manifested in you into a deeper feeling.

“She begs me to say that it gives her great pain to refuse one as noble

and good as she knows you to be, and she only does it because she cannot

find in her heart the love without which no marriage can be happy.

“She is really very wretched about it, because she fears she may lose

your friendship, which she prizes so much; and, as a proof that she will

not, she asks that the subject may never, in any way, be alluded to;

that when you meet it may be exactly as heretofore, without a word or

sign on your part that you ever offered her the highest honor a man can

offer a woman.

“And I am sure, my dear Mr. Leighton, that you will accede to her

wishes. I am very sorry it has occurred, sorry for you both, and

especially sorry for you; but believe me, you will get over it in time,

and come to see that my niece is not a proper person to be a clergyman’s

wife.

“Come and see us as usual. You will find Anna appearing very natural.

“Yours cordially and sincerely,

“JULIE MEREDITH.”

This was the letter which the cruel woman had written, and it dropped

from the rector’s fingers, as, with a groan, he bent his head upon the

back of a chair, and tried to realize the magnitude of the blow which

had fallen so suddenly upon him. Not till now did he realize how, amid

all his doubts, he had still been sure of winning her, and the shock was

terrible.

He had staked his all on Anna, and lost it; the world, which before had

been so bright, looked very dreary now, while he felt that he could

never again come before his people weighed down with so great a load of

pain and humiliation; for it touched the young man’s pride that, not

content to refuse him, Anna had chosen another than herself as the

medium through which her refusal must be conveyed to him. He did not

fancy Mrs. Meredith. He would rather she did not possess his secret, and

it hurt him to know that she did.

It was a bitter hour for the clergyman, for strong and clear as was his

faith in God, he lost sight of it for a time, and poor, weak human

nature cried:

“It’s more than I can bear.”

But as the mother does not forget her child, even though she passes from

its sight, so God had not forgotten, and the darkness broke at last and

the lips could pray again for strength to bear and faith to do all that

God might require.

“Though He slay me I will trust Him,” came like a ray of sunlight into

the rector’s mind; and ere the day was over he could say with a full

heart, “Thy will be done.”

He was very pale, and his lip quivered occasionally as he thought of all

he had lost, while a blinding headache, induced by strong excitement,

drove him nearly wild with pain. He had been subject to headaches all

his life, but he had never suffered as he was suffering now but once,

and that on a rainy day in Rome, when, boasting of her mesmeric power,

Lucy had stood by him, and passed her hands soothingly across his

throbbing temples.

How soft and cool they were,—but they had not thrilled him as the touch

of Anna’s did when they hung the Christmas wreaths and she wore that

bunch of scarlet berries in her hair.

That time seemed very far away, farther even than Rome and the moonlight

nights of Venice. He did not like to think of it, for the bright hopes

which were budding then were blighted now, and dead; and with a moan, he

laid his aching head upon his pillow, and tried to forget all he had

ever hoped or longed for in the future.

“She will marry Thornton Hastings. He is a more eligible match than a

poor clergyman,” he said, and then, as he remembered Thornton’s letter,

and that his man Thomas would be coming soon to ask if there were

letters to be taken to the office, he arose, and going to the study

table, wrote hastily:

“DEAR THORNE:—I am suffering from one of those horrid headaches which

used to make me as weak and helpless as a woman, but I will write just

enough to say that I have no claim on Anna Ruthven, and you are free to

press your suit as urgently as you please. She is a noble girl, worthy

even to be Mrs. Thornton Hastings, and if I cannot have her, I would

rather give her to you than any one I know. Only don’t ask me to perform

the ceremony.

“There, I’ve let the secret out, but no matter, I have always confided

in you, and so I may as well confess that I have offered myself and been

refused.

“Yours truly,

“ARTHUR LEIGHTON.”

The rector felt better after that letter was written. He had told his

grievance to some one, and it seemed to have lightened half the load.

“Thorne is a good fellow,” he said, as he directed the letter. “A little

fast, it’s true, but a splendid fellow after all. He will sympathize

with me in his way, and I would rather give Anna to him than any other

living man.”

Arthur was serious in what he said, for, wholly unlike as they were,

there was between him and Thornton Hastings one of those strong

friendships which sometimes exist between two men, but rarely between

two women, of so widely different temperaments. They had roomed together

four years in college, and countless were the difficulties from which

the sober Arthur had extricated the luckless Thorne, while many a time

the rather slender means of Arthur had been increased in a way so

delicate that expostulation was next to impossible.

Arthur was better off now in worldly goods, for by the death of an uncle

he had come in possession of a few thousand dollars, which had enabled

him to travel in Europe for a year, and left a surplus, from which he

fed the poor and needy with no sparing hand.

St. Mark’s was his first parish, and though he could have chosen one

nearer to New York, where the society was more congenial to his taste,

he had accepted of what God offered to him, and had been very happy

there since Anna Ruthven came home from Troy and made such havoc with

his heart. He did not believe he should ever be quite so happy again,

but he would try to do his work, and take thankfully whatever of good

might come to him.

This was his final decision, and when at last he laid down to rest, the

wound, though deep and sore, and bleeding yet, was not quite as hard to

bear as it had been earlier in the day, when it was fresh and raw, and

faith and hope seemed swept away.

CHAPTER V.

TUESDAY.

That open grassy spot in the dense shadow of the west woods was just the

place for a picnic, and it looked very bright and pleasant that warm

June afternoon, with the rustic table so fancifully arranged, the

camp-stools scattered over the lawn, and the bouquets of flowers

depending from the trees.

Fanny Hetherton had given it her whole care, aided and abetted by Mr.

Bellamy, what time he could spare from Lucy, who, endued with a mortal

fear of insects, seemed this day to gather scores of bugs and worms upon

her dress and hair, screaming with every worm, and bringing Simon

obediently to her aid.

“I’d stay at home, I think, if I was silly enough to be afraid of a

harmless caterpillar like that,” Fanny had said, as with her own hands

she took from Lucy’s curls and threw away a thousand-legged thing, the

very sight of which made poor Lucy shiver, but did not send her to the

house.

She was too much interested and too eagerly expectant of what the

afternoon would bring, and so she perched herself upon the fence where

nothing but ants could molest her, and finished the bouquets which Fanny

hung upon the trees until the lower limbs seemed one mass of blossoms

and the air was filled with the sweet perfume.

