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?

“She’ll charge it all to my High Church proclivities,” Edna said to herself, trying to laugh as she recalled her aunt’s peculiarities, and the probable effect the news would have on her. “I don’t care! I’m glad to be free from her any way,” she thought, as she remembered, with a shudder, all the dreariness and longing for something different which she had felt in that house by the graveyard where her childhood was passed.

It had never been hers to know the happiness which many children know. No mother had ever put her to bed, and tucked her up, with loving words and the good-night kiss. No hand had smoothed her locks of golden brown, as she said her little prayer. No pleasant voice had waked her in the morning from her dreamless sleep, and found excuse when the slumber was so hard to break, the eyes so unwilling to unclose. No little extra pie or cake was ever baked for her on the broken bit of plate, or cracked saucer. No sled, with her name upon it, stood out by gate, or door-step; and no genuine doll-baby ever lay in any box, or basket, or drawer in that prim, silent house, for Aunt Jerry did not believe in such useless things. “She gave the child enough to eat of good, plain, wholesome food, and that was all any one could ask.” She knew, too, that Edna said her prayers, and she saw that her Sunday-school lesson was always learned, and heard her say the Creed and Commandments every Sunday afternoon; but there were no gentle words and kind caresses, no tucking up on winter nights, no loving solicitude to see if the little hands and feet were warm. Edna knit or sewed till eight o’clock, and then, prompt with the first stroke, put by her work and took the tallow candle from the mantle piece, and without a word stole up the steep back stairs to her little bed in the room which looked out upon the graveyard just across the lane, where the white headstones shining through the darkness seemed to her like so many risen ghosts. She was afraid of the graveyard; and many a night she crept trembling into bed, and hiding her face under the clothes, said her prayers, not from any sense of duty, but because of the question sure to be put to her next morning, “Did you say your prayers, Edna?”

At the time of her father’s death Aunt Jerry had contended with his parishioners about his body, and, coming off victorious, had brought it home with her and buried it just by the fence under the shadow of her own cherry-tree, where regularly every Sunday in summer she took Edna and talked to her of her father, and told her how sorry he would be if he knew what a bad girl she was, and how he would rest better in his coffin if she would try to be good and learn the creed and catechism, so as to be confirmed the next time the Bishop came. And, more from fear than anything else, Edna learned the catechism and was confirmed, and hoped her father would be easy in his coffin, as Aunt Jerusha said he would.

As a child, Edna shunned her father’s grave, and thought only with terror of him who slept there; but after a time there came a change, and she no longer stood in fear of that grassy mound, but tended it with the utmost care, and sometimes, when no one saw her, knelt or rather crouched beside it, and whispered softly:

“Dear father, I am trying to be good: but oh, it is so hard, and Aunt Jerry is so cross. I wish you had not died. Help me,—can’t you, father?”

In this prayer there was no direct appeal to God; but He who knew all the trials and sorrow of the poor orphan girl, heard that cry for help, and the world was always brighter to Edna after a visit to that grave, and Aunt Jerusha’s tongue had less power to sting.

Aunt Jerusha meant to do her duty, and thought she did it when she tried to repress her naturally gay, light-hearted niece, and make her into a sober, quiet woman, content to sew the blessed day through and knit the livelong evening.

But Edna was like a rubber ball,—she could be crushed, but she would not stay so, and the moment the oppressor’s foot was removed she bounded back again as full of fun, and frolic, and life as ever! So when at the age of fifteen she became, in one sense, a charity scholar in Canandaigua Seminary, she recovered all her elasticity of spirits, and, freed from her aunt’s scrutiny, seemed constantly bubbling over with happiness and joy.

She was very popular, and, in spite of her plain dress, became the goddess by whom every academy boy swore, dreaming of her by night, and devising ways and means of seeing her by day.

Charlie Churchill was in love with her at once,—desperately, irretrievably in love, and, though she snubbed him at first, and made laughable caricatures of him in his foppish clothes, with his eye-glass, which he carried for no reason except to be dandyish, she ended by returning his affection and pledging herself to him on the fly-leaf of her algebra, that being the only bit of paper available at the time.

Charlie had the reputation of being very rich,—heir, or joint heir with his brother of Leighton Place, on the Hudson. And Edna fully believed him when he talked so largely of “my house, my horses, my hounds, my park.” All mine, and nothing Roy’s, “Old Roy,” as he usually designated his brother, whom Edna thought of as a sober, middle-aged man, who was at Leighton rather on sufferance than as its rightful owner.

After her adventure in the cars, and she learned that the man she had caricatured was the veritable Roy, she thought him rather younger and better-looking than she had supposed, but still esteemed him a kind of supernumerary, who would be dreadfully in her way when she was mistress at Leighton, and of whom she would dispose as soon as possible.

She would do nothing unkind, she thought,—nothing for which any one could blame her; but it was so much better for young folks and old folks to live apart, that she would fit up some one of the numerous cottages which Charlie had told her were on his place.

There was one near the river, a Gothic cottage, he said, somewhat out of repair. This she would improve and beautify, and furnish tastefully, and move Roy and his mother thither, where they could not be disturbed by the gayeties at Leighton. For she meant to be very gay, and have the house full all the time, and had made out a list of those who were to be her guests.

Aunt Jerry was to come during Lent, and the carriage was to take her every day to morning service in the little church; while, every Friday, they would have omelets for breakfast, and baked salmon trout for dinner. Edna had the programme of her future life all marked out, even to the dresses she would wear on different occasions. And she knew just how beautiful her future home was; for Charlie had described it so minutely that she had made a little sketch of it, and, with Charlie to suggest, had corrected and improved and enlarged it, until it was a very accurate picture of the grounds and house at Leighton; with Edna herself on the steps, fastening a rose in Charlie’s button-hole.

The likeness to Charlie was perfect, and Edna prized it most for this, and put it away in her portfolio of drawings; and went on dreaming her bright dreams of the glorious future opening so joyfully before her.

She was not mercenary, and would have loved and married Charlie all the same if he had not been rich, as she believed him to be. But she was very glad that he had money, for her tastes were naturally luxurious. She liked beautiful things about her; and then she could do so much good, and make so many happy, she said to Charlie, when he asked her once how she would feel to know he was poor as a church mouse.

Charlie had almost made up his mind to tell her the truth, for his conscience troubled him greatly; but when, among other things, she said: “I do not care for your money, Charlie; and should love you just the same if you had not a penny. The only thing that could change me toward you, would be losing confidence in you,” he could not tell her that he was deceiving her; and so he let her dream on, and tried to remember if he ever had told her positively that he was the heir of Leighton, and concluded that he had not. She had taken it for granted, and he was not responsible for the mistake.

Then, he trusted much to Roy’s generosity. Roy would let them live at Leighton, of course; and it would be Edna’s home just the same as if he owned it, only he did not know about moving his mother and Roy into that cottage by the river.

But he would not worry; it would all be right; and, in any event, Edna would be his, and could not “go back on him,” when she did find out; and he could easily persuade her it was all done from love and his fear of losing her.

So he silenced his conscience, and let her go on blindly toward her fate, and surprised her one day with a proposition to elope.

At first, Edna refused; but when the mail brought her a letter from Aunt Jerusha, she began to waver. She had asked her aunt for a dollar of pocket money, and her aunt had written a stinging reply, telling her she had a dollar when she left home three weeks ago, and asking what had become of that.

“I know,” she wrote, “that if you follow my instructions, you have put five cents every Sunday on the plate; that makes fifteen cents; then, you may have wanted some boot-lacings,—you always do,—and possibly some elastics, but that is all you have any business to want; and you ought to have on hand fifty cents at least, and still allow for some extravagance I can’t think of. No; I shan’t send you any dollar for three weeks to come; then, if the roads are not too muddy, I shall be in town with some butter, and eggs, and poultry, and, if I hear a good account of you, shall give you, maybe, seventy-five cents.

“P.S. I’ve been half sorry that I let you go back to school this winter, for I ain’t feeling very well, and I shouldn’t wonder if I took you home with me for a spell. I’ve got stuff enough together to make a nice carpet, and you could cut and sew the rags.”

Now Edna had not spent her dollar of pocket money in ways of which her aunt would at all approve. Fifteen cents had gone on the plate, and five cents more to Sunday-school. Fifteen more had gone for chocolates, and twenty-five more for the blue ribbon on her hair which Charlie liked so much; twenty-five more to a poor woman, carrying one child in her arms and leading another by the hand, while the remaining fifteen had been paid for a saucer of ice-cream which she shared with two of her companions; nothing for shoe-lacings, nothing for elastics, and only twenty cents for anything which would commend itself to her stern aunt, who would call the beggar woman an impostor, the blue ribbon trash and vanity, which Edna had promised to renounce, while the chocolates and cream would be classed under the head of gormandizing, if, indeed, the literal Miss Jerusha did not accuse her of “gluttony and stuffing.”

All this Edna knew was in store for her whenever the state of the roads would admit of her aunt’s journey to town with her butter, eggs, and poultry; but, aside from these, there was the dreadful possibility of being taken from school and compelled to pass the dreary winter in that lonely house by the graveyard, with no companions but the cat and her own gloomy thoughts, unless it were the balls of carpet-rags she hated so terribly. When Edna thought of all this, and then remembered that Charlie had said, “I shall see you again to-night, when I hope to find you have changed your mind and will go with me yet,” she began to hesitate, and balance the two situations offered for her acceptance. One, the lonely house, the dreary winter, the rasping aunt, and the carpet-rags; the other, Leighton Place, with its freedom from all restraint, its life of perfect ease, and Charlie! Can we wonder that she chose the latter, and told Charlie yes instead of no, and planned the visit to Mrs. Dana, her mother’s cousin, and looked upon the proposition to accompany her sick friend home as something providential. There was no looking back after that, and Edna hardly stopped to think what she was doing, or to consider the consequences, until she found herself a bride, and stepped with Charlie on board the train at Buffalo. She was very happy, and her happiness showed itself in the sparkle of her eye, and the bright flush on her cheeks, and the restlessness of her little head, which tossed and turned itself airily, and kept the golden brown curls in constant motion.

Charlie, too, was happy, or would have been, could he have felt quite sure that Roy would send some money, without which he would be reduced to most unpleasant straits, unless he pawned his watch. He could do that, and he decided that he would; but as it could not be done until he reached Chicago, and as his purse, after paying the clergyman, and paying for his tickets, and paying for the book which Edna wanted, was none the heaviest, he feigned not to be hungry when they stopped to dine, and so had only Edna’s dinner to pay for, and contented himself with crackers and pop-corn for his supper; and when Edna proposed sharing them with him, he only made a faint remonstrance, and himself suggested that they should travel all night, instead of stopping at some horrid hotel where the fare was execrable.

And Edna consented to everything, and, as the evening advanced, and she began to grow weary, nestled her curly head down on Charlie’s shoulder, and slept as soundly as if she had been at home in her own room looking out upon the graves behind the churchyard. Once, about midnight, as they stopped at some station, Charlie went out for a minute, and when he returned and took his seat beside her, he said, hurriedly, as if it were something for which he was not very glad:

“I have just recognized two old acquaintances in the rear car, Jack Heyford and Georgie Burton. I hope they won’t see us. I like Jack well enough; but to have that Georgie’s great big eyes spearing at you I could not bear.”

“Who is Georgie Burton, and who is Jack Heyford?” Edna asked; and Charlie replied, “Georgie lives at Oakwood, near Leighton, and is the proudest, stuck-up thing, and has tried her best to catch old Roy. I think she’ll do it, too, in time, and then, my ——, won’t she snub you, because—”

He hesitated a moment, while Edna said:

“Because what? Tell me, please, why Georgie Burton will snub me.”

“Well, because you are poor, and she is rich,” Charlie jerked out; and Edna said, innocently:

“But I shall be rich, too, as rich as she, won’t I, Charlie?”

Her clear, honest eyes were fixed upon his without a shadow of suspicion; and Charlie could not undeceive her, and tell her that ten dollars was all the money he had in the world; that to defray the expenses of that journey he had sold a diamond stud in Buffalo, and, if Roy did not come to the rescue, his watch must get them back to Leighton.

“Even if you were not rich you would be worth a hundred Georgie Burtons,” he said, as he drew her closely to his side; and then he spoke of Jack Heyford, Georgie’s half-brother, and the best fellow in the world, and Edna listened awhile, until things began to get a little mixed in her brain, and her head lay again on Charlie’s shoulder, and her eyes were closed in sleep.

The day had been very warm and sultry, and although somewhat out of season, a heavy thunder-storm had come up, and the darkness without grew darker as the rain beat against the windows, and flashes of lightning showed occasionally against the inky sky. Faster and faster the train sped on; and Charlie’s head drooped till his locks mingled with Edna’s curls of golden brown, and in his sleep his arm tightened around her waist, and he was dreaming perhaps of Roy and his mother, and what they would say to his wife, when suddenly, without a moment’s warning, came the fearful crash, and the next flash of lightning which lit up the gloom showed a dreadful sight of broken beams, and shattered boards, and shivered glass, and a boyish form wedged tightly in, its white face upturned to the pitiless sky, while beside it crouched the girlish bride, trying in vain to extricate her lover, as her quivering lips kept whispering, “Charlie, oh, Charlie!”

CHAPTER IX.
AFTER THE ACCIDENT.

It was Jack Heyford who found our heroine; big-hearted Jack, who, after shaking himself loose from Georgie’s nervous, terrified grasp, and ascertaining that neither she nor himself was injured, went at once to the rescue of the poor wretches shrieking and dying beneath the wreck. A man from a house near by came out with a lantern, and Jack stood beside him when its rays first fell upon Edna, kneeling by her husband and trying to get him free. Something in the exceeding beauty of her face, together with its horrified expression, struck deep at Jack’s heart, and bending over her, he said softly as a mother would address her child:

“Poor little one, are you hurt? and is that your brother lying there?”

Edna recognized the genuine kindness and sympathy in the voice, and answered:

“Oh, Charlie, Charlie, get him out. He is my husband. We were married this morning.”

A look of surprise and incredulity flitted over Jack’s face; she seemed so young, so like a child, this girl who was married that morning, and whose husband lay dead before him. But he asked her no more questions then, and set himself at once to release the body from the heavy timbers which held it fast. There was a terrible gash across the temple, and the blood was pouring from it so that recognition was impossible until the body was taken to a house near by, and the white, marred face made clean. Then, with a start, Jack exclaimed:

“Oh, Georgie, come quick! It’s Charlie Churchill. Don’t you remember my telling you that I saw some one in the front car who resembled him?”

In an instant Georgie was at his side and bending over the lifeless form of the young man.

“Yes, ’tis Charlie,” she said, “and who is this girl clinging to him and kissing him so?”

Her voice showed plainly that she thought this girl had no right to be “clinging to him and kissing him so,” and her black eyes had in them a look of virtuous indignation as they scrutinized poor Edna, who shrank back a little when Georgie, wholly disbelieving Jack’s answer that she was Charlie’s wife, married the previous day, laid her hand firmly on the girl’s shoulder and demanded sternly:

“Who are you, and what do you know of Mr. Churchill? He is a friend of mine.”

In a kind of frightened, helpless way, Edna lifted up her tearful eyes, and with lips quivering with pain, replied:

“Charlie was my husband. I am Edna Browning. We ran away and were married in Buffalo, and now he is killed.”

She had told her story, and her eyes fell beneath the cold gaze bent upon her, while as one woman reads another, so Edna, though ignorant of the world and of such people as Georgie Burton, read doubt and distrust in the proud face above her; and with a moan like some hunted animal brought to bay, she turned appealingly to Jack, as if knowing instinctively that in him she had a friend. And Jack bent down beside her, and laid his great warm hand upon her head, and smoothed her tangled hair, and wiped from one of the curls a drop of blood which had come from Charlie’s wound. Edna answered all Jack’s questions unhesitatingly, and when he asked if she was not hurt, she told of the blow on her head and shoulder, and offered no remonstrance when he proposed that she should lie down upon the lounge the woman of the house prepared for her. She was not seriously hurt, but the pain in her head increased, and she found it impossible to sit up when once she had lain down upon the pillow, which Jack himself arranged for her.

Georgie was busy with Charlie for a time, and then when it was certain that he was past recall, she went to Edna and asked what she could do for her.

Edna knew that she was Georgie Burton, the proud woman whom Charlie disliked, and she shrank from her advances and answered rather curtly:

“Nothing, thank you. No one can do anything for me.”

Towards Jack, however, she felt differently. Charlie had spoken well of him, and even if he had not, Edna would have trusted that honest face and kindly voice anywhere, and when he said to her, “We have telegraphed to your husband’s family, and if you will give me the address of your Chicago friends I will also send a dispatch to them,” she told him of Mrs. Joseph Dana, and of her aunt in Richmond, to whom she wished both letter and telegram to be forwarded.

When Edna knew the dispatch had gone to Charlie’s brother, she turned her face to the wall and wept bitterly as she thought how different her going to Leighton would be from what she had anticipated, for that she should go there she never for a moment doubted. It was Charlie’s home, and she was his wife, and when she remembered Aunt Jerusha and the house by the graveyard, she was glad she had a refuge from the storm sure to burst upon her head.

Edna was very young, and sleep comes easily to such, and she fell asleep at last and slept heavily for two or three hours, while around the work of caring for the dead and ministering to the living went on.

Georgie was very busy, and with her own hands wiped the blood from some flesh wound, and then bandaged up the hand or arm with a skill unsurpassed by the surgeons in attendance. She could do this to strangers who thought her a perfect saint, and remembered her always as the beautiful woman who was so kind, and whose voice was so soft and pitiful as she administered to their wants. But when she passed the room where Edna lay, there came a look upon her face which showed she had but little sympathy with that poor girl. Edna had concealed nothing in her story, and Georgie, judging from a worldly point of view, knew that Charlie Churchill had made a terrible mésalliance, and said so to Jack, when for a few moments he stood by her near the door of Edna’s room.

“A poor girl with no family connections, what will poor Mrs. Churchill say, and she so proud. I think it a dreadful thing. Of course, they never can receive her at Leighton.”

“Why not?” Jack asked, a little sharply, and Georgie replied:

“There can be nothing in common between this girl and people like the Leightons. Besides that, she really has no claim on them, for you know that Charlie had not a cent in the world of his own.”

“No, I did not; Charlie’s talk would lead one to a different conclusion,” Jack said, and Georgie continued:

“Yes, I know Charlie used to talk to strangers as if it was all his, when the facts are that the property came through the Leighton line, and neither Charlie nor his mother have anything except what Roy gives them. This girl thought otherwise, I dare say, and married for money more than anything else.”

“Heaven help her then, poor little thing,” Jack said, as he moved away, and his ejaculation was echoed in the faint cry which the “poor little thing” tried to smother as she, too, whispered gaspingly, “yes, Heaven help me, if all that woman has said is true.”

Edna was awake, and had been an unwilling listener to a conversation which made her at first grow angry and resentful, and then quiver and shake with a nameless terror of something coming upon her worse even than Charlie’s terrible death. To lose confidence in him whom she had trusted so implicitly; to know he had deceived her; aye, had died with a lie in his heart, if not on his lips, was terrible, and Edna felt for a moment as if she were going mad. From the lounge where she lay she could see a corner of the sheet which covered her dead, and with a shudder she turned herself away from that shrouded form, moaning bitterly:

“Oh, Charlie, is it true, and was it a lie you told me all the time. I didn’t care for your money. It isn’t that which hurts me so. It’s losing faith in you. Oh, Charlie, my lost, lost Charlie.”

One of the women of the house heard her, and catching the last words went in to comfort her. Her story was generally known by this time, and great was the sympathy expressed for her and the curiosity to see her, and there was a world of pity for her in the heart of the woman, who, feeling that she must say something, began in that hackneyed kind of way some people have of talking to one in sorrow:

“Don’t give way so, poor little dear. Your husband is not lost; he has only gone a little while before. You will meet him again some time. He is not lost forever.”

Edna fairly writhed in anguish, and could have screamed outright in her agony.

“Don’t, don’t,” she cried, lifting up both her hands. “Please go away. Don’t talk. I can’t bear it. Oh I wish I had never been born.”

“She was getting out of her head,” the woman thought, and she went after Jack Heyford, who seemed to be more to her than any one else.

But Edna was not crazy, and when Jack came to her, there were no tears in her eyes, no traces of violent emotion on her face,—nothing but a rigid, stony expression on the one, and a hopeless, despairing look in the other.

She did not tell him what she had heard, for if it were true she did not wish him to know how she had been deceived. Of her own future she did not think or care. Charlie had not been true and honest with her. Charlie had died with his falsehoods unforgiven; that was the burden of her grief, and if prayers of the living can avail to save the dead, then surely there was hope for Charlie in the ceaseless, agonized prayers which went up from Edna’s breaking heart all that long, terrible day, when Georgie thought her asleep, so perfectly still she lay with her hands folded upon her breast and her eyelids closed tightly over her eyes. She knew they had telegraphed to Charlie’s friends, and she heard Miss Burton telling some one that an answer had been received, and Russell was then on his way to Iona. Who Russell was she did not know; and at first she felt relieved that it was not Roy coming there to look at her as coldly and curiously as Miss Burton did. Then her feelings underwent a change, and she found herself longing to see some one who had been near and dear to Charlie, and she wondered if a message would not be sent to her by Russell,—something which would look as if she was expected to go back to Leighton, at least, for the funeral. She wanted to see Charlie’s old home; to hear his mother’s voice; to crouch at her feet and ask forgiveness for having been instrumental in Charlie’s death; to get the kind look or word from Roy, and that would satisfy her. She would then be content to go away forever from the beautiful place, of which she had expected to be mistress.

But Russell brought no message, and when she heard that, Edna said, “I cannot go,” and turned her face again to the wall, and shut her lids tightly over the hot, aching eyes which tears would have relieved. When Mrs. Dana came from Chicago and took the young creature in her motherly arms, and said so kindly, “Don’t talk about it now,” her tears flowed at once, and she was better for it, and clung to her cousin as a child clings to its mother in some threatened peril. Russell was very kind to her too, for her extreme youth and exceeding great beauty affected even him, and he spoke to her very gently, and urged her to accompany him back to Leighton. And perhaps she might have yielded but for Georgie, who said to Russell:

“You know your mistress as well as I, and that just now this girl’s presence would only augment her grief.” This remark was overheard by Mrs. Dana, who reported it to her cousin, and that settled the matter; Edna would not go, and lay with her hands clasped over her eyes when they took Charlie away. Jack Heyford had come to her side, and asked if she wished to see her husband again, and with a bitter cry she answered him:

“No, I could not bear it now. I’d rather remember him as he was.”

And so they carried him out, and Edna heard them as they went through the yard to the wagon which was to take the coffin to the station, and the house seemed so lonely now that all were gone, and she missed Jack Heyford so much, and wondered if she should ever see him again to thank him for all his kindness to her. He was a clerk in one of the large dry-goods stores in Chicago, and Mrs. Dana said she had occasionally seen him there, and they were talking of him and wondering how his sister chanced to be so unlike him, when a rapid step came up the walk, and Jack’s voice was heard in the adjoining room. He had never intended going to Leighton, he said, in reply to Edna’s remark, “I supposed you had gone with your sister.”

He seemed very sad indeed as he sat a few moments by the fire kindled in Edna’s room, and as she lay watching him, she fancied that she saw him brush a tear away, and that his lips moved as if talking to some one. And he was talking to a poor little crippled girl, waiting so anxiously in Chicago for his coming, and whose disappointed voice he could hear asking, “Where is sister?”

“Poor Annie! Sister is not here. There! there! Don’t cry. She is coming by and by.”

That was what Jack Heyford was saying to himself, as he sat before the fire, with that tired, sad look upon his face, and his heart was very sore toward the woman who had shown herself so selfish.

CHAPTER X.
GEORGIE AND JACK.

Chicago, Sept. —, 18—

Dear Sister:—I write in great haste to tell you of little Annie’s accident, and that you must come out and see her, if only for a few days. It happened the week after mother died. Her foot must have slipped, or hit on something, and she fell from the top of the stairs to the bottom, and hurt her back or hip; I hardly think the doctor knew which, or in fact what to do for her. She cannot walk a step, and lies all day in bed, or sits in her chair, with no other company than old Aunt Luna, who is faithful and kind. But Annie wants you and talks of you all the time, and last night, when I got home from the store, she told me she had written to you, and gave me this bit of paper, which I inclose.

“And now, Georgie, do come if possible, and come at once. There are so many things I want to consult you about now that mother is gone. I can ill afford to lose the time; but if you will start the —th day of October, I will meet you in Buffalo, so that you will not have far to travel alone. I shall expect your answer, saying yes.

“Your brother, Jack.”

This letter, or rather the slip of paper it contained, had taken Georgie Burton to Buffalo, and on to Iona, where the accident occurred. She might have resisted Jack’s appeal, and thought it one of his scares, and that Annie was not much hurt, and would do well enough with the old negress, Luna; but Annie’s letter was a different thing from Jack’s, and Georgie wept passionately when she read it. It was a little child’s letter, and some of the words were printed, for Annie was just beginning to learn to write of Jack, who was her teacher in all things.

“Dear sister Gorgy,” the note began, “mother is dead and I’ve hurted my back and have to ly all day stil, and it do ake so hard, and I’me so streemly lonesome, and want to see my sweet, pretty sister so much. I ask Jack if you will come and he don’t b’leeve you will, and then I ’members my mother say, ask Jesus if you want anything, and I does ask him and tell him my back akes, and mother’s gone to live with him. And I want to see you, and won’t he send you to me for Christ’s sake, amen. And I know he will. Come, Gorgy, pleas, and bring me some choklets.

“Annie Heyford.”

Georgie could not withstand that appeal, and when Mrs. Burton tried to dissuade her from going, she paid no heed whatever. Indeed, she scarcely heard what her mother was saying, for her thoughts were far away with a little golden-haired child, for whom she stowed away in her trunk the chocolates asked for, and the waxen doll and the picture book and pretty puzzle found that day at the shop in the little town near Oakwood.

Jack met her in Buffalo as he had said he would, and took her to the hotel for the night, and, in the privacy of her room she said things she never would have said had there been other ears to listen than those of Jack,—faithful, trusty Jack, who knew that of her which no other living creature knew. Alone with him she needed no disguise, and her voice was not as soft and sweet and bird-like as it always was at Oakwood; but it sounded much like any ordinary voice, as she asked after Annie, and if it really was necessary to send for her and compel her to take that long, tiresome journey.

“Perhaps it was not necessary; Aunt Luna and I could take care of her, of course; but, Georgie, she wanted you so badly, and I thought maybe”—here Jack’s chin quivered a little, and he walked to the window, and stood with his back to Georgie—“I thought you might want to see her. It’s two years almost since you did see her. And mother’s being dead, and all, we feel so lonely and broken up, and don’t know what to do. A man’s nothing with a little child like Annie. I say, Georgie,”—and Jack suddenly faced about—“I thought maybe you’d stay with us a spell. We want a head; somebody to take the lead. Won’t you, Georgie? It is not like Oakwood, I know; and you’ll feel the change; but it is a great deal better than it used to be when you were there; for Annie’s sake, maybe, you’ll do it, and I’ll work like a horse for you both. I’m getting good wages now,—better than ever before. I can give you some luxuries, and all the comforts, I guess. Mother thought you would. She told me to tell you it was your duty——”

Jack stopped suddenly, arrested by something in the expression of his sister’s face, which he did not like. She had listened in silence, and with a good deal of softness in her eyes, until he spoke of her staying with him. Then there was a sudden lifting of her eyebrows, and she shot at him a look of surprise that he should presume to propose such a thing. When he reached his mother’s message touching her duty, her face flushed with resentment, and she broke out impulsively:

“Don’t go any further, Jack. You can work upon my feelings when you talk of Annie’s wanting me, but when you try to preach duty to me, you fail of your object at once. I parted company with duty and principle, and everything of that sort, years ago; and you, who know me so well, ought to know better than to try and reach me through any such channel. I am going to see Annie, to do what I can for her, and then return to Oakwood. The kind of life I have led there, since leaving you, has unfitted me for—for—”

“For our four rooms on the second floor of a tenement house,” Jack said, a little bitterly, and then there was silence between them; and Georgie sat, thinking of Oakwood, with all its luxurious elegance, and Jack’s presumption in supposing she would voluntarily give it up for those four rooms on the second floor, with their plain furniture and still plainer surroundings.

And while she was thus employed, Jack, who had come back from the window, was leaning upon the mantel and intently looking at the beautiful woman with marks of culture and high breeding in every turn of her graceful head, and motion of her body,—the woman whose charms were enhanced by all the appliances of wealth, and who looked a very queen born to adorn some home as elegant and beautiful as herself. She would be out of place in the four rooms which constituted his home, he thought; and yet her natural place was there, and in his heart he felt for a moment as if he despised her for her selfishness and lack of all that was womanly and right. But she was his sister. They had called the same man father; they had been children together, and though he was the younger of the two, he had always assumed