Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

POPULAR NOVELS.

By Mrs. Mary J. Holmes.

I. —TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE. II. —ENGLISH ORPHANS. III. —HOMESTEAD ON THE HILLSIDE. IV. —LENA RIVERS. V. —MEADOW BROOK. VI. —DORA DEANE. VII. —COUSIN MAUDE. VIII. —MARIAN GREY. IX. —DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT. X. —HUGH WORTHINGTON. XI. —CAMERON PRIDE. XII. —ROSE MATHER. XIII. —ETHELYN’S MISTAKE. XIV. —MILLBANK. XV. —EDNA BROWNING. (New.)

Mrs. Holmes is a peculiarly pleasant and fascinating writer. Her books are always entertaining, and she has the rare faculty of enlisting the sympathy and affections of her readers, and of holding their attention to her pages with deep and absorbing interest.

All published uniform with this volume. Price $1.50 each, and sent free by mail, on receipt of price by

G. W. CARLETON & CO.,

New York.

EDNA BROWNING;
OR,
THE LEIGHTON HOMESTEAD.
A Novel.

BY

MRS. MARY J. HOLMES,

AUTHOR OF

Tempest and Sunshine.—Lena Rivers.—Marian Grey.—Meadowbrook.—English Orphans.—Cousin Maude.—Homestead.—Dora Deane.—Darkness and Daylight.—Hugh Worthington.—The Cameron Pride.—Rose Mather.—Ethelyn’s Mistake.—Millbank.—Etc.—Etc.

NEW YORK:

G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers.

LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.

M.DCCC.LXXII.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by

DANIEL HOLMES,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

Stereotyped at the

WOMEN’S PRINTING HOUSE,

Corner Avenue A and Eighth Street,

New York.

CONTENTS.

EDNA BROWNING;

OR,

The Leighton Homestead.

CHAPTER I.
ROY, OUR HERO.

“Robert, son of Arthur and Anna Leighton, born April 5th, 18——,” was the record which the old family Bible bore of our hero’s birth, parentage, and name, but by his mother and those who knew him best, he was always called Roy, and by that name we introduce him to our readers on a pleasant morning in May, when, wrapped in a heavy shawl, he sat in a corner of a car with a tired, worn look upon his face, and his teeth almost chattering with the cold.

A four-month’s acquaintance with the chill fever, taken at the time the river rose so high, and he worked all day to save some of his tenants who lived along the meadows, had wasted him to a shadow, and he was on his way to the West, hoping that change of air and scene would accomplish what bottles and bottles of quinine, with all the usual remedies for fever and ague, had failed to do.

Beside him sat his mother, a fair-haired, proud-faced little lady of fifty, or more, who conducted herself with a dignity becoming the mistress of Leighton Homestead, her son’s beautiful home on the Hudson.

Anna Leighton had been much younger than her husband, and at the time of her marriage there were rumors of another suitor in whose brown beard there were no threads of gray, and of whom Mr. Leighton had been fearfully jealous. If this were true, it accounted in part for his strange will, by which only a small portion of his large fortune was left to his wife, who was to forfeit even this in the event of a second marriage. In her case, love proved more potent than gold, and, two years after her husband’s death, she married Charlie Churchill, who made up in family and blood what he lacked in lands and money. There was a trip to Europe, a dolce far niente dream of happiness for eighteen months amid the glories of the eastern hemisphere, and then, widowed a second time, Anna Churchill came one dreary autumn day to the Leighton Place, on the river side, where, six months after, she gave birth to a little boy, for whom Roy, then a mere lad, stood as one of the sponsors in the old ivy-grown church at the foot of the hill.

Since that time, Mrs. Churchill had lived at the Leighton Homestead, and been, with her younger son, altogether dependent upon her eldest born, who had made her, to all intents and purposes, the honored and welcome mistress of his house. Only one sore point was there between them, and that was handsome and winning, but unprincipled Charlie,—who, looking upon his brother’s fortune as his own, would, if uncontrolled, have spent it with a recklessness which would soon have brought the Leighton Homestead under the auctioneer’s hammer.

Charlie was a spoiled boy, the neighbors said; and when, at sixteen, he coolly appropriated his brother’s gold watch, together with a hundred dollars in money, and went off to Canada, “to travel and see a little of the world,” they shook their heads, and said Roy would be justified in never taking him again into favor.

But Roy did not think so, and when Charlie had fished all summer among the Thousand Islands, and spent his hundred dollars, and pawned his watch, and fallen sick in Montreal, Roy went for the young scamp, who cried like a child at sight of him, and called him “a brick,” and a “dear old Roy,” and promised he would never be bad again, and in proof thereof would, if Roy said so, join the church, or take a class in Sunday-school, or go through college, he did not care which. And so Roy took him to the Academy in Canandaigua, and said that to the teachers which resulted in Mr. Charlie’s being kept rather closer than was altogether agreeable to him. After a time, however, the strict surveillance was relaxed, and by his winning ways, he grew to be very popular with both teachers and pupils, and many a slight misdemeanor was winked at and overlooked, so powerfully did his soft blue eyes and pleasant smile plead for him.

At the time our story opens he had been in Canandaigua nearly a year and a half, and Mrs. Churchill and Roy were intending to stop for a day at the hotel and visit him. There were but few passengers in the car occupied by Roy and his mother, and these were mostly of the quiet, undemonstrative kind, who nodded in their seats, or read the newspaper, and accepted matters, air included, as they found them; consequently, poor Roy, who, shaking with ague, had a morbid dread of open windows, had for hours luxuriated in an atmosphere which made a group of young girls exclaim with disgust, when at a station thirty miles or so from Canandaigua they came trooping in, their cheeks glowing with health and their eyes sparkling with excitement.

There were four of them, and appropriating the two seats directly opposite Roy, they turned one of them back, and to the great horror of the invalid opened both the windows, thereby letting in a gust of air which blew directly across Roy’s face, while Mrs. Churchill received an ugly cinder in her eye, which nearly blinded her. In blissful ignorance of the discomfort they were causing, or of the very uncomplimentary things the sick man and his mother were thinking, the girls chattered on, and the cool wind blew the ribbons on their hats far out behind, and tossed their veils airily, and lifted the golden brown curls of the one who seemed to be the life of the party, and who talked the most, and kept the others shrieking with laughter, while her bright eyes glanced rapidly around the car, noting everything and everybody, until at last they lighted upon the pair just across the aisle, Mrs. Churchill working away at the obstinate cinder, and Roy wrapping his shawl more closely about him, and wondering why girls would always persist in keeping the windows open when everybody else was freezing. Roy was not in a very amiable state of mind, and he showed it in his eyes, which flashed a savage glance at the girl with the curls of golden brown, whom her companions addressed as Edna. She was the worst of them all, for she had opened both the windows, and then with the exclamation that she was “roasted alive,” sat fanning herself briskly with the coquettish little hat she had taken from her head. As she met Roy’s angry glance, the smile which a moment before had wreathed her lips, vanished suddenly, and she looked at him curiously, as if half expecting him to speak. But Roy was silent for a time; then, as the bright, restless eyes of the offender kept meeting his own inquiringly, he mustered courage to say:

“Young lady, you’ll oblige me by shutting that window. Don’t you see I am catching cold?” and a loud sneeze attested to the truth of what he said.

It was not like Roy Leighton thus to address any one, and he repented of his surliness in an instant, and wished he might do something to atone. But it was now too late. He had shown himself a savage, and must abide the result.

The window was shut with a bang, and the gay laughter and merry talk were hushed for a time, while the girl called Edna busied herself with writing or drawing something upon a bit of paper, which elicited peals of laughter from her companions to whom it was shown. Roy could not help fancying that it in some way related to himself, and his mother thought the same, and was mentally styling them “a set of ill-bred, impertinent chits,” when the train stopped before the Canandaigua depot, where, as usual, a crowd of people was assembled. This was the destination of the girls, who, gathering up their satchels and parasols, hurried from the car in such haste that the bit of paper which had so much amused them was forgotten, and fluttered down at Mrs. Churchill’s feet. Her first impulse, as she stooped to pick it up, was to restore it to its owner, but when she saw what it was, she uttered an angry exclamation, and thrust it into her son’s hand, saying:

“Look, Roy, at the caricature the hussy has made of us.”

No man likes to be ridiculed, and Roy Leighton was not an exception, and the hot blood tingled in his pale cheeks as he saw a very correct likeness of himself, wrapped in a bundle of shawls, with his eyes cast reproachfully toward a shadowy group of girls across the aisle, while from his mouth issued the words, “Shut that window, miss. Don’t you see I am freezing?”

Beside him was his mother, her handkerchief to her eye, and the expression of her face exactly what it had been when she worked at the troublesome cinder. Instead of a hat, the mischievous Edna had perched a bonnet on Roy’s head, and under this abominable picture had written, “Miss Betty and her mother, as they looked on their travelling excursion. Drawn by Edna Browning, Ont. Fem. Sem., May 10th.”

It was only a caricature; but so admirably was it done, and so striking was his own likeness in spite of the bonnet, that Roy could not help acknowledging to himself that Edna Browning was a natural artist; and he involuntarily began to feel an interest in the young girl who, if she could execute this sketch in so short a time, must be capable of better things. Still, mingled with this interest was a feeling of indignation that he should have been so insulted by a mere school-girl, and when, as he alighted from the car, he caught the flutter of her blue ribbons, and heard her merry laugh as she made her way through the crowd to the long flight of stairs, and then with her companions walked rapidly toward Main street, he felt a desire to box her ears, as she deserved that they should be boxed.

Thrusting the picture into his pocket, he conducted his mother through the crowd, and then looked about in quest of his brother, who was to have been there to meet them, and who soon appeared, panting for breath and apologizing for his delay.

“Professor Hollister wouldn’t let me out till the last minute, and then I stopped an instant to speak to some girls who came on this train. How are you, mother, and you, old Roy? I don’t believe I should have known you. That ague has given you a hard one, and made you shaky on your legs, hasn’t it? Here, lean on me, while we climb these infernally steep stairs. Mother, I’ll carry that satchel. What ails your eye? looks as if you’d been fighting. Here, this way. Don’t go into that musty parlor. Come on to No. —. I’ve got your rooms all engaged, the best in the hotel.”

And thus talking, with his invalid brother leaning on his arm, Charlie Churchill led the way to the handsome rooms which overlooked the lake and the hills beyond. Roy was very tired, and he lay down at once, while his mother made some changes in her toilet, and from a travel-soiled, rather dowdy-looking woman in gray, was transformed into a fair, comely and stylish matron, whose rich black silk trailed far behind her, and whose frills of costly lace fell softly about her neck and plump white hands as she went in to dinner with Charlie, who was having a holiday, and who ordered claret and champagne, and offered it to those about him with as much freedom as if it was his money instead of his brother’s which would pay for it all.

Roy’s dinner was served in his room, and while waiting for it he studied Edna Browning’s sketch, which had a strange fascination for him, despite the pangs of wounded vanity he felt when he saw what a guy she had made of him.

“I wonder if I do look like that,” he said, and he went to the glass and examined himself carefully. “Yes, I do,” he continued. “Put a poke bonnet on me and the likeness is perfect, hollows in my cheeks, fretful expression and all. I’ve been sick and coddled, and petted until I’ve grown a complete baby, and a perfect boor, but there’s no reason why I need to look so confounded cross and ill-tempered, and I won’t either. Edna Browning has done me some good at least. I wonder who the little wretch is. Perhaps Charlie knows; she seems to be here at school.”

But Roy did not ask Charlie, for the asking would have involved an explanation, and he would a little rather not show his teasing brother the picture which he put away so carefully in his pocket-book. They drove that afternoon in the most stylish turnout the town afforded, a handsome open barouche, and Roy declined the cushion his mother suggested for his back, and only suffered her to spread his shawl across his lap instead of wrapping it around him to his chin. His overcoat and scarf were all he should need, he said, and he tried to sit up straight, and not look sick, as Charlie, who managed the reins himself, drove them through the principal streets of the town, and then out into the country for a mile or two.

On their way back they passed the seminary just as a group of girls came out accompanied by a teacher, and equipped apparently for a walk. There were thirty or more of them, but Roy saw only one, and of her he caught a glimpse, as she tossed back her golden brown curls and bowed familiarly to Charlie, whose hat went up and whose horses sheered just enough to make his mother utter an exclamation of fear. She, too, had recognized the wicked Edna by her dress, had seen the bow to Charlie, with Charlie’s acknowledgment of it, and when the gay horses were trotting soberly down the street, she asked,—

“Who was that girl you bowed to, Charlie? the bold-faced thing with curls, I mean.”

Now if she had left off that last, the chances are that Charlie would have told her at once, for he knew just whom she meant. A dozen of the girls had bowed to him, but he had had but one in his mind when he lifted his hat so gracefully, and it hurt him to hear her called “a bold-faced thing.” So he answered with the utmost nonchalance.

“I don’t know which one you mean. I bowed to them all collectively, and to no one individually. They are girls from the seminary.”

“Yes, I know; but I mean the one in blue with the long curls.”

“Big is she?” and Charlie tried to think.

“No, very small.”

“Dark face and turned-up nose?” was the next query.

“No, indeed; fair-faced, but as to her nose I did not notice. I think she was on the same car with us.”

“Oh, I guess you must mean Edna Browning. She’s short, and has long curls,” and Charlie just touched his spirited horses, causing them to bound so suddenly as to jerk his mother’s head backward, making her teeth strike together with such force as to hurt her lip; but she asked no more questions with regard to Edna Browning, who had recognized in Charlie Churchill’s companions her fellow-passengers in the car, and was wondering if that dumpy woman and that muff of a man could be the brother and mother whom Charlie had said he was expecting when she met him that morning in the street.

CHAPTER II.
AT LEIGHTON HOMESTEAD.

It was a magnificent old place, and had borne the name of Leighton Homestead, or Leighton Place, ever since the quarrel between the two brothers, Arthur and Robert, as to which should have the property in New York, and which should have the old family house on the Hudson, thirty miles or so below Albany, and in plain sight of the Catskills. To Arthur, the elder, the place had come at last, while Robert took the buildings on Broadway, and made a fortune from them, and dying without family, left it all to his brother’s son and namesake, who, after his father’s death, was the richest boy for many miles around.

As Roy grew to manhood he caused the old place to be modernized and beautified, until at last there were few country seats on the river which could compete with it in the luxuriousness of its internal adorning, or the beauty of the grounds around it. Broad terraces were there, with mounds and beds of bright flowers showing among the soft green turf; gravel walks which wound in and out among clumps of evergreen and ran past cosey arbors and summerhouses, over some of which the graceful Wisteria was trailing, while others were gorgeous with the flowers of the wonderful Trumpet-creeper. Here and there the ripple of a fountain was heard, while the white marble of urns and statuary showed well amid the dense foliage of shrubbery and trees. That Roy had lived to be twenty-eight and never married, or shown a disposition to do so, was a marvel to all, and latterly some of the old dowagers of the neighborhood who had young ladies to dispose of had seriously taken the matter in hand, to see if something could not be done with the grave, impassive man. He was polite and agreeable to all the girls, and treated them with that thoughtful deference so pleasing to women, and so rarely found in any man who has not the kindest and the best of hearts. But he never passed a certain bound in his attentions, and the young ladies from New York who spent their summers in the vicinity of Leighton Place went back to town discouraged, and hopeless so far as Roy was concerned.

“It was really a shame, and he getting older every year,” Mrs. Freeman Burton of Oakwood said, as on a bright October morning in the autumn succeeding the May day when we first met with Roy, she drove her ponies down the smooth road by the river and turned into the park at Leighton. “Yes; it really is a shame that there is not a young and handsome mistress to grace all this, and Georgie would be just the one if Roy could only see it,” the lady continued to herself, as she drove to the side door which was ajar, though there was no sign of life around the house except the watch-dog Rover, who lay basking in the sunlight with a beautiful Maltese kitten sleeping on his paws.

Mrs. Freeman Burton, whose husband was a Wall-street Bull, lived on Madison Square in the winter, and in the summer queened it among the lesser lights in the neighborhood of Leighton Homestead. As thought Mrs. Freeman Burton of Oakwood, so thought Mrs. Anna Churchill of Leighton, and as Mrs. Burton knew that Mrs. Churchill was in all respects her equal, it came about naturally that the two ladies were on the most intimate terms,—so intimate indeed, that Mrs. Burton, seeing no one and hearing no one, passed into the house dragging her rich India shawl after her and knocking at the door of her friend’s private sitting-room. But Mrs. Churchill was up in Roy’s room in a state of great mental distress and agitation, which Roy was trying to soothe as well as his own condition would admit. He had been thrown from his horse only the day before and broken his leg, and he lay in a state of great helplessness and pain when, about half an hour before Mrs. Burton’s call, the morning letters were brought in and he asked his mother to read them.

There were several on business, which were soon dispatched, and then Mrs. Churchill read one to herself from Maude Somerton, a relative of Mr. Freeman Burton, who had spent the last summer at Oakwood, and flirted desperately with Charlie Churchill all through his vacation. Roy liked Maude and hoped that in time she might become his sister. Once he said something to Charlie on the subject, hinting that if he chose to marry Maude Somerton, and tried to do well, money should not be wanting when it was needed to set him up in business. There had been an awkward silence on Charlie’s part for a few moments, while he turned very red, and seemed far more embarrassed than the occasion would warrant. Then he had burst out with:

“Don’t you mind about Maude Somerton. She will flirt with anybody who wears a coat; but, old Roy, maybe I shall want that money for somebody else; or at all events want you to stand by me, and if I do, you will; won’t you, Roy?”

And Roy, without a suspicion of his brother’s meaning, said he would, and the next day Charlie returned to Canandaigua, while Maude went back to her scholars about ten miles from Leighton; for she was poor, and earned her own livelihood. But for her poverty she made amends in the quality of her blood, which was the very best New England could produce; and as she was fair, and sweet, and pure as the white pond-lilies of her native State, Mrs. Freeman Burton gave her a home at Oakwood, and gave her Georgie’s cast-off clothing, and would very much have liked to give her Charlie Churchill, after she heard that Roy intended to do something for his brother whenever he was married.

Maude’s letter was a very warm, gushing epistle, full of kind remembrances of Roy, “the best man in the world,” and inquiries after Charlie, “the nicest kind of a summer beau,” and professions of friendship for Mrs. Churchill, “the dear sweet lady, whose kindnesses could never be forgotten.”

“Maude writes a very good letter,” Mrs. Churchill said, folding it up and laying it on the table, and as she did so, discovering another which had fallen from her lap to the floor.

It was from Charlie and directed to Roy, but Mrs. Churchill opened it, turning first scarlet and then pale, and then gasping for breath as she read the dreadful news. Charlie was going to be married; aye, was married that moment, for he had named the morning of the 7th of October as the time when Edna Browning would be his wife! At that name Mrs. Churchill gave a little shriek, and tossed the letter to Roy, who managed to control himself, while he read that Charlie was going to marry Edna Browning, “the nicest girl in the whole world and the prettiest, as Roy would think if he could see her.” They had been engaged a long time; were engaged, in fact, when Roy and his mother were in Canandaigua, and he would have told them then, perhaps, if his mother had not asked who “that brazen-faced thing” was, or something like it, when they passed the seminary girls in driving.

“Mother means well enough, I suppose,” Charlie wrote, “but she is too confounded proud, and if I had told her about Edna, she would have raised the greatest kind of a row, for Edna is poor as a church mouse,—hasn’t a penny in the world, and nobody but an old maid aunt who lives in Richmond, and treats her like a dog. Her father was an Episcopal clergyman and her mother was a music teacher, and that’s all I know of her family, or care. I love her, and that’s enough. I s’pose I may as well make a clean breast of it, and tell you I’ve had a fuss with one of the teachers; and I wouldn’t wonder if they expelled me, and so I’ve concluded to take time by the forelock, and have quit on my own hook, and have persuaded Edna to cast in her lot with mine, a little sooner than she had agreed to do. They wrote to you about the fuss, but I paid the man who carries the letters to the office five dollars for the one directed to you, as I’d rather tell you myself, and it gives me time, too, for this other matter in hand. Fortune favors the brave. Edna went yesterday to Buffalo with her room-mate, who is sick, and wanted her to go home with her; and I am going up to-morrow, and Wednesday morning, the 7th, we shall be married, and take the early train for Chicago, where Edna has some connection living.

“And now, Roy, I want some money,—there’s a good fellow. You remember you spoke of my marrying Maude Somerton, and said you’d give me money and stand by me, too. Do it now, Roy, and when mother goes into hysterics and calls Edna that creature, and talks as if she had persuaded me, whereas it was I who persuaded her, say a word for me, won’t you? You will like Edna,—and, Roy, I want you to ask us to come home, for a spell, anyway. The fact is, I’ve romanced a little, and Edna thinks I am heir, or at least joint heir with you, of Leighton Homestead. She don’t know I haven’t a cent in the world but what comes from you, and I don’t want her to. Set me up in business, Roy, and I’ll work like a hero. I will, upon my word,—and please send me five hundred at once to the care of John Dana, Chicago. I shall be married and gone before this reaches you, so there’s no use for mother to tear her eyes out. Tell her not to. I’m sorry to vex her, for she’s been a good mother, and after Edna I love her and you best of all the world. Send the money, do. Yours truly,

“Charlie.”

This was the letter which created so much consternation at Leighton Homestead, and made Mrs. Churchill faint with anger, while Roy’s pale face flushed crimson and the great drops of sweat stood on his forehead. That Charlie should be disgraced in school was bad enough, but that to the disgrace he should add the rash, imprudent act of marrying, was far worse,—even if the girl he married had been in all respects his equal. Of that last, Roy did not think as much as his mother. He knew Charlie better than she did, and felt that almost any respectable girl was good enough for him; but it did strike him a little unpleasantly that the Edna Browning, whose caricature of himself was still preserved, should become his sister-in-law. He knew it was she,—the girl in the cars, and his mother knew it too. She had never forgotten the girl, nor could she shake off the impression that Charlie knew more of her than she would like to believe. For this reason she had favored his flirting with Maude Somerton, who, though poor, was highly connected, which was more than could be said for Edna.

During the summer, there had been at Oakwood a Miss Rolliston, a friend of Maude Somerton, and a recent graduate of Canandaigua Seminary. And without seeming to be particularly interested, Mrs. Churchill had learned something of Edna Browning, “whom she once met somewhere” she said. “Did Miss Rolliston know her?”

“Oh, yes, a bright little thing, whom all the girls liked, though she was only a charity scholar, that is, she was to teach for a time in the Seminary to pay for her education.”

“Indeed; has she no friends?” Mrs. Churchill asked, and Miss Rolliston replied: “None but an aunt, a Miss Jerusha Pepper, who, if rumor is correct, led her niece a sorry life.”

It was about this time that Charlie commenced flirting so desperately with Maude Somerton, and so Mrs. Churchill for a time forget Edna Browning, and what Miss Rolliston had said of her. But it came back to her now, and she repeated it to Roy, who did not seem as much impressed with Miss Pepper and the charity scholar part as his mother would like to have had him. Perhaps he was thinking of Charlie’s words, “You’ll stand by me, won’t you, old Roy,” and rightly guessing now that they had reference to Edna Browning. And perhaps, too, the shadow of the fearful tragedy so soon to follow was around him, pleading for his young brother whose face he would never see again.

“What shall we do? What can we do?” his mother asked, and he replied:

“We must make the best of it, and send him the money.”

“But, Roy, the disgrace; think of it,—an elopement; a charity scholar, a niece of Miss Jerusha Pepper, whoever she may be. I’ll never receive her, and I shall write and tell her so.”

“No, mother, you’ll do nothing of the kind,” Roy said; “Charlie is still your boy, and Edna is his wife. She is not to blame for being poor or for having an aunt with that horrible name. Write and tell them to come home. The house is large enough. Maybe you will like this Edna Browning.”

Before Mrs. Churchill could reply, Mrs. Burton’s card was brought to her, and to that lady as her confidential friend did the aggrieved mother unbosom herself, telling all she knew of Edna, and asking what she should do. Mrs. Burton sat a moment thinking, as if the subject demanded the most profound and careful attention, and then said:

“I hardly know how to advise; different people feel so differently. If it were my son I should not invite him home, at present. Let him suffer awhile for his misdeed. He ought to be punished.”

“Yes, and he will be punished, when he comes to his senses and sees what a mésalliance he has made, though of course she enticed him,” Mrs. Churchill said, her mother’s heart pleading for her boy; whereas Mrs. Burton, who had never been a mother, and who felt a little piqued that after knowing Maude Somerton, Charlie could have chosen so unwisely, was very severe in her condemnation of both parties, and spoke her mind freely.

“Probably this Browning girl did entice him, but he should not have yielded, and he must expect to pay the penalty. I, for one, cannot promise to receive her on terms of equality; and Georgie, I am sure, will not, she is so fastidious and particular. Maybe she will see them. Did I tell you she had gone West?—started yesterday morning on the early train? She expected to be in Buffalo last night, and take this morning’s train for Chicago, where she is going to see a child, a relative of her step-mother, who died not long since. I am sorry she happens to be gone just now, when Roy is so helpless. She could read to him, and amuse him so much.”

It was evident that Mrs. Burton was thinking far more of Georgie than of her friend’s trouble; but the few words she had spoken on the subject had settled the matter and changed the whole current of Edna Browning’s life, and when, at last, she took her leave, and went out to her carriage, Mrs. Churchill had resolved to do her duty, and set her son’s sins before him in their proper light.

But she did not tell Roy so. She would rather he should not know all she had been saying to Mrs. Burton.

So to his suggestion that she should write to Charlie that day, she answered that she would, but added:

“I can’t write a lie, and tell him he will be welcome here at once. I must wait awhile before doing that.”

To this Roy did not object. A little discipline would do Charlie good, he believed; and so he signed a check for five hundred dollars, and then tried to sleep, while his mother wrote to Charlie. It was a severe letter, aimed more at Edna than her boy, and told of her astonishment and indignation that her son should have been led into so imprudent an act. Then she descanted upon runaway matches, and unequal matches; and said he must expect it would be a long time before she could forgive him, or receive “Miss Browning” as her daughter. Then she quoted Mrs. Burton, and Georgie, and Roy, whose feelings were so outraged, and advised Charlie to tell Miss Browning at once that every dollar he had came from his brother; “for,” she added in conclusion,

“I cannot help feeling that if she had known this fact, your unfortunate entanglement would have been prevented.

“Your aggrieved and offended mother,

“Anna Churchill.”

She did not show what she had written to Roy, but she inclosed the check, and directed the letter to “Charles Augustus Churchill. Care of John Dana, Chicago, Ill.” With no apparent reason, Mrs. Churchill lingered long over that letter, studying the name “Charles Augustus,” and repeating it softly to herself, as we repeat the names of the dead. And when, at last, she gave it to Russell to post, she did it unwillingly, half wishing, when it was gone past recall, that she had not written quite so harshly to her boy, whose face haunted her that day wherever she went, and whose voice she seemed to hear everywhere calling to her.

With the waning of the day, the brightness of the early morning disappeared, and the night closed in dark and dreary, with a driving rain and a howling wind, which swept past Mrs. Churchill’s windows, and seemed screaming Charlie’s name in her ears as she tried in vain to sleep. At last, rising from her bed and throwing on her dressing-gown, she walked to the window and looked out into the night, wondering at the strange feeling of fear as of some impending evil stealing over her. The rain was over, and the breaking clouds were scudding before the wind, which still blew in fitful gusts, while the moon showed itself occasionally through an angry sky, and cast a kind of weird light upon the grounds below, the flower-beds, and statuary, which reminded Mrs. Churchill of gravestones, and made her turn away at last with a shudder. Then her thoughts went again after Charlie, and something drew her to her knees as she prayed for him; but said no word for Edna, the young girl-wife, whose sun of happiness was setting in a night of sorrow, darker and more terrible than anything of which she had ever dreamed.

CHAPTER III.
GEORGIE’S TELEGRAM.

There was no trace of the storm next morning, except in the drops of rain which glittered on the shrubs and flowers, and the soaked condition of the walks and carriage-road. The sun came up bright and warm again, and by noon the hill-tops in the distance showed that purplish haze so common to the glorious October days. Everything about Leighton Homestead was quiet and peaceful, and in nothing was there a sign of the terrible calamity already passed, but as yet a secret to the mother, whose nameless terror of the previous night had faded with returning day. She was in Roy’s room, where a cheerful fire was blazing to counteract any chill or damp which might creep in through the open window. They had had their early lunch, and Roy was settling himself to sleep when Russell appeared, bearing a telegram, a missive which seldom fails to set one’s heart to throbbing with a dread of what it may have to tell. It was directed to Roy, but Mrs. Churchill opened it and read it, and then, with an agonizing shriek, fell forward upon Roy’s pillow, moaning bitterly:

“Oh, Roy, my Charlie is dead,—my Charlie is dead!”

She claimed him for all her own then. It was my Charlie, her fatherless one, her youngest-born, her baby, who was dead; and the blow cut deep and cruelly, and made her writhe in agony as she kept up the faint, moaning sound,—“My Charlie, my boy.”

She had dropped the telegram upon the floor, but Russell picked it up and handed it to Roy, who read:

“There has been a railroad accident, and Charlie is dead. His wife slightly injured. I await your orders.”

“Georgie L. Burton.”

When Roy read his brother’s letter the day before, there had been great drops of sweat upon his brow; but now his face was pale as death, and the tears poured over it like rain, as he held the paper in his hand and tried to realize the terrible sorrow which had fallen so suddenly upon him. The telegram was dated at Iona, a little town between Cleveland and Chicago, and nearer to the latter place. Georgie had said: “I await your orders,” and that brought Roy from his own grief to the necessity of acting. Somebody must go and bring poor Charlie home; and as Roy was disabled, the task would devolve on Russell, the head servant at Leighton, who had been in the family for years. With a grave bow he received his orders, and the next train which left the Leighton depot carried him in it, while four or five hours later, Miss Burton, to whom Russell had telegraphed at once, read that “Russell would start immediately for Iona.”

Stunned and utterly helpless, Mrs. Churchill could only moan and weep, as her maid led her to her room and made her lie down upon the bed. She was a good woman at heart, in spite of the foibles and errors which appeared on the surface, and far greater than her sorrow for her own loss was her anxiety for her boy’s future. Was it well with him? Would she ever meet him again, should she be so fortunate as to gain heaven herself? She had taught him to pray, and back through the years which lay between that dreadful day and his childhood, her thoughts went swiftly, and she seemed to see again the fair head resting on her lap and hear the dear voice lisping the words “Our Father,” or, “Jesus, gentle Shepherd, hear me,” which last had been Charlie’s favorite prayer. But he was a child then, a baby. He had grown to manhood since, and she could not tell if latterly he ever prayed; and if not, oh, where was he that autumn day, whose mellow beauty seemed to mock her woe, as, in the home to which he would never come alive, she made bitter mourning for him. Suddenly, amid her pain, she remembered the previous night when she had prayed so earnestly for her boy. Perhaps God had saved him for the sake of that prayer; His love and mercy were infinite, and she would trust it all to Him, hoping that as He saved the thief on the cross, so from Charlie’s lips in the moment of peril there had gone up a prayer so sincere, and full of penitence and faith, that God had heard and answered, and had her boy safe with Him. “If I only knew it was so,” she moaned; but alas! she did not know, and her soul cried out for sight and knowledge, just as many a bleeding heart has cried out for some word or token to make belief a certainty. But to such cries there comes no answer back; the grave remains unopened; the mystery unexplained, and we, whose streaming eyes would fain pierce the darkness, and see if our loved ones are safe, must still trust it all to God, and walk yet a while by faith, as poor Mrs. Churchill tried to do, even when she had so little to build her faith upon.

They sent for Mrs. Burton, who came at once and did what she could to soothe and quiet her friend.

“It was such a comfort to know Georgie was there, and so providential too,” she said, and then she asked if “that girl was hurt.”

Mrs. Churchill knew she meant Edna, and answered faintly: “Slightly injured, the telegram said,” and that was all that passed between her and her friend respecting that girl. Mrs. Churchill could only think of Edna as one who in some way was instrumental in Charlie’s death. If she had not enticed him, he would not have done what he did, and consequently would not at that moment have been lying where he was, with all his boyish beauty marred and disfigured, until his mother would not have known him. It was the evening paper which had that last in it, and gave an account of the accident, which was caused by a broken rail. The car in which Charlie and Edna were had been thrown down an embankment, and five of the passengers killed. Special mention was made of the young man who had been married in the morning, and though no name was given, Mrs. Churchill knew who it was, and wept piteously as she listened to Mrs. Burton reading the article to her.

Of Edna, however, she scarcely thought; Edna, the bride, who, the paper stated, seemed perfectly stunned with horror. No one thought of her until Maude Somerton came. She had heard of the accident, and as Saturday was always a holiday with her, she came on Friday night to Leighton, and brought with her a world of comfort, though Mrs. Churchill’s tears flowed afresh at sight of the girl who, she had fancied, might one day be her daughter.

“Oh, Maude, my child,” she said, as Maude bent over her. “He’s gone, our Charlie. You were a good friend of his, and I once hoped you might—”

“Let me bathe your head. It is very hot, and aches, I know,” Maude said, interrupting her, for she guessed what Mrs. Churchill was about to say, and did not care to hear it.

She had found it vastly pleasant to flirt with Charlie Churchill, but when the excitement was over, and she was back again in the school-room with her restless, active pupils, she scarcely thought of him until the news of his sudden death recalled him to her mind. That he was married did surprise her a little, and deep down in her heart there might have been a pang of mortified vanity that she had been so soon forgotten after all those walks upon the mountain side, and those moonlight sails upon the river; but she harbored no ill-will toward his wife, and almost her first inquiries after Mrs. Churchill had grown quiet were for her.

“Is she so badly hurt, that she will not be able to come home with the body?” she asked, and Mrs. Churchill started as if she had been stung.

“Come home! Come here! That girl! I’d never thought of that,” she exclaimed; and then Maude knew just how “that girl” was regarded by her husband’s mother.

She did not know how Roy felt; but she went to him next and asked if it was not expected that Charlie’s wife would come to Leighton if she was able to travel, and Georgie’s telegram “slightly injured” would indicate that she was. Although he knew it to be a fact, still Charlie’s wife was rather mythical to Roy, and he had thought but little about her, certainly never that she was coming there, until Maude’s question showed him the propriety of the thing.

“Of course she will come,” he said. “I wonder if mother sent any message by Russell. Ask her, please.”

Mrs. Churchill had sent no message. She did not think it necessary; the girl would do as she liked, of course.

“Then she will come; I should,” Maude said; and next morning, as she combed and brushed Mrs. Churchill’s hair, she casually asked:

“Which room is to be given to Charlie’s wife?

“I thought, perhaps, she would prefer the one he used to occupy in the north wing,” she added, “and if you like I will see that it is in readiness for the poor girl. How I pity her, a widow in less than twenty-four hours. And such a pretty name too,—Edna. Don’t you think it is pretty?”

“Oh, child, don’t ask me. I want to do right, but I don’t like to hear of her. It seems as if she was the means of Charlie’s death,” Mrs. Churchill sobbed, and Maude’s soft hands moved caressingly over the grayish-brown hair as she spoke again for the poor girl lying stunned, and scared, and white, so many miles away.

“Charlie must have loved her very much,” she said, “or he would never have braved your displeasure, and that of Roy. She may be a comfort to you, who have no other daughter. I begin to feel a great interest in her, and mean to be her friend.”

Maude had espoused Edna’s cause at once, and her heart was full of sympathy for the poor girl, for she foresaw just how lonely and dreary her life would be at Leighton, where every one’s hand was against her.

“Mrs. Churchill will worry and badger her, and Roy without meaning to do it will freeze her with indifference, while Aunt Burton and Georgie will criticise and snub her awfully,” she thought. “But I will do what I can for her, and make her room as attractive as possible.”

So all of Saturday morning was spent by Maude in brushing up and righting Charlie’s old room for the reception of the widowed Edna. There were many traces of the dead in there, and Maude’s eyes were moist with tears as she put them away, and thought how Charlie would never want them again. It was a very pleasant room, and under Maude’s skilful hands it looked still pleasanter and more inviting on the morning when the party was expected.

“I mean she shall come right in here with me at once,” Maude said to herself, as she gave the fire a little poke, and then for the fourth time brushed the hearth and rug.

There was an easy chair before the fire, and vases of flowers on the mantel, and bracket, and stand, and a pot of ivy stood between the windows, the white muslin curtains of which were looped back with knots of crape, sole sign of mourning in the room. Maude had asked her employers for two days’ vacation, and so she was virtually mistress of ceremonies, though Mrs. Burton bustled in and out, and gave the most contradictory orders, and made poor Mrs. Churchill’s nerves quiver with pain as she discussed the proper place for Charlie to be laid, and the proper way for the funeral to be conducted.

And through it all Roy lay utterly helpless, knowing that it was not for him to look upon his brother’s face, or to join in the last tribute of affection paid to his memory. He knew that Maude confidently expected that Edna was coming to Leighton, and so he supposed she was, and he felt a good deal of curiosity with regard to the girl who had caricatured him in a poke bonnet, and stigmatized him as a Betty. Not a word concerning her had passed between himself and his mother since the receipt of the telegram. Indeed, he had scarcely seen his mother, for she had kept mostly in her room, and either Maude or Mrs. Burton had been the medium of communication between them. The latter had indulged in some very pious talk about resignation and all that, and then had descanted upon Georgie’s great kindness and unselfishness in leaving her own business, and coming back to Leighton. She knew this from the second telegram received from Georgie, saying, “We shall reach Leighton sometime on Monday.”

That Georgie was coming was of itself enough to take away half the pain, and in her blind fondness for her adopted daughter, Mrs. Burton wondered why Roy and his mother should look as white and grief-stricken as they did that October afternoon, when the carriage was waiting at the station for the living, and the hearse was waiting for the dead.

CHAPTER IV.
GEORGIE.

Georgie Burton was a brilliant, fascinating woman, several years older than Maude Somerton, and wholly unlike her both in looks and disposition. She was not only very beautiful, but she had about her an air of culture and high breeding which would have atoned for the absence of all beauty.

Some said her chief attraction was in her great black eyes, which were so soft and gentle in their expression at times, and then again sparkled and shone with excitement; while it was whispered that they could on occasion blaze, and flash, and snap with anger and scorn.

Few, however, ever saw the flash and the blaze, and to most of the people in the neighborhood Georgie Burton was the kind, sympathetic, frank-hearted woman who, though a devotee of fashion, would always lend a listening ear to a tale of woe, or step aside from her own pleasure to minister to others.

She was very tall, and her blue-black hair fell in heavy masses of curls about her face and neck, giving her a more youthful appearance at first sight than a closer inspection would warrant. Her complexion, though dark, was clear, and smooth, and bright,—so bright in fact, that there had been whispers of artificial roses and enamel. But here rumor was wrong. Georgie’s complexion was all her own, kept bright and fair by every possible precaution and care. Constant exercise in the open air, daily baths, and a total abstinence from stimulants of any kind, together with as regular habits as her kind of life would admit, were the only cosmetics she used, and the result proved the wisdom of her course.

She was not Mrs. Freeman Burton’s daughter; she was her niece, and had been adopted five years before our story opens. But never was an own and only child loved and petted more than Mrs. Burton loved and petted the beautiful girl, who improved so fast under the advantages given her by her doting aunt.

For two years she had been kept in school, where she had bent every energy of mind and body to acquiring the knowledge necessary to fit her for the world which awaited her outside the school-room walls. And when at last she came out finished, and was presented to society as Mr. Freeman Burton’s daughter and heir, she became a belle at once; and for three years had kept her ground without yielding an inch to any rival.

To Mr. Burton she was kind and affectionate, and he would have missed her very much from his household; while to Mrs. Burton she was the loving, gentle, obedient daughter, who knew no will save that of her mother.

“A perfect angel of sweetness,” Mrs. Burton called her, and no person was tolerated who did not tacitly, at least, accord to Georgie all the virtues it was possible for one woman to possess. The relations between Maude and Georgie were kind and friendly, but not at all familiar or intimate. Georgie was too reserved and reticent with regard to herself and her affairs to admit of her being on very confidential terms with any one, and so Maude knew very little of her real character, and nothing whatever of her life before she came to live with her aunt, except what she learned from Mrs. Burton, who sometimes talked of her only sister, Georgie’s mother, and of the life of comparative poverty from which she had rescued her niece. At these times Georgie would sit motionless as a statue, with her hands locked together, and a peculiar expression in her black eyes, which seemed to be looking far away at something seen only to herself. She was not at all communicative, and even her aunt did not know exactly what the business was which had called her so suddenly to Chicago; but she was aware that it concerned some child, and that she had left it undone and turned back with Charlie; and when at last she came and was ushered into Mrs. Churchill’s room, where Mrs. Burton was, both ladies called her a self-denying angel, who always considered others before herself.

There was a flush on Georgie’s cheeks, and then her eyes went through the window, and off across the river, with that far away, abstracted look which Maude had noticed so often, and speculated upon, wondering of what Georgie was thinking, and if there was anything preying upon her mind.

Mrs. Churchill was very fond of Georgie, and she held her hand fast locked in her own, and listened with painful heart-throbs while she told what she knew of the terrible disaster which had resulted in Charlie’s lying so cold and dead in the room below.

“I left Buffalo the same morning Charlie did,” she said, “but did not know he was on the train until the accident.”

“Were you alone?” Mrs. Churchill asked.

“No. You remember my half-brother Jack, who was at Oakwood two years ago; he met me in Buffalo, and after the accident remembered having seen some one in the front car who reminded him of Charlie, but it never occurred to him that it could be he until he found him dead.”

Here Georgie paused, and wiped away Mrs. Churchill’s tears and smoothed her hair, and then continued her story: “It was a stormy night, a regular thunder-storm, and the rain was falling in torrents when the crash came, and I found myself upon my face with Jack under me, while all around was darkness and confusion, with horrible shrieks and cries of terror and distress. Our car was only thrown on one side, while the one Charlie was in was precipitated down the bank, and it was a miracle that any one escaped. Charlie was dead when Jack reached him; he must have died instantly, they said, and there is some comfort in that. They carried him into a house not far from the track, and I saw that his body had every possible care. I thought you would like it.”

“I do, I do. You are an angel. Go on,” Mrs. Churchill said, and Georgie continued:

“There’s not much more to tell of Charlie. I had his body packed in ice till Russell came, and then we brought him home.”

“But Edna, his wife, Mrs. Charlie Churchill, where is she? What of her? And why didn’t she come with you?”

It was Maude who asked these questions; Maude, who, when the carriage came, had stood ready to meet the “girl-widow,” as she mentally styled her, and lead her to her room. But there was no Edna there, and to the eager questionings Maude had put to Russell the moment she could claim his attention, that dignitary had answered gravely:

“You must ask Miss Burton. She managed that matter.”

So Maude ran up the stairs to Mrs. Churchill’s room, which she entered in time to hear the last of Georgie’s story, and where she startled the inmates with her vehement inquiries for Edna. Mrs. Churchill had not yet mentioned her name, and it did not seem to her that she had any part or right in that lifeless form downstairs, or any claim upon her sympathy. Her presence, therefore, would have been felt as an intrusion, and though she had made up her mind to endure it, she breathed freer when she knew Edna had not come. The name, “Mrs. Charlie Churchill,” shocked her a little, but she listened anxiously to what Georgie had to say of her.

“Hush, Maude, how impetuous you are; perhaps poor Mrs. Churchill cannot bear any more just now,” Georgie said, and Mrs. Churchill replied:

“Yes, tell me all about the girl. I may as well hear it now as any time. O, my poor boy, that he should have thrown himself away like that.”

Georgie had her cue now, and knew just how to proceed.

“The girl was by Charlie’s side trying to extricate him, and that was how we found out who she was and that he was married that morning. She was slightly injured, a bruise on her head and shoulder, and arm, that was all, and she seemed very much composed and slept very soundly a good part of the day following. I should not think her one to be easily excited. I did what I could for her, and spoke of her coming home with me as a matter of course.

“She said, ‘Did they send any word to me by that gentleman?’ meaning Russell. I questioned Russell on the subject and could not learn that any message had been sent directly to her, and so she declined coming, and when I asked her if she did not feel able to travel so far, she burst out crying, and said: ‘I could endure the journey well enough, though my head aches dreadfully, but they don’t want me there, and I cannot go;’ a decision she persisted in to the last. She seemed a mere child, not more than fifteen, though she said she was seventeen.”

“And did you leave her there alone?” Maude asked, her cheeks burning with excitement, for she had detected the spirit of indifference breathing in every word Georgie had said of Edna, and resented it accordingly.

Edna had a champion in Maude, and Georgie knew it, and her eyes rested very calmly on the girl as she replied:

“I telegraphed to her aunt, a Miss Jerusha Pepper, who lives near Canandaigua, and also to her friends in Chicago, a Mr. and Mrs. John Dana, and before I left Mrs. Dana came, a very plain, but perfectly respectable appearing woman.”

“Which means, I suppose, that you do not think she would steal, or pick a man’s pocket, unless sorely pressed,” Maude broke in vehemently. “For goodness’ sake, Georgie, put off that lofty way of talking as if poor Edna was outside the pale of humanity, and her friends barely respectable. I am sorry for her, and I wish she was here, and I want to know if you left her with any one who will be kind to her, and say a comforting word.”

“Maude, have you forgotten yourself, that you speak so to Georgie in Mrs. Churchill’s and my presence?” Mrs. Burton said reprovingly, while Mrs. Churchill looked bewildered, as if she hardly knew what it was all about, or for whom Maude was doing battle.

In no wise disconcerted, Georgie continued in the same cool strain:

“This Mrs. Dana I told you of, seemed very kind to her, and I think the girl felt better with her than she would with us. She was going to Chicago with Mrs. Dana, and Jack was going with them. You remember Jack?”

Yes, Maude did remember Jack, the great, big-hearted fellow, who had been at Oakwood for a few weeks, two years before, and whom Georgie had kept in the background as much as possible, notwithstanding that she petted and caressed, and made much of him, and called him “Jackey” and “dear Jack,” when none but the family were present to see him and know he was her half-brother.

“So good in Georgie, and shows such an admirable principle in her not to be ashamed of that great good-natured bear of a fellow,” Mrs. Burton had said to Maude; and Maude, remembering the times when the “great, good-natured bear of a fellow” had been introduced to any of Georgie’s fashionable friends who chanced to stumble upon him, simply as “Mr. Heyford,” and not as “my brother,” had her own opinion upon that subject as upon many others.

She had liked Jack Heyford very much, and felt that he was a man to be trusted in any emergency, and when she heard that Edna was with him, she said impulsively:

“I know she is safe if Mr. Heyford has her in charge. I would trust him sooner than any man I ever saw, and know I should not be deceived.”

“You might do that, Maude, you might. Jack is the truest, noblest of men,” Georgie said, and her voice trembled as she said it, while Maude actually thought a tear glittered in her black eyes, as she paid this unwonted tribute to her brother.

“That reminds me;” said Mrs. Burton, wiping her own eyes from sympathy with Georgie’s emotion, “what about that little child, and what will your brother do, as you did not go on with him?”

The dewy look in Georgie’s eye was gone in a moment, and in its place there came a strange gleam, half pain and half remorse, as she answered:

“I shall go to Chicago in a few days.”

“Is that necessary?” Mrs. Burton asked, and Georgie replied:

“Yes, the child keeps asking for me, and I must go.”

“What child?” Maude asked, with her usual impulsiveness.

There was a quivering of the muscles around Georgie’s mouth, and a spasmodic fluttering of her white throat, as if the words she was going to utter were hard to say; then, with her face turned away from Maude’s clear, honest blue eyes, she said very calmly:

“It is a little girl my step-mother adopted. Her name is Annie, and she always calls Jack brother, and me her sister Georgie. Perhaps mamma told you my step-mother had recently died.”

“No, she didn’t. I’d forgotten you had a step-mother living,” Maude said, and Georgie continued:

“Yes, Jack’s mother, you know. She died a month or so ago, and this child met with an accident,—hurt her back or hip, and it was to see her that I was going to Chicago.”

Georgie finished her statement quietly, and then, turning to Mrs. Churchill, asked if she should not again wet the napkin and bathe her head and face. She was very calm and collected, and her white hands moved gently over Mrs. Churchill’s hot, flushed face, until she declared herself better, and bade Georgie go and rest herself. Georgie was not tired, and said she would just look in upon Roy, to whom she repeated, in substance, what she had told his mother of the dreadful accident. Roy had heard the most of the particulars from Russell, but they gained new force and interest when told by the beautiful Georgie, whose voice was so low, and tender, and sorrowful, and whose long lashes, half veiling the soft eyes, were moist with tears as she spoke of “dear Charlie and his poor young girl-wife.” That was what she called her when with Roy, not “the girl,” but “his poor young girl-wife.” She had seen at once that with Roy she must adopt a different tone with regard to Edna, for Roy was eager in his inquiries and sorry that she had not come to Leighton, “her proper place,” he said.

Georgie tried to be open and fair with Roy, who, she knew, hated a lie or anything approaching it, and so she incidentally mentioned the nature of her business to Chicago, and told of the recent death of her step-mother, of whom Mr. Leighton had, of course, heard. Roy could not remember, but supposed he had, and then Georgie told him of little Annie Heyford, her adopted sister, and said she must still go and see to her. And Roy thought how kind she was, and hoped the little Annie would not suffer for her absence, or her brother be greatly inconvenienced. Georgie reassured him on both points, and then, as he seemed to be very tired and his limb was beginning to pain him, she left him for a time, and returned to Mrs. Churchill.

CHAPTER V.
ROY’S DECISION.

During the time we have been introducing Georgie Burton, poor Charlie lay in the little reception room below, with the terrible bruises on his face, and the night fell darkly around Leighton Place, and the stars came out and looked down into the open grave, where, early the next morning, they buried the young man who had been the darling of his mother, and a sad trial in so many ways to his only brother.

But Roy forgot all that now; and, as he lay helpless upon his bed and heard the roll of wheels which carried Charlie away, he wept like a child, and wished so much that no harsh word had ever been spoken by him to the boy whose face he would never see again.

And then his thoughts went after the young girl who had been Charlie’s wife for only a few short hours. He could be kind to her, and he would, for Charlie’s sake, and thus atone for any undue severity he might have shown his brother.

“As soon as I am able, I will go after her, and bring her home with me,” he said to himself, and he tried to recall her face as he had seen it in the car, wondering if he should know her.

She had curls, he knew; for he remembered just how they were tossed about by the wind; and her eyes were large, and bright, and brown he thought, though he was not positive. At all events, they were handsome eyes, and he believed Edna was handsome, too; and perhaps he should like her very much. And then, as he heard a sweet, cooing voice in the hall, telling Mrs. Churchill’s maid that her mistress wanted her, he found himself wondering how Georgie and Edna would suit each other in case it came about that both should live at Leighton. He had heard so much said with regard to his making Miss Burton his wife, that he had come to think he might possibly do so some day, but there was no special cause for haste; at least, there had been none up to the present time. But if Edna came there to live, he felt that it might be well to have a younger mistress in the house,—one who would brighten up matters, and make life a little gayer than his mother, with her old-fashioned, quiet ways, was inclined to do.

Could Roy have had his choice he would rather not have had a change, for he greatly enjoyed his present mode of living, and his entire freedom to do as he pleased without consulting the wishes of any one. And yet he was not naturally selfish. He had only grown so from living so much alone with his mother and having all his tastes consulted and deferred to. A wife would have made a far different man of him, and have found him the kindest, most thoughtful of husbands. He had liked Georgie since she first came to Oakwood, and he thought her very kind and self-sacrificing to leave her own matters and come there to comfort his mother, who, as soon as the funeral was over, went to her bed, where she was cared for by Georgie with a daughter’s tenderness.

When at last quiet had settled around the house, and the day was drawing to a close, Georgie left her patient for a little and went to see how it fared with Roy. His limb was paining him more than usual, for a storm was gathering, and the day had been long and trying, with no one to talk to but Russell and the doctor. Thus Georgie’s visit was well timed, and she had never seemed so lovely to Roy, even when arrayed in full party splendor, as she did now in her plain dress of black alpaca, with a simple white linen band at her throat and linen cuffs at her wrist. She had dressed thus in honor of Charlie’s funeral, and in her nun-like garb she seemed to belong to the house and be a part of the family. Her curls were put up under a net, but one or two of them had escaped from their confinement and almost touched Roy’s face as she bent over him asking how he felt and what she could do for him.

She made his pillow more comfortable and pulled the covering smoothly around him, and pushed back a stray lock of hair which persisted in falling into his eyes, and made him feel so much better that by the time she had seated herself in the chair by his side he was nearer to speaking the words she had waited so long to hear than he had ever been before. But first he would talk with her a little about Edna, and see what she thought of his going after her or sending for her to come at once. Georgie, however, did not approve of Edna’s coming. “Under some circumstances it would be very pleasant for you to have her here, and it would be so nice for Edna,” she said in her softest, mellowest tones, “but just at present I do not believe it is best. Your mother is too much grieved and crushed to reason correctly on anything, and I fear the presence of Charlie’s wife would make her very wretched. She cannot help it, I dare say, but she charges Charlie’s death to Edna, and under these circumstances neither could at present be happy with the other. By and by it will be different of course, and then it may be well to consider the matter again. Pardon me, Mr. Leighton, if I have said too much, but your mother is so brokenhearted that I would not for the world have a drop added to her cup of sorrow. I am so sorry for Edna too. Poor girl! but she is young, you know, and can bear it better.”

Georgie was very gentle, and her voice had trembled just as much when speaking of Edna as when talking of his mother, and Roy was wholly convinced, and thought it might be better not to send for Edna, but let his mother have time to overcome her aversion to the girl.

It was better also to give himself a little longer space of freedom as a bachelor; for if Edna did not come, there was no immediate necessity for him to take a wife to make the house inviting. He and his mother could still live on in their quiet way, which he enjoyed so much, and felt that he enjoyed all the more from the fact that he had come so near losing it; so he did not speak to Georgie then, but it was arranged that when she went to Chicago she should find Edna, and do for her whatever needed to be done, and ascertain if she cared to come to Leighton.

“I must trust it all to your management, for I am helpless myself,” Roy said, offering his hand to Georgie, as she arose to leave the room. “Try and overcome mother’s prejudice against Edna, won’t you? Women have a way of doing these things which men know nothing about. Mother thinks the world of you; so do your best to bring her round, will you?”

Georgie’s hand, though not very small, was soft, and white, and pretty, and Roy involuntarily pressed it a little, as he asked its owner to “try and bring his mother round.”

And Georgie promised that she would, and then went away from Roy, who, in the gathering twilight, tried to imagine how the house would seem with that queenly woman there as its mistress, and while speculating upon it fell asleep, and dreamed that Edna Browning was freezing him to death with open windows, and tying a poke bonnet under his chin.

CHAPTER VI.
NEWS OF EDNA.

Mrs. Churchill had never been strong, and the suddenness of her son’s death, together with the manner in which it occurred, shocked her nervous system to such an extent that for weeks she kept her room, seeing scarcely any one outside her own family except Mrs. Burton and Georgie.

As another proof of her utter unselfishness, Georgie had postponed her Chicago trip for an indefinite time, and devoted herself to Mrs. Churchill with all a daughter’s love and care.

But alas for Edna! Her case was not in the best of hands; indeed, Roy could hardly have chosen one more unlikely to “bring his mother round” than Georgie Burton. That Edna would be in her way at Leighton, Georgie had decided from the moment she had looked upon the great, sad eyes brimming with tears, and the childish mouth, quivering in a way which made her big-hearted brother Jack long to kiss the grief away and fold the little creature in his arms as a mother would her child.

She seemed a mere child to both Jack and Georgie, the latter of whom in her surprise at hearing she was Charlie Churchill’s wife had asked how old she was.

“Seventeen last May,” was the reply, and Georgie thought with a sigh of the years which lay between herself and that sweet age of girlhood.

Roy liked young girls, she had heard him say so, and knew that he treated Maude Somerton, of nineteen, with far more familiarity than he did Georgie Burton, of,—she never told how many years. And Roy would like Edna, first as a sister and then, perhaps, as something nearer, for that the girl was artful and ambitious, she did not doubt, and to have her at Leighton was far too dangerous an experiment. In this conviction she was strengthened after her talk with Roy, and whenever Mrs. Churchill mentioned her, as she frequently did, wondering what she would do, Georgie always made some reply calculated to put down any feelings of pity or interest which might be springing up in the mother’s heart. But she never said a word against Edna; everything was in her favor, and still she managed to harm her just the same, and to impress Mrs. Churchill with the idea that she could not have her there, and so the tide was setting in strongly against poor, widowed, friendless Edna.

It was two weeks now since the accident, and through Jack Heyford, Georgie had heard that she was in Chicago with Mrs. Dana, that she had been and still was sick, and Jack didn’t know what she was going to do if the Leightons did not help her. Georgie did not read this letter either to Roy or his mother. She merely said that Jack had seen Edna, who was still with Mrs. Dana.

“Does he write what she intends doing?” Roy asked, and Georgie replied that he did not, and then Roy fell into a fit of musing, and was glad he had sent Charlie five hundred dollars, and he wished he had made the check larger, as he certainly would have done had he known what was to follow.

“Poor Charlie!” he sighed. “He made me a world of trouble, but I wish I had him back;” and then he remembered the unpaid bills sent to him from Canandaigua since his brother’s death, and of which his mother must not know, as some of them were contracted for Edna.

There was a jeweller’s bill for the wedding ring, and a set of coral, with gold watch and chain, the whole amounting to two hundred dollars. And Roy paid it, and felt glad that Edna had the watch, and hoped it was pretty, and wished Charlie had chosen a more expensive one.

He was beginning to feel greatly interested in this unknown sister, and was thinking intently of her one morning, when Russell brought him his letters, one of which was from Edna herself. Hastily tearing it open he read:

“Mr. Robert Leighton: Dear Sir,—Please find inclosed $300 of the $500 you sent to Charlie.

“I should not have kept any of the money, only there were some expenses to pay, and I was sick and had not anything. As soon as I get well and can find something to do, I shall pay it all back with interest. Believe me, Mr. Leighton, I certainly will.

Yours truly,

“Edna Browning Churchill.

“P.S.—You will find my note inclosed.”

And there, sure enough, it was, Edna’s note to Robert Leighton, Esq.:

“Chicago, October 18, 18—.

“For value received I promise to pay to Robert Leighton, or bearer, the sum of two hundred dollars, with interest at seven per cent per annum, from date.

“Edna Browning Churchill.”

Roy read these lines more than once, and his eyes were moist with tears as he said aloud:

“Brave little woman. I like you now, if I never did before.”

He did not want the money; he wished in his heart that Edna had it, and more too; and yet he was in some way glad she had sent it back and written him that letter, which gave him an insight into her character. She was not a mere saucy, frolicsome girl, given to making caricatures of men in poke bonnets; there was about her a courage and energy, and strict integrity, which he liked, and he felt some curiosity to know if she would pay the two hundred dollars as she had promised to do.

“I believe I’ll let her alone for a while till I see what is in her,” he said, “and, when I am satisfied, I’ll go for her myself and bring her home. My broken leg will be well long before she can earn that money. Brave little woman!”

Roy sent this letter to his mother but withheld the one which came to him next day from Edna, full of intense mortification and earnest entreaties that he would not think her base enough to have accepted Charlie’s presents if she had known they were not paid for. Somebody had written to her that the jeweller in Canandaigua had a bill against Charlie for a watch and chain, and coral set, which had been bought with promise of immediate payment.

“They say the bill will be sent to you,” Edna wrote, “and then you will despise me more than you do now, perhaps. But, Mr. Leighton, I did not dream of such a thing. Charlie gave them to me the morning we were married, and I did not think it wrong to take them then. I never took anything before, except a little locket with Charlie’s face in it. If you have not paid that bill, please don’t. I can manage it somehow. I know Mr. Greenough, and he’ll take the things back, perhaps. But if you have already paid it I shall pay you. Don’t think I won’t, for I certainly shall. I can work and earn money somehow. It may be a good while, but I shall do it in time, and I want you to trust me and believe that I never meant to be mean, or married Charlie because he had money, for I didn’t.”

Here something was scratched out, and after it Edna wrote:

“Perhaps you will get a wrong impression if I do not make some explanation. I did not care one bit for the money I supposed Charlie had, but maybe if I had known he had nothing but what you gave him, I should not have been married so soon. I should have told him to wait till we were older and had something of our own. I am so sorry, and I wish Mrs. Churchill had Charlie back and that I was Edna Browning. I don’t want her to hate me, for she is Charlie’s mother, and I did love him so much.

“Yours, E. B. Churchill.”

This was Edna’s second letter to Roy, who felt the great lumps rising in his throat as he read it, and who would like to have choked the person who could have been malicious enough to tell Edna about those bills.

“She did not mention the ring,” he said. “I hope she knows nothing of that.”

But Edna did know of it, and the bitterest pang of all was connected with that golden symbol which seemed to her now like a mockery. She could not, however, confess to Roy that her wedding ring was among the articles unpaid for, so she made no mention of it, and Roy hoped she knew nothing of it and never would.

“I’ll write to her to-day,” he said, “and tell her to keep that watch as a present from me, and I’ll tell her too that by and by I am coming out to bring her home. She is made of the right kind of metal to suit me. Brave little woman.”

This seemed to be the name by which Roy thought of Edna now, and he repeated it to himself as he went over her letter again, and pitied her so much, but he did not write to her that day as he intended doing. He was rather indolent in matters not of a strictly business nature. He hated letter-writing at any time, and especially now when exertion of any kind was painful to him; and so the days came and went until a week was gone, and still Edna’s letter was unanswered, and “the brave little woman” was not quite so much in Roy’s mind, for he had other and graver matters to occupy his attention and engross his thoughts. His mother was very sick, and Georgie staid with her all the time, and Maude Somerton came on Friday night and remained till Monday morning, and Roy himself hobbled to her room on crutches, and sat beside her for hours, while the fever burned itself out, and she talked deliriously of her lost boy and the girl who had led him to ruin.

“That girl will have two lives to answer for instead of one, I fear,” Georgie said, with a sorrowful shake of the head, and an appealing look at Roy, who made no reply.

He did not charge Edna with his brother’s death, and would feel no animosity toward her even if his mother died, but he could not then speak for her, and brave Georgie’s look of indignation against “that girl.” This, however, Maude Somerton did, and her blue eyes grew dark with passionate excitement as she turned fiercely upon Georgie and said:

“Better call her a murderess at once, and have her hung as a warning to all young girls with faces pretty enough to tempt a man to run away with them. You know, Georgie Burton, she wasn’t a bit more to blame than Charlie himself, and it’s a shame for one woman to speak so of another.”

To this outburst Georgie made no reply, but Roy in his heart blessed the young girl for her defence of Edna, and made a mental memorandum of a Christmas present he meant to buy for Maude.

CHAPTER VII.
MISS PEPPER’S LETTER.

Mrs. Churchill was better, and Georgie was talking again of going to Chicago, and had promised to find Edna and render her any service in her power. Roy had written to Edna at last, but no answer had come to him, and he was beginning to wonder at her silence and to feel a little piqued, when one day early in December Russell brought him a letter mailed in Canandaigua and directed to his mother in a bold, angular handwriting, which stamped the writer as a person of striking originality and strongly marked character. In his mother’s weak state it would not do to excite her, and so Roy opened the letter himself and glanced at the signature:

“Yours to command,

“Jerusha Amanda Pepper.”

And that worthy woman, who rejoiced in so euphonious a name, wrote from her own fireside in Richmond to Mrs. Churchill, as follows:

“Richmond, Allen’s Hill,

“Ontario Co., N.Y., Dec. 4th, 18—.

“Mrs. Churchill:

“Dear Madam—I’ve had it on my mind to write to you ever since that terrible disaster by which you were deprived of a son, who was taken to eternity without ever the chance for one last prayer or cry to be saved. Let us hope he had made his prayers beforehand and had no need for them. He had been baptized, I suppose, as I hear you are a church woman, but are you High or Low? Everything to my mind depends upon that. I hold the Low to be purely Evangelical, while the High,—well, I will not harrow up your feelings; what I want to say is, that I do not and never have for a single moment upheld my niece, or rather my great niece, Edna, in what she has done. I took her from charity when her father died, although he was higher than I in his views, and we used to hold many a controversial argument on apostolic succession, for he was a clergyman and my sister’s son. His wife, who set up to be a lady and taught music in our select school, died when Edna was born, and I believe went to Heaven, though we never agreed as to the age when children should be confirmed, nor about that word regeneration in the baptismal service. I hold it’s a stumbling block and ought to be struck out, while she said I did not understand its import, and confounded it with something else; but that’s neither here nor there. Lucy was a good woman and made my nephew a good wife, though she would keep a girl, which I never did.

“When William died, twelve years ago, I took Edna and have been a mother to her ever since, and made her learn the catechism and creed, and thoroughly indoctrinated her with my views, and sent her to Sunday-school, and always gave her something from the Christmas tree, and insisted upon her keeping all the fasts, and had her confirmed, and she turned out High Church after all, and ran away with your son. But I wash my hands of her now. Such a bill as I have got to pay the teachers in the seminary for her education! It was understood that after she graduated she was to stay there and teach to pay for her schooling, and what does she do but run away and leave me with a bill of four hundred dollars! Not that I can’t pay it, for I can. I’ve four times four hundred laid up in Mr. Beals’s bank, and like an honest woman, I took it out and paid the bill and have got the receipt in my prayer-book, and I showed it to her, for she’s been here; yes, actually had the cheek to come right into my house on Thanksgiving day, when I was at church; and a good sermon we had, too, if our new minister did bow in the creed, which rather surprised me, after telling him, as I did only the day before, that I looked upon that ceremony as a shred, at least, if not a rag of Popery. He lost a dollar by that bow, for I had twelve shillings of milk-money I calculated to give him, but when he bowed over so low right at me as if he would say, ‘You see, Miss Pepper, I’m not to be led by the nose,’ I just put on my fifty cents, and let it go at that.

“The stage came in while I was at church; but I never thought of Edna till I got home and smelled the turkey I had left in the oven more than I should have smelled it if somebody hadn’t hurried up the fire; and there was the vegetables cooking, and the table set for two; and Edna, in her black dress, stood before the fire with her hands held tight together, and a look on her face as if she felt she’d no business there after all she had done.

“‘Edna Browning,’ I said, ‘what are you doing here, and how dare you come after disgracing me so?’

“Then she said something about its being the only place she had to go to, and my being lonely eating dinner alone Thanksgiving day, and began to be hystericky, of course.

“If there’s anything I pride myself on more than another, it’s firmness and presence of mind, and I am happy to say I maintained them both, though I did come near giving way, when I saw how what I said affected her.

“I told her that to get into any family the way she did into yours was mean and disgraceful, and said she was to blame for the young man’s death; and asked who was to remunerate me for that four hundred dollars I had to pay for her schooling; and who was to pay for all the trinkets at Greenough’s in Canandaigua, and if she was not ashamed to wear a wedding ring a stranger had to pay for.

“Up to this point, I must say Edna had not manifested much, if any feeling, and I really felt as if she was hardened and did not care; but when I spoke of the ring something about her made my flesh creep, and told me I had gone far enough.

“There came a kind of pale-gray look all over her face, and a steel-gray look in her eye, as she took off the ring and put it away in her purse, saying, in a queer, low voice:

“‘You are right, Aunt Jerry. I am a murderess, and I ought not to wear this ring until I have paid for it myself, and I never will.’

“She did not eat a mouthful of dinner, but with that same look in her eyes sat staring out at a blighted rose-tree just opposite the window, and when I asked what she saw, she answered:

“‘My future life.’

“And that was all she said till the dishes were washed and it began to get dark. I was going to light a candle, but she turned kind of fierce like toward me and said:

“‘Don’t, Aunt Jerry,—don’t light that candle. I like the darkness. I want to talk to you, and I can do it better if I don’t see your face.’

“’Twas a queer notion, but I humored her, and she told me about your son, and took all the blame to herself, and said she was sorry, and told me of the money Mr. Leighton sent, and how much she kept, and that she was going to pay it back.

“‘And if I live I’ll pay you that four hundred dollars too,’ she said; and her voice was so strange that I felt shivery like, and wished the candle was lighted. ‘I have sent Mr. Leighton my note for the first two hundred. I shall send him another to-morrow,’ she went on, ‘and give you one too.’

“And sure enough she did, and I have her ‘promise to pay four hundred dollars with interest from date,’ so that makes a debt of $800 she’s saddled herself with, and she only seventeen. And upon my word I believe she’ll do it! She is a little bit of a girl, but there’s a sight of grit and vim wrapped up in her, and she seemed to have grown into a woman all at once, so that, mad as I was, I liked her better than ever I did before.

“She staid all night, and told me that Mrs. Dana in Chicago died suddenly from paralysis, and the husband asked her to be Mrs. Dana 2d, and take care of his little children and a baby of six months, and his wife only dead two weeks. That started her from there, and where she is now I know no more than the dead. She left me next morning, bag and baggage, and when I asked where she was going, she said, ‘to earn my living.’

“Then I asked if she had friends, and she said, ‘None but God,’ and added after a minute, ‘Yes, one more, but he can’t help me.’

“Who she meant I don’t know, nor where she’s gone. I tried to make her stay, but she said, ‘No, I am my own mistress now. Marriage has made me that, if not my age, and I am going away;’ and she went in the stage, and after she was gone I sat down and cried, for I felt I was a little too hard on her, and I could not forget the look on her face as I came in from church, nor the look as I talked to her about the ring and killing her husband. I have no idea where she’s gone, but feel sure she will keep out of harm. She’s been well brought up, and though some of her notions do not suit me, she is thoroughly indoctrinated in the truth, and will come out all right; so my advice is to let her alone for a spell at any rate, and see what she’ll do.

“My object in writing this to you is to give you some little insight into the character of the family you are connected with by marriage, and to let you know I don’t take my niece’s part, although it is natural that I should find more excuse for her than you, who probably think it a disgrace to be connected with the Peppers. But, if you choose to inquire hereabouts, you’ll find that I am greatly respected and looked up to in the church, and if you ever come this way give me a call, and I will do the same by you. If you feel like it, write to me, if not, not.

“Wishing you all consolation in your son’s death,

“Yours to command,

“Jerusha Amanda Pepper.”

Roy read this letter with mingled emotions of disgust and indignation, and finally of tolerance and even kindly feelings, toward the writer, who had commenced with being so hard upon her niece, but had softened as she progressed, and at last had spoken of her with a good deal of interest and even sympathy.

“Poor little thing,” he called Edna now, and he longed to take her up in his arms as he would a child, and comfort her. From the tenor of the first part of Miss Pepper’s letter, he could imagine, or thought he could, just how hard, and grim, and stern the woman was, and just how dreary and cheerless Edna’s life had been with her.

“I don’t wonder she married the first one that offered,” he said, and then as he recalled the man Dana, who had asked Edna to be his wife, he felt a flush of resentment tinge his cheeks, and his fists clenched with a desire to knock the impudent Dana down. “And it is to such insults as these she is liable at any time; fighting her way alone in the cold, harsh world, though, by Jove! I don’t blame her for leaving that Pepper-corn, goading and badgering her about the ring, and murdering Charlie. I wouldn’t have spent so much as the night there after that; I’d have slept in the dog-kennel first.”

Roy did not stop to consider that no such luxurious appendage as a dog-kennel was to be found on Miss Pepper’s premises. He only remembered her cruelty to Edna, and the “pale-gray look which came into her face,” and the “steel-gray look in her eye,” as she took off her wedding ring, and then sat looking out at the blighted rose-tree, seeing there her future life. Roy was not much given to poetry, or sentiment, or flowery speeches, but he saw the connection between Edna and the blighted tree, and knew why it should have had a greater fascination for her than her aunt’s rasping tirade.

“She is a blighted rose herself,” he said, “or rather a blighted bud, only seventeen, as much a girl as she ever was, a wife of a few hours, a widow turned out into the world to shirk for herself with an assumed debt of, let me see, that two hundred to me, four hundred more to that miserly old sanctimonious Pepper, prating about High Church and Low, and arrogating to herself all the piety of both parties, just because she stands up straight as a rail during the creed, and believes Lorenzo Dow as divinely appointed to preach as St. Peter himself; that makes six hundred, besides that bill in Canandaigua, which Pepper says she’s resolved to pay. Eight hundred dollars. Before she gets all that paid there’ll be a grayer look in her eyes and on her poor little face than there was when she looked at the blighted rose-tree. And here I have more money than I know what to do with. I’ll go for her at once, go this very day,” and forgetting his lame leg in his excitement, Roy sprang to his feet, but a sharp twinge of pain brought him to his senses, and to his chair again. “I can’t go. Confound it. I’m a cripple,” he said: then, as he remembered that he did not know where Edna was, he groaned aloud, and blamed himself severely for having indulged in his old habit of procrastination, and so deferred the writing of his letter to Edna until it was too late.

For of course she never got it. If she had, it might have changed her whole line of conduct. At least, she would have known that she had two friends, one Roy, and the other the one she had mentioned to her aunt as powerless to help her. Who was he? for she distinctly said he. “Not that ass of a Dana sure, else she had not fled from him and his offer,” and with his sound leg Roy kicked a footstool as the combined representative of the audacious Dana and Miss Jerusha Pepper. He was glad that woman was no nearer relative to Edna than great aunt, and so was his mother, for after his ebullition of anger was over, he decided to take the letter to her, and tell her what Edna had written to himself.

As Georgie was not present, there was no counter influence at work, and Roy’s voice and manner told plainly which way he leaned.

In this state of things, Mrs. Churchill went with the tide, and cried softly, and said there was more to Edna than she had supposed, and hoped Roy would never take a cent of pay, and suggested his sending a check for four hundred dollars to that abominable Pepper woman, who thought to make friends with them by taking sides against her niece!

“She’s a perfect old shrew,—a Shylock, you may be assured, and will take every farthing of principal and interest. Write to her now, and have it done with.”

“And suppose I do,” said Roy; “what warrant have we that this woman will not exact it just the same of Edna, who has no means of knowing that we have paid it?”

“I know she will not do that,” Mrs. Churchill replied. “Disgusting as her letter is, I think it shows her to be honest, at least. At all events, I should test her.”

And so Roy wrote to Miss Pepper, inclosing his check for the four hundred dollars, and asking, in return, for her receipt, and Edna’s note. His letter was not a very cordial one, and shrewd Miss Jerusha detected its spirit, and sent back the check forthwith, telling Roy that she could see through a millstone any time; that it was kind in him to offer to pay Edna’s debts, but she did not see the necessity of insulting her with a suspicion of unfair dealing with her own flesh and blood. She guessed he didn’t know her standing in the church, and had better inquire next time. As for Edna, he need not worry about her. She (Miss Pepper) did not intend to harm her. She only wanted to see how much grit there was in the girl; and he would find sometime, perhaps, that a Pepper could be as generous as a Leighton.

Roy could not complain of the last sentiment, for he had himself been conscious of a desire to let Edna alone for a time, and see what was in her. But he did not feel so now, and if he had known where she was, he would have gone for her at once and brought her home to Leighton. But he did not know. The last intelligence he had of her was received in a letter mailed at Albany, two days after the date of Miss Pepper’s effusion. In this letter, Edna wrote that she had disposed of her watch and coral for one hundred and fifty dollars, one hundred of which she sent to Roy, together with a second note for the remaining hundred due for the jewelry.

“You will forgive me, Mr. Leighton, for not sending the whole. I would do so, but I must have something to begin my new life with. I don’t exactly know what I shall do, but think I shall teach drawing. I have some talent for that, as well as music, and my voice is not a bad one, they said at Canandaigua. As fast as I earn anything, I shall send you a part of it. Mr. Leighton, I have another debt besides yours, and perhaps you won’t mind if I try to pay that as soon as possible. It will only make your time a little longer, and I do so much want that other one off my mind.”

“I don’t wonder she does,” Roy said, as he finished reading the letter to his mother, who with himself began to feel a deep interest in this “brave little woman,” as Roy called her aloud.

“She writes a very fair hand and expresses herself well,” Mrs. Churchill said, examining the letter, and wondering where Edna was. “We have done our duty at all events,” she added, “and I do not think anybody could require more of us.”

Roy did not tell all he thought. It would not have pleased his mother if he had, and so he kept silent, while she flattered herself that they had done every possible thing which could be expected of them. Roy had tried to pay Edna’s debts, and that he had not done so was not his fault, while she harbored no unkindness now toward the poor girl, she said to Georgie Burton, who came over in the afternoon to say good-by, as she was going to Chicago at last. Roy would never have told Georgie of Edna’s affairs, but his mother had no concealments from her, and repeated the whole story.

“Of course you have done your duty, and I would not give it any more thought, but try to get well and be yourself again,” Georgie said, kissing her friend, tenderly, and telling her of her projected journey.

Mrs. Churchill was very sorry to have Georgie go away, and Roy was, after a fashion, sorry too, and he went down to the carriage with her, and put her in, and drew the Affghan across her lap, and told her how much he should miss her, and that she must make her absence as brief as possible.

“Remember me to your brother,” he said, as he finally offered her his hand; then after a moment he added, “I did hope to have sent some message direct to our poor little girl. Maybe you can learn something of her present whereabouts. I am most anxious to know where she is.”

He held Georgie’s hand all the time he was saying this, and Georgie’s eyes were very soft and pitiful in their expression as she bade him good-by, and promised “to find out all she could about the poor, dear child.”

CHAPTER VIII.
THE BRAVE LITTLE WOMAN.

Backward now we turn to Edna herself, who was a brave little woman, though she did not know herself of what she was capable, or how soon her capabilities were to be tested on that October morning when she entered the cars, at Buffalo, a happy bride,—save when something whispered to her that perhaps she had not done the wisest thing in marrying so secretly. What would her teachers say when they heard the use she had made of their permission for her to accompany her sick friend home? And what would Aunt Jerry say to the runaway match when she was so great a stickler for the proprieties of life?