Lucy was bewitchingly beautiful that afternoon in her dress of white,

with her curls tied up with a blue ribbon, and her fair arms bare nearly

to the shoulders. Fanny, whose arms were neither plump nor white, had

expostulated with her cousin upon this style of dress, suggesting that

one as delicate as she could not fail to take a heavy cold when the dews

began to fall; but Lucy would not listen. Arthur Leighton had told her

once that he liked her with bare arms, and bare they should be. She was

bending every energy to please and captivate him, and a cold was of no

consequence provided she succeeded. So like some little fairy, she

danced and flitted about, making fearful havoc with Mr. Bellamy’s wits,

and greatly vexing Fanny, who hailed with delight the arrival of Mrs.

Meredith and Anna. The latter was very pretty and very becomingly

attired in a light, airy dress of blue, finished at the throat and

wrists with an edge of soft, fine lace. She, too, had thought of Arthur

in the making of her toilet, and it was for him that the white rose-buds

were placed in her heavy braids of hair, and fastened on her belt. She

was very sorry that she had allowed herself to be vexed with Lucy

Harcourt for her familiarity with Mr. Leighton, very hopeful that he had

not observed it, and very certain now of his preference for herself. She

would be very gracious that afternoon, she thought, and not one bit

jealous of Lucy, though she called him Arthur a hundred times.

Thus it was in the most amiable of moods that Anna appeared upon the

lawn, where she was warmly welcomed by Lucy, who, seizing both her

hands, led her away to see their arrangements, chatting gayly all the

time, and casting rapid glances up the lane as if in quest of some one.

“I’m so glad you’ve come. I’ve thought of you so much. Do you know it

seems to me there must be some bond of sympathy between us, or I should

not like you so well at once. I drove by the rectory early this morning,

the dearest little place, with such a lovely garden. Arthur was working

in it, and I made him give me some roses. See, I have one in my curls.

Then, when he brought them to the carriage, I kept him there while I

asked numberless questions about you, and heard from him just how good

you are, and how you help him in the Sunday-school and everywhere,

visiting the poor, picking up ragged children, and doing things I never

thought of doing; but I am not going to be so useless any longer, and

the next time you visit some of the very miserablest, I want you to take

me with you.

“Do you ever meet Arthur there? Oh, here he comes,” and with a bound,

Lucy darted away from Anna towards the spot where the rector stood

receiving Mrs. and Miss Hetherton’s greeting.

As Lucy had said, she had driven by the rectory, with no earthly object

but the hope of seeing the rector, and had hurt him cruelly with her

questionings of Anna, and annoyed him a little with her anxious

inquiries as to the cause of his pallid face and sunken eyes; but she

was so bewitchingly pretty, and so thoroughly kind withal, that he could

not be annoyed long, and he felt better for having seen her bright,

coquettish face, and listened to her childish prattle. It was a great

trial for him to attend the picnic that afternoon, but he met it

bravely, and schooled himself to appear as if there were no such things

in the world as aching hearts and cruel disappointments. His face was

very pale, but his recent headache would account for that, and he acted

his part successfully, shivering a little, it is true, when Anna

expressed her sorrow that he should suffer so often from these attacks,

and suggested that he take a short vacation and go with them to

Saratoga.

“I should so much like to have you,” she said, and her clear honest eyes

looked him straight in the face, as she asked why he could not.

“What does she mean?” the rector thought. “Is she trying to tantalize

me? I expected her to be _natural_, as her aunt laid great stress on

that, but she need not overdo the matter by showing me how little she

cares for having hurt me so.”

Then, as a flash of pride came to his aid, he thought, “I will at least

be even with her. She shall not have the satisfaction of guessing how

much I suffer,” and as Lucy then called to him from the opposite side of

the lawn, he asked Anna to accompany him thither, just as he would have

done a week before. Once that afternoon he found himself alone with her

in a quiet part of the woods, where the long branches of a great oak

came nearly to the ground, and formed a little bower which looked so

inviting that Anna sat down upon the gnarled roots of the tree, and

tossing her hat upon the grass, exclaimed, “How nice and pleasant it is

in here. Come sit down, too, while I tell you again about my class in

Sunday-school, and that poor Mrs. Hobbs across the millstream. You won’t

forget her, will you? I told her you would visit her the oftener when I

was gone. Do you know she cried because I was going? It made me feel so

badly that I doubted if it was right for me to go,” and pulling down a

handful of the oak-leaves above her head, Anna began weaving a chaplet,

while the rector stood watching her with a puzzled expression upon his

face. She did not act as if she ever could have dictated that letter,

but he had no suspicion of the truth, and answered rather coldly, “I did

not suppose you cared how much we might miss you at home.”

Something in his tone made Anna look up into his face, and her eyes

immediately filled with tears, for she knew that in some way she had

displeased him.

“Then you mistake me,” she replied, the tears still glittering on her

long eyelashes, and her fingers trembling among the oaken leaves. “I do

care whether I am missed or not.”

“Missed by whom?” the rector asked, and Anna impetuously replied,

“Missed by the parish poor, and by you, too, Mr. Leighton. You don’t

know how often I shall think of you, or how sorry I am that—”

She did not finish the sentence, for the rector had leaped madly at a

conclusion, and was down in the grass at her side with both her hands in

his.

“Anna, O Anna,” he began so pleadingly, “have you repented of your

decision? Tell me that you have and it will make me so happy. I have

been so wretched ever since.”

She thought he meant her decision about going to Saratoga, and she

replied, “I have not repented, Mr. Leighton. Aunt Meredith thinks it’s

best, and so do I, though I am sorry for you, if you really do care so

much.”

Anna was talking blindly, her thoughts upon one subject, while the

rector’s were upon another, and matters were getting somewhat mixed

when, “Arthur, Arthur, where are you?” came ringing through the woods,

and Lucy Harcourt appeared, telling them that the refreshments were

ready. “We are only waiting for you two, wondering where you had gone,

but never dreaming that you had stolen away to make love,” she said

playfully, adding more earnestly as she saw the traces of agitation

visible in Anna’s face, “and I do believe you were. If so, I beg pardon

for my intrusion.”

She spoke a little sharply, and glanced inquiringly at Mr. Leighton,

who, feeling that he had virtually been repulsed a second time by Anna,

answered her, “On the contrary, I am very glad you came, and so I am

sure is Miss Anna. I am ready to join you at the table. Come, Anna, they

are waiting,” and he offered his arm to the bewildered girl, who

replied, “Not just now, please. Leave me for a moment. I won’t be long.”

Very curiously Lucy looked at Anna, and then at Mr. Leighton, who, fully

appreciating the feelings of the latter, said, by way of explanation,

“You see she has not quite finished that chaplet which I suspect is

intended for you. I think we had better leave her,” and drawing Lucy’s

arm under his own, he walked away, leaving Anna, more stunned and pained

than she had ever been before. Surely if _love_ had ever spoken in voice

and manner, it had spoken when Mr. Leighton was kneeling on the grass,

holding her hands in his. “Anna, O Anna;” how she had thrilled at the

sound of those words and waited for what might follow next. Why had his

manner changed so suddenly, and why had he been so glad to be

interrupted. Had he really no intention of making love to her; and if

so, why did he rouse her hopes so suddenly and then cruelly dash them to

the ground? Was it that he loved Lucy best, and that the sight of her

froze the words upon his lips?

“Let him take her, then. He is welcome for all of me,” she thought; and

as a keen pang of shame and disappointment swept over her, she laid her

head for a moment upon the grass and wept bitterly. “He must have seen

what I expected, and I care most for that,” she sobbed, resolving

henceforth to guard herself at every point, and do all that lay in her

power to further Lucy’s interests. “He will thus see how little I really

care,” she said, and lifting up her head she tore in fragments the

wreath she had been making but which she could not now place on the head

of her rival.

Mr. Leighton was flirting terribly with Lucy when she joined the party

assembled around the table, and he never once looked at Anna, though he

saw that her plate was well supplied with the best of everything, and

when at one draught she drained her glass of ice-water, he quietly

placed another within her reach, standing a little before her and trying

evidently to shield her from too critical observation. There were two at

least who were glad when the picnic was over, and various were the

private opinions of the company with regard to the entertainment. Mr.

Bellamy, who had been repeatedly foiled in his attempts to be especially

attentive to Lucy Harcourt, pronounced the whole thing “a bore,” Fanny,

who had been highly displeased with his deportment, came to the

conclusion that the enjoyment did not compensate for all the trouble;

and while the rector thought he had never spent a more thoroughly

wretched day, and Anna would have given worlds if she had stayed at

home, Lucy declared that never in her life had she had so perfectly

delightful a time, always excepting, of course, “that moon light sail in

Venice.”

CHAPTER VI.

WEDNESDAY.

There was a heavy shower the night succeeding the picnic, and the

morning following was as balmy and bright as June mornings are wont to

be after a fall of rain. They were always early risers at the

farm-house, but this morning Anna, who had slept but little, arose

earlier than usual, and leaning from the window to inhale the bracing

air and gather a bunch of roses fresh with the glittering rain-drops,

felt her spirits grow lighter, and wondered at her discomposure of the

previous day. Particularly was she grieved that she should have harbored

a feeling of bitterness towards Lucy Harcourt, who was not to blame for

having won the love she had been foolish enough to covet.

“He knew her first,” she said, “and if he has since been pleased with

me, the sight of her has won him back to his allegiance, and it is

right. She is a pretty creature, but strangely unsuited, I fear, to be

his wife,” and then, as she remembered Lucy’s wish to go with her when

next she visited the poor, she said:

“I’ll take her to see the Widow Hobbs. That will give her some idea of

the duties which will devolve upon her as a rector’s wife. I can go

directly there from Prospect Hill, where, I suppose, I must call with

Aunt Meredith.”

Anna made herself believe that in doing this she was acting only from a

magnanimous desire to fit Lucy for her work, if, indeed, she was to be

Arthur’s wife,—that in taking the mantle from her own shoulders, and

wrapping it around her rival, she was doing a most amiable deed, when

down in her inmost heart, where the tempter had put it, there was an

unrecognized wish to see how the little dainty girl would shrink from

the miserable abode, and recoil from the touch of the dirty hands, which

were sure to be laid upon her dress if the children were at home, and

she waited impatiently to start on her errand of mercy.

It was four o’clock when, with her aunt, she arrived at Colonel

Hetherton’s, and found the family assembled upon the broad piazza,—Mr.

Bellamy dutifully holding the skein of worsted from which Miss Fanny was

crocheting, and Lucy playing with a kitten, whose movements were

scarcely more graceful than her own, as she sprang up and ran to welcome

Anna.

“Oh yes; I shall be delighted to go with you. Pray let us start at

once,” she exclaimed, when after a few moments’ conversation Anna told

where she was going.

Lucy was very gayly dressed, and Anna smiled to herself as she imagined

the startling effect the white muslin and bright ribbons would have upon

the inmates of the shanty where they were going. There was a

remonstrance from Mrs. Hetherton against her niece walking so far, and

Mrs. Meredith suggested that they should ride, but to this Lucy

objected. She meant to take Anna’s place among the poor when she was

gone, she said, and how was she ever to do it if she could not walk so

little ways as that. Anna, too, was averse to the riding, and felt a

kind of grim satisfaction when, after a time, the little figure, which

at first had skipped along with all the airiness of a bird, began to

lag, and even pant for breath, as the way grew steeper and the path more

stony and rough. Anna’s evil spirit was in the ascendant that afternoon,

steeling her heart against Lucy’s doleful exclamations, as one after

another her delicate slippers were torn, and the sharp thistles, of

which the path was full, penetrated to her soft flesh. Straight and

unbending as a young Indian, Anna walked on, shutting her ears against

the sighs of weariness which reached them from time to time. But when

there came a half-sobbing cry of actual pain, she stopped suddenly and

turned towards Lucy, whose breath came gaspingly, and whose cheeks were

almost purple with the exertions she had made.

“I cannot go any farther until I rest,” she said, sinking down exhausted

upon a large flat rock beneath a walnut-tree.

Touched with pity at the sight of the heated face, from which the sweat

was dripping, Anna too sat down beside her, and laying the curly head in

her lap, she hated herself cordially, as Lucy said:

“You’ve walked so fast I could not keep up. You do not know, perhaps,

how weak I am, and how little it takes to tire me. They say my heart is

diseased, and an unusual excitement might kill me.”

“No, oh no!” Anna answered with a shudder, as she thought of what might

have been the result of her rashness, and then she smoothed the wet

hair, which, dried by the warm sunbeams, coiled itself up in golden

masses, which her fingers softly threaded.

“I did not know it until that time in Venice when Arthur talked to me so

good, trying to make me feel that it was not hard to die, even if I was

so young and the world so full of beauty,” Lucy went on, her voice

sounding very low, and her bright shoulder-knots of ribbon trembling

with the rapid beating of her heart. “When he was talking to me I could

be almost willing to die, but the moment he was gone the doubts and

fears came back, and death was terrible again. I was always better with

Arthur. Everybody is, and I think your seeing so much of him is one

reason why you are so good.”

“No, no, I am not good,” and Anna’s hands pressed hard upon the girlish

head lying in her lap. “I am wicked beyond what you can guess. I led you

this rough way when I might have chosen a smooth though longer road, and

walked so fast on purpose to worry you.”

“To worry _me_. Why should you wish to do that?” and lifting up her

head, Lucy looked wonderingly at the conscience-stricken Anna, who could

not confess to the jealousy, but who in all other respects answered

truthfully: “I think an evil spirit possessed me for a time, and I

wanted to show you that it was not so nice to visit the poor as you

seemed to think, but I am sorry, oh so sorry, and you’ll forgive me,

won’t you?”

A loving kiss was pressed upon her lips and a warm cheek was laid

against her own, as Lucy said, “Of course I’ll forgive you, though I do

not quite understand why you should wish to discourage me or tease me

either, when I liked you so much from the first moment I heard your

voice, and saw you in the choir. You don’t dislike me, do you?”

“No, oh no. I love you very dearly,” Anna replied, her tears falling

like rain upon the slight form she hugged so passionately to her, and

which she would willingly have borne in her arms the remainder of the

way, as a kind of penance for her past misdeeds; but Lucy was much

better, and so the two, between whom there was now a bond of love which

nothing could sever, went on together to the low dismal house where the

Widow Hobbs lived.

The gate was off the hinges, and Lucy’s muslin was torn upon a nail as

she passed through, while the long fringe of her fleecy shawl was caught

in the tall tufts of thistle growing by the path. In a muddy pool of

water, a few rods from the house, a flock of ducks were swimming, pelted

occasionally by the group of dirty, ragged children playing on the

grass, and who, at sight of the strangers and the basket Anna carried,

sprang up like a flock of pigeons, and came trooping towards her. It was

not the sweet, pastoral scene which Lucy had pictured to herself, with

Arthur for the background, and her ardor was greatly dampened even

before the threshold was crossed, and she stood in the low, close room

where the sick woman lay, her eyes unnaturally bright, and turned

wistfully upon them as she entered. There were ashes upon the hearth and

ashes upon the floor, a hair-brush upon the table and an empty plate

upon the chair, with swarms of flies sipping the few drops of molasses

and feeding upon the crumbs of bread left there by the elfish-looking

child now in the bed beside its mother. There was nothing but

poverty,—squalid, disgusting poverty, visible everywhere, and Lucy grew

sick and faint at the, to her, unusual sight.

“They have not lived here long. We only found them three weeks ago; they

will look better by and by,” Anna whispered, feeling that some apology

was necessary for the destitution and filth visible everywhere.

Daintily removing the plate to the table, and carefully tucking up her

skirts, Lucy sat down upon the wooden chair and looked dubiously on

while Anna made the sick woman more tidy in appearance, and then fed her

from the basket of provisions which Grandma Humphreys had sent.

“I never could do that,” Lucy thought, as shoving off the little dirty

hand fingering her shoulder-knots she watched Anna washing the poor

woman’s face, and bending over her pillow as unhesitatingly as if it had

been covered with ruffled linen like those at Prospect Hill, instead of

the coarse soiled rag which hardly deserved the name of pillow-case.

“No, I never could do that,” and the possible life with Arthur which the

maiden had more than once imagined began to look very dreary, when

suddenly a shadow darkened the door, and Lucy knew before she turned her

head that the rector was standing at her back, and the blood tingled

through her veins with a delicious feeling; as, laying both his hands

upon her shoulders, and bending over her so that she felt his breath

upon her brow, he said:

“What, my lady Lucy here? I hardly expected to find two ministering

angels, though I was almost sure of one,” and his eye rested on Anna

with a wistful look of tenderness, which neither she nor Lucy saw.

“Then you knew she was coming,” Lucy said, an uneasy thought flashing

across her mind as she remembered the picnic, and the scene she had

stumbled upon.

But Arthur’s reply, “I did not know she was coming; I only knew it was

like her,” reassured her for a time, making her resolve to emulate the

virtues which Arthur seemed to prize so highly. What a difference his

presence made in that wretched room. She did not mind the poverty now,

or care if her dress was stained with the molasses left in the chair,

and the inquisitive child with tattered gown and bare, brown legs was

welcome to examine and admire the bright plaid ribbons as much as she

chose.

Lucy had no thought for anything but Arthur, and the subdued expression

of his face, as kneeling by the sick woman’s bedside he said the prayers

she had hungered for more than for the contents of Anna’s basket, which

were now purloined by the children crouched upon the hearth and fighting

over the last bit of gingerbread.

“Hush-sh, little one,” and Lucy’s hand rested on the head of the

principal belligerent, who, awed by the beauty of her face and the

authoritative tone of her voice, kept quiet till the prayer was over and

Arthur had risen from his knees.

“Thank you, Lucy; I think I must constitute you my deaconess when Miss

Ruthven is gone. Your very presence has a subduing effect upon the

little savages. I never knew them so quiet before so long a time,”

Arthur said to Lucy in a low tone, which, low as it was, reached Anna’s

ear, but brought no pang of jealousy or sharp regret for what she felt

was lost forever.

She was giving Lucy to Arthur Leighton, resolving that by every means in

her power she would further her rival’s cause, and the hot tears which

dropped so fast upon Mrs. Hobbs’s pillow while Arthur said the prayer

were but the baptism of that vow, and not, as Lucy thought, because she

felt so sorry for the suffering woman who had brought so much comfort to

her.

“God bless you wherever you go,” she said, “and if there is any great

good which you desire, may He bring it to pass.”

“He never will,—no, never,” was the sad response in Anna’s heart, as she

joined the clergyman and Lucy, who were standing outside the door, the

former pointing to the ruined slippers, and asking her how she ever

expected to walk home in such dilapidated things.

“I shall certainly have to carry you,” he said, “or your blistered feet

will evermore be thrust forward as a reason why you cannot be my

deaconess.”

He seemed to be in unusual spirits that afternoon, and the party went

gayly on, Anna keeping a watchful care over Lucy, picking out the

smoothest places, and passing her arm round her waist as they were going

up a hill.

“I think it would be better if you both leaned on me,” the rector said,

offering each an arm, and apologizing for not having thought to do so

before.

“I do not need it, thank you, but Miss Harcourt does. I fear she is very

tired,” said Anna, pointing to Lucy’s face, which was so white and

ghastly and so like the face seen once before in Venice, that without

another word, Arthur took the tired girl in his strong arms and carried

her safely to the summit of the hill.

“Please put me down; I can walk now,” Lucy pleaded; but Arthur felt the

rapid beatings of her heart, and kept her in his arms until they reached

Prospect Hill, were Mrs. Meredith was anxiously awaiting their return,

her brow clouding with distrust when she saw Mr. Leighton, for she was

constantly fearing lest her guilty secret should be exposed.

“I’ll leave Hanover this very week, and remove her from danger,” she

thought, as she rose to say good-night.

“Just wait a minute, please. There’s something I want to say to Miss

Ruthven,” Lucy cried, and leading Anna to her own room, she knelt down

by her side, and looking up in her face, began:

“There’s one question which I wish to ask, and you must answer me

truly. It is rude and inquisitive, perhaps, but,—tell me,—has

Arthur—ever—ever—”

Anna guessed what was coming, and with a sob, which Lucy thought was a

long-drawn breath, she kissed the pretty, parted lips, and answered:

“No, darling, Arthur never did, and never will, but some time he will

ask you to be his wife. I can see it coming so plain.”

Poor Anna! her heart gave one great throb as she said this, and then lay

like a dead weight in her bosom, while with sparkling eyes and blushing

cheeks, Lucy exclaimed:

“I am so glad,—so glad. I have only known you since Sunday, but you seem

like an old friend, and you won’t mind my telling you that ever since I

first met Arthur among the Alps, I have lived in a kind of ideal world,

of which he was the centre. I am an orphan, you know, and an heiress,

too. There is half a million, they say; and Uncle Hetherton has charge

of it. Now, will you believe me, when I say that I would give every

dollar of this for Arthur’s love if I could not have it without?”

“I do believe you,” Anna replied, inexpressibly glad that the gathering

darkness hid her white face from view as the childlike, unsuspecting

girl went on: “The world, I know, would say that a poor clergyman was

not a good match for me, but I do not care for that. Cousin Fanny favors

it, I am sure, and Uncle Hetherton would not oppose me when he saw I was

in earnest. Once the world, which is a very meddlesome thing, picked out

Thornton Hastings, of New York, for me; but my! he was too proud and

lofty even to talk to me much, and I would not speak to him after I

heard of his saying that ‘I was a pretty little plaything, but far too

frivolous for a sensible man to make his wife.’ Oh, wasn’t I angry

though, and don’t I hope that when he gets a wife she will be exactly

such a frivolous thing as I am.”

Even through the darkness Anna could see the blue eyes flash, and the

delicate nostrils dilate as Lucy gave vent to her wrath against the

luckless Thornton Hastings.

“You will meet him at Saratoga. He is always there in the summer, but

don’t you speak to him, _the hateful_. He’ll be calling you frivolous

next.”

An amused smile flitted across Anna’s face as she asked, “But won’t you

too be at Saratoga? I supposed you were all going there.”

“_Cela depend_,” Lucy replied. “I would so much rather stay here, the

dressing, and dancing, and flirting tire me so, and then you know what

Arthur said about taking me for his deaconess in your place.”

There was a call just then from the hall below. Mrs. Meredith was

getting impatient of the delay, and with a good-by kiss, Anna went down

the stairs, and stood out upon the piazza, where her aunt was waiting.

Mr. Leighton had accepted Fanny’s invitation to stay to tea, and he

handed the ladies to their carriage, lingering a moment while he said

his parting words, for he was going out of town to-morrow, and when he

returned Anna would be gone.

“You will think of us sometimes,” he said, still holding Anna’s hand.

“St. Mark’s will be lonely without you. God bless you and bring you

safely back.”

There was a pressure of the hand, a lifting of Arthur’s hat, and then

the carriage moved away; but Anna, looking back, saw Arthur standing by

Lucy’s side, fastening a rose-bud in her hair, and at that sight the

gleam of hope which for an instant had crept into her heart passed away

with a sigh.

CHAPTER VII.

AT NEWPORT.

Moved by a strange impulse, Thornton Hastings took himself and his fast

bays to Newport instead of Saratoga, and thither, the first week in

August, came Mrs. Meredith, with eight large trunks, her niece, and her

niece’s wardrobe, which had cost the pretty sum of eighteen hundred

dollars.

Mrs. Meredith was not naturally lavish of her money, except where her

own interests were concerned, as they were in Anna’s case. Conscious of

having come between her niece and the man she loved, she determined that

in the procuring of a substitute for this man, no advantages which dress

could afford should be lacking. Besides, Thornton Hastings was a perfect

connoisseur in everything pertaining to a lady’s toilet, and it was with

him and his preference before her mind that Mrs. Meredith opened her

purse so widely and bought so extensively. There were sun hats and round

hats, and hats _à la cavalier_,—there were bonnets and veils, and

dresses, and shawls of every color and kind, with the lesser matters of

sashes, and gloves, and slippers, and fans, the whole making an array

such as Anna had never seen before, and from which she had at first

shrank back appalled and dismayed. But she was not now quite so much of

a novice as when she first reached New York, the Saturday following the

picnic at Prospect Hill. She had passed successfully and safely through

the hands of mantua-makers, milliners, and hair-dressers since then. She

had laid aside every article brought from home. She wore her hair in

puffs and waterfalls, and her dresses in the latest mode. She had seen

the fashionable world as represented at Saratoga, and sickening at the

sight, had gladly acquiesced in her aunt’s proposal to go on to Newport,

where the air was purer, and the hotels not so densely packed. She had

been called a beauty and a belle, but her heart was longing still for

the leafy woods and fresh, green fields of Hanover; and Newport, she

fancied, would be more like the country than sultry, crowded Saratoga,

and never since leaving home had she looked so bright and pretty as the

evening after her arrival at the Ocean House, when, invigorated by the

bath she had taken in the morning, and gladdened by sight of the

glorious sea and the soothing tones it murmured in her ear, she came

down to the parlor, clad in simple white, with only a bunch of violets

in her hair, and no other ornament than the handsome pearls her aunt had

given to her. Standing at the open window, with the drapery of the lace

curtain sweeping gracefully behind her, she did not look much like the

Anna who led the choir in Hanover and visited the Widow Hobbs, nor yet

much like the picture which Thornton Hastings had formed of the girl who

he knew was there for his inspection. He had been absent the entire day,

and had not seen Mrs. Meredith, when she arrived early in the morning,

but he found her card in his room, and a smile curled his lip as he

said:

“And so I have not escaped her.”

Thornton Hastings had proved a most treacherous knight, and overthrown

his general’s plans entirely. Arthur’s letter had affected him

strangely, for he readily guessed how deeply wounded his sensitive

friend had been by Anna Ruthven’s refusal, while added to this was a

fear lest Anna had been influenced by a thought of himself, and what

might possibly result from an acquaintance. Thornton Hastings had been

flattered and angled for until he had grown somewhat vain, and it did

not strike him as at all improbable that the unsophisticated Anna should

have designs upon him.

“But I won’t give her a chance,” he said, when he finished Arthur’s

letter. “I thought once I might like her, but I shan’t, and I’ll be

revenged on her for refusing the best man that ever breathed. I’ll go to

Newport instead of Saratoga, and so be clear of the entire Meredith

clique, the Hethertons, the little Harcourt, and all.”

This, then, was the secret of his being at the Ocean House. He was

keeping away from Anna Ruthven, who never had heard of him but once, and

that from Lucy Harcourt. After that scene in the Glen, where Anna had

exclaimed against intriguing mothers and their bold, shame-faced

daughters, Mrs. Meredith had been too wise a manœuvrer to mention

Thornton Hastings, so that Anna was wholly ignorant of his presence at

Newport, and looked up in unfeigned surprise at the tall, elegant man

whom her aunt presented as Mr. Hastings. With all Thornton’s affected

indifference, there was still a curiosity to see the girl who could say

“no” to Arthur Leighton, and he did not wait long after receiving Mrs.

Meredith’s card before going down to find her.

“That’s the girl, I’ll lay a wager,” he thought of a high-colored,

showily dressed hoyden, who was whirling around the room with Ned

Peters, from Boston, and whoso corn-colored dress swept against his

boots as he entered the parlor.

How, then, was he disappointed in the apparition Mrs. Meredith presented

as “my niece,” the modest, self possessed young girl, whose cheeks grew

not a whit the redder, and whose pulse did not quicken at the sight of

him, though a gleam of something like curiosity shone in the brown eyes

which scanned him so quietly. She was thinking of Lucy, and her

injunction “not to speak to the _hateful_ if she saw him;” but she did

speak to him, and Mrs. Meredith fanned herself complacently as she saw

how fast they became acquainted.

“You don’t dance,” Mr. Hastings said, as she declined an invitation from

Ned Peters, whom she had met at Saratoga. “I am glad, for you will

perhaps walk with me outside upon the piazza. You won’t take cold, I

think,” and he glanced thoughtfully at the white neck and shoulders

gleaming beneath the gauzy muslin.

Mrs. Meredith was in rhapsodies, and sat a full hour with the tiresome

dowagers around her, while up and down the broad piazza Thornton

Hastings walked with Anna, talking to her as he seldom talked to women,

and feeling greatly surprised to find that what he said was fully

appreciated and understood. That he was pleased with her he could not

deny to himself, as he sat alone in his room that night, feeling more

and more how keenly Arthur Leighton must have felt her refusal.

“But why did she refuse him?” he wished he knew, and ere he slept he

resolved to study Anna Ruthven closely, and ascertain, if possible, the

motive which prompted her to discard a man like Arthur Leighton.

The next day brought the Hetherton party, all but Lucy Harcourt, who,

Fanny laughingly said, was just now suffering from clergyman on the

brain, and, as a certain cure for the disease, had turned my Lady

Bountiful, and was playing the pretty patroness to all Mr. Leighton’s

parishioners, especially a Widow Hobbs, whom she had actually taken to

ride in the carriage, and to whose ragged children she had sent a bundle

of cast-off party dresses; and the tears ran down Fanny’s cheeks as she

described the appearance of the elder Hobbs, who came to church with a

soiled pink silk skirt, her black, tattered petticoat hanging down

below, and one of Lucy’s opera hoods upon her head.

“And the clergyman on her brain? Does he appreciate his situation? I

have an interest there. He is an old friend of mine,” Thornton Hastings

asked.

He had been an amused listener to Fanny’s gay badinage, laughing merrily

at the idea of Lucy’s taking an old woman out to air, and clothing her

children in party dresses. His opinion of Lucy, as she had said, was

that she was a pretty but frivolous plaything, and it showed upon his

face as he asked the question he did, watching Anna furtively as Fanny

replied:

“Oh yes, he is certainly smitten, and I must say I never saw Lucy so

thoroughly in earnest. Why, she really seems to enjoy travelling all

over Christendom to find the hovels and huts, though she is mortally

afraid of the small-pox, and always carries with her a bit of chloride

of lime as a disinfecting agent. I am sure she ought to win the parson.

And so you know him, do you?”

“Yes; we were in college together, and I esteem him so highly that, had

I a sister, there is no man living to whom I would so readily give her

as to him.”

He was looking now at Anna, whose face was very pale, and who pressed a

rose she held so tightly that the sharp thorns pierced her flesh, and a

drop of blood stained the whiteness of her hand.

“See, you have hurt yourself,” Mr. Hastings said. “Come to the

water-pitcher and wash the stain away.”

She went with him mechanically, and let him hold her hand in his while

he wiped off the blood with his own handkerchief, treating her with a

tenderness for which he could hardly account. He pitied her, and

suspected she had repented of her rashness, and because he pitied her he

asked her to ride with him that day after the fast bays, of which he had

written to Arthur. Many admiring eyes were cast after them as they drove

away, and Mrs. Hetherton whispered softly to Mrs. Meredith:

“A match in progress, I see. You have done well for your charming

niece.”

And yet matrimony, as concerned himself, was very far from Thornton

Hastings’ thoughts that afternoon, when, because he saw that it pleased

Anna to have him do so, he talked to her of Arthur, hoping, in his

unselfish heart, that what he said in his praise might influence her to

reconsider her decision and give him a different answer. This was the

second day of Thornton Hastings’ acquaintance with Anna Ruthven, but as

time went on, bringing the usual routine of life at Newport, the drives,

the rides, the pleasant piazza talks, and the quiet moonlight rambles,

when Anna was always his companion, Thornton Hastings came to feel an

unwillingness to surrender even to Arthur Leighton the beautiful girl

who pleased him better than any one he had known.

Mrs. Meredith’s plans were working well, and so, though the autumn days

had come, and one after another the devotees of fashion were dropping

off, she lingered on, and Thornton Hastings still rode and walked with

Anna Ruthven, until there came a night when they wandered farther than

usual from the hotel, and sat down together on a height of land which

overlooked the placid waters, where the moonlight lay softly sleeping.

It was a most lovely night, and for awhile they listened in silence to

the music of the sea, and then talked of the breaking-up which would

come in a few days, when the hotel was to be closed, and wondered if

next year they would come again to the old haunts and find them

unchanged.

There was witchery in the hour, and Thornton felt its spell, speaking

out at last, and asking Anna if she would be his wife. He would shield

her so tenderly, he said, protecting her from every care, and making her

as happy as love and money could make her. Then he told her of his home

in the far-off city, which needed only her presence to make it a

paradise, and then he waited for her answer, watching anxiously the

limp, white hands, which, when he first began to talk, had fallen

helplessly upon her lap, and then had crept up to her face, which was

turned away from him, so that he could not see its expression, or guess

at the struggle going on in Anna’s mind. She was not wholly surprised,

for she could not mistake the nature of the interest which, for the last

two weeks, Thornton Hastings had manifested in her. But now that the

moment had come, it seemed to her that she had never expected it, and

she sat silent for a time, dreading so much to speak the words which she

knew would inflict pain on one whom she respected so highly, but whom

she could not marry.

“Don’t you like me, Anna?” Thornton asked at last, his voice very low

and tender, as he bent over her and tried to take her hand.

“Yes, very much,” she answered; and emboldened by her reply, Thornton

lifted up her head, and was about to kiss her forehead, when she started

away from him, exclaiming:

“No, Mr. Hastings. You must not do that. I cannot be your wife. It hurts

me to tell you so, for I believe you are sincere in your proposal; but

it can never be. Forgive me, and let us both forget this wretched

summer.”

“It has not been wretched to me. It has been a very happy summer, since

I knew you at least,” Mr. Hastings said, and then he asked again that

she should reconsider her decision. He could not take it as her final

one. He had loved her too much, had thought too much of making her his

own, to give her up so easily, he said, urging so many reasons why she

should think again, that Anna said to him, at last:

“If you would rather have it so, I will wait a month, but you must not

hope that my answer will be different then from what it is to-night. I

want your friendship, though, the same as if this had never happened. I

like you, because you have been kind to me, and made my stay in Newport

so much pleasanter than I thought it could be. You have not talked to me

like other men. You have treated me as if I at least had common-sense. I

thank you for that; and I like you because—”

She did not finish the sentence, for she could not say “Because you are

Arthur’s friend.” That would have betrayed the miserable secret tugging

at her heart, and prompting her to refuse Thornton Hastings, who had

also thought of Arthur Leighton, wondering if it were thus that she

rejected him, and if in the background there was another love standing

between her and the two men to win whom many a woman would almost have

given her right hand. To say that Thornton was not piqued at her refusal

would be false. He had not expected it, accustomed as he was to

adulation; but he tried to put that feeling down, and his manner was

even more kind and considerate than ever as he walked back to the hotel,

where Mrs. Meredith was waiting for them, her practised eye detecting at

once that something was amiss. Thornton Hastings knew Mrs. Meredith

thoroughly, and, wishing to shield Anna from her displeasure, he

preferred stating the facts himself to having them wrung from the pale,

agitated girl, who, bidding him good-night, went quickly to her room;

so, when she was gone, and he stood for a moment alone with Mrs.

Meredith, he said:

“I have proposed to your niece, but she cannot answer me now. She wishes

for a month’s probation, which I have granted, and I ask that she shall

not be persecuted about the matter. I must have an unbiassed answer.”

He bowed politely and walked away, while Mrs. Meredith almost trod on

air as she climbed the stairs and sought her niece’s chamber. Over the

interview which ensued that night we pass silently, and come to the next

morning, when Anna sat alone on the piazza at the rear of the hotel,

watching the playful gambols of some children on the grass, and

wondering if she ever could conscientiously say yes to Thornton

Hastings’ suit. He was coming towards her now, lifting his hat politely,

and asking what she would give for news from home.

“I found this on my table,” he said, holding up a dainty little missive,

on the corner of which was written “In haste,” as if its contents were

of the utmost importance. “The boy must have made a mistake, or else he

thought it well to begin at once bringing your letters to me,” he

continued with a smile, as he handed Anna the letter from Lucy Harcourt.

“I have one, too, from Arthur, which I will read while you are devouring

yours, and then, perhaps, you will take a little ride. The September air

is very bracing this morning,” he said, walking away to the far end of

the piazza while Anna broke the seal of the envelope, hesitating a

moment ere taking the letter from it, and trembling as if she guessed

what it contained.

There was a quivering of the eyelids, a paling of the lips as she

glanced at the first few lines, then with the low moaning cry, “No, no,

oh no, not that,” she fell upon her face.

To lift her in his arms and carry her to her room was the work of an

instant, and then, leaving her to Mrs. Meredith’s care, Thornton

Hastings went back to finish Arthur’s letter, which might or might not

throw light upon the fainting-fit.

“Dear Thornton,” Arthur wrote, “you will be surprised, no doubt, to hear

that your old college chum is at last engaged; but not to one of the

fifty lambs about whom you once jocosely wrote. The shepherd has

wandered from his flock, and is about to take into his bosom a little

stray ewe-lamb,—Lucy Harcourt by name—”

“The deuce he is,” was Thornton’s ejaculation, and then he read on:

“She is an acquaintance of yours, I believe, so I need not describe her,

except to say that she is somewhat changed from the gay butterfly of

fashion she used to be, and in time will make as demure a little

Quakeress as one could wish to see. She visits constantly among my poor,

who love her almost as well as they once loved Anna Ruthven.

“Don’t ask me, Thorne, in your blunt, straightforward manner if I have

so soon forgotten Anna. That is a matter with which you’ve nothing to

do. Let it suffice that I am engaged to another, and mean to make a kind

and faithful husband to her. Lucy would have suited you better, perhaps,

than she does me; that is, the world would think so, but the world does

not always know, and if I am satisfied, surely it ought to be.

“Yours truly,

“A. LEIGHTON.”

“Engaged to Lucy Harcourt! I never could have believed it. He’s right in

saying that she is far more suitable for me than him,” Thornton

exclaimed, dashing aside the letter and feeling conscious of a pang as

he remembered the bright airy little beauty in whom he had once been

strongly interested, even if he did call her frivolous and ridicule her

childish ways.

She was frivolous, too much so by far to be a clergyman’s wife, and for

a full half hour Thornton paced up and down the room, meditating on

Arthur’s choice and wondering how upon earth it ever happened.

CHAPTER VIII.

SHOWING HOW IT HAPPENED.

Lucy had insisted that she did not care to go to Saratoga. She preferred

remaining in Hanover, where it was cool and quiet, and where she would

not have to dress three times a day and dance every night until twelve.

She was beginning to find that there was something to live for besides

consulting one’s own pleasure, and she meant to do good the rest of her

life, she said, assuming such a sober, nun-like air, that no one who saw

her could fail to laugh, it was so at variance with her entire nature.

But Lucy was in earnest. Hanover had a greater attraction for her than

all the watering-places in the world, and she was very grateful when

Fanny threw her influence on her side and so turned the scale in her

favor.

Fanny was glad to leave her dangerous cousin at home, especially after

Mr. Bellamy decided to join their party at Saratoga; and as she carried

great weight with both her parents it was finally decided to let Lucy

remain at Prospect Hill in peace, and one morning in July she saw the

family depart without a single feeling of regret that she was not of

their number. She had far too much on her hands to spend her time in

regretting anything: there was the parish school to visit, and a class

of children to hear, children who were no longer ragged, for Lucy’s

money had been expended till even Arthur had remonstrated with her, and

read her a long lecture on the subject of misapplied charity. Then there

was Widow Hobbs waiting for the jelly which Lucy had promised, and for

the chapter which Lucy now read to her, sitting where she could watch

the road and see just who turned the corner, her voice always sounding a

little more serious and good when the footsteps belonged to Arthur

Leighton, and her eyes always glancing at the bit of a cracked mirror on

the wall, to see that her dress and hair and ribbons were right before

Arthur came in. It was a very pretty sight to see her thus and hear her

as she read to the poor, whose surroundings she had so greatly improved;

and Arthur always smiled gratefully upon her, and then walked back with

her to Prospect Hill, where he lingered while she played or talked to

him, or brought the luscious fruits with which the garden abounded.

This was Lucy’s life, which she preferred to Saratoga, and they left her

to enjoy it, somewhat to Arthur’s discomfiture, for, much as he valued

her society, he would rather she had gone where the Hethertons did, for

he could not be insensible to the remarks which were being made by the

curious villagers, who watched this new flirtation, as they called it,

and wondered if their minister had forgotten Anna Ruthven. He had not

forgotten her, and many a time was her loved name upon his lips and a

thought of her in his heart, while he never returned from an interview

with Lucy that he did not contrast the two, and sigh for the olden time

when Anna was his coworker instead of pretty Lucy Harcourt. And yet

there was about the latter a powerful fascination which he found it hard

to resist. It rested him just to look at her, she was so fresh, so

bright, and so beautiful; and then she flattered his self-love by the

unbounded deference she paid to his opinions, studying all his tastes

and bringing her will into perfect subjection to his, until she could

scarcely be said to have a thought or feeling which was not a reflection

of his own. And so the flirtation, which at first had been a one-sided

affair, began to assume a more serious form, and the rector went oftener

to Prospect Hill, while the Hetherton carriage stood daily at the gate

of the parsonage, and people talked and gossiped, until Captain

Humphreys, Anna’s grandfather, concluded it was his duty as senior

warden of St. Mark’s, to talk with the young rector and know “what his

intentions were.”

“You have none?” he said, fixing his mild eyes reproachfully upon his

clergyman, who recoiled a little beneath the gaze. “Then, if you have no

intentions, my advice to you is that you quit it and let the gal alone,

or you’ll ruin her, if she ain’t spoilt already, as some of the women

folks say she is. It don’t do no gal any good to have a chap, and

’specially a minister, gallivantin’ after her, as I must say you’ve been

after this one for the last few weeks. She’s a pretty little creeter,

and I don’t blame you for liking her. It makes my old blood stir faster

when she comes purring around me, with her soft ways and winsome face,

and so I don’t wonder at you, but when you say you’ve no intentions, I

blame you greatly. You or’to have. Excuse my plainness; I’m an old man,

and I like my minister, and don’t want him to go wrong; and then I feel

for her, left all alone by all her folks; more’s the shame to them, and

more’s the harm to you, to tangle up her affections as you are doing if

you are not in earnest; and so I speak for her just as I should want

some one to speak for Anna!”

The old man’s voice trembled a little here, for it had been a wish of

his that Anna should occupy the parsonage, and he had at first felt a

little resentment against the gay young creature who seemed to have

supplanted her, but he was over that now, and in all honesty of heart he

spoke both for Lucy’s interest and that of his clergyman. And Arthur

listened to him respectfully, feeling when he was gone that he merited

the rebuke,—that he had not been guiltless in the matter,—that if he did

not mean to marry Lucy Harcourt he should let her alone. And he would,

he said,—he would not go to Prospect Hill again for two whole weeks, nor

visit at the cottages where he was sure to find her; he would keep

himself at home; and he did, and shut himself up among his books, not

even going to make a pastoral call on Lucy when he heard that she was

sick. And so Lucy came to him, looking dangerously charming in her blue

riding-habit with the white feather streaming from her hat. Very

prettily she pouted, too, as she chided him for his neglect, and asked

why he had not been to see her nor anybody;—there was the Widow Hobbs,

and Mrs. Briggs, and those miserable Donelsons, whom he had not been

near for a fortnight.

“What is the reason?” she asked, beating her foot upon the carpet and

tapping the end of her riding-whip upon the sermon he was writing. “Are

you displeased with me, Arthur,” she continued, her eyes filling with

tears as she saw the expression of his face. “Have I done anything

wrong; I am so sorry if I have.”

Her voice had in it the grieved tones of a little child, and her eyes

were very bright with the tears quivering on her long eyelashes. Leaning

back in his chair, with his hands clasped behind his head, a position he

usually assumed when puzzled and perplexed, the rector looked at her a

moment before he spoke. He could not define to himself the nature of the

interest he took in Lucy Harcourt. He admired her greatly, and the

self-denials and generous exertions she had made to be of use to him

since Anna went away, had touched a tender chord and made her seem very

near to him. Habit with him was everything, and the past two weeks’

isolation had shown him how necessary she had become to him. She did not

satisfy his higher wants as Anna Ruthven had done. No one could ever do

that, but she amused and soothed and rested him, and made his duties

lighter by taking half of them upon herself. That she was more attached

to him than he could wish he greatly feared, for since Captain

Humphreys’ visit he had seen matters differently from what he saw them

before, and had unsparingly questioned himself as to how far he would be

answerable for her future weal or woe.

“Guilty, verily I am guilty in leading her on if I meant nothing by it,”

he had written against himself, pausing in his sermon to write it just

as Lucy came in, appealing to him to know why he had neglected her so

long.

She was very beautiful this morning, and Arthur felt his heart beat

rapidly as he looked at her, and thought any man who had not known Anna

Ruthven would be glad to gather that bright creature in his arms and

know she was his own. One long, long sigh to the memory of all he had

hoped for once,—one bitter pang as he remembered Anna and that twilight

hour in the church, and then he made a mad plunge in the dark and said:

“Lucy, do you know people are beginning to talk about my seeing you so

much?”

“Well, let them talk; who cares?” Lucy replied, with a good deal of

asperity of manner for her, for that very morning the housekeeper at

Prospect Hill had ventured to remonstrate with her for “running after

the parson.” “Pray where is the wrong? What harm can come of it?”

“None, perhaps,” Arthur replied, “if one could keep their affections

under control. But if either of us should learn to love the other very

much and the love was not reciprocated, harm would surely come of that.

At least that was the view Captain Humphreys took of the matter when he

was speaking to me about it.”

There were red spots on Lucy’s face, but her lips were very white and

the buttons on her riding-dress rose and fell rapidly with the beating

of her heart as she looked steadily at Arthur. Was he going to send her

from him,—back to the insipid life she had lived before she knew him? It

was too terrible to believe, and the great tears rolled slowly down her

cheeks. Then as a flash of pride came to her aid, she dashed them away

and said to him haughtily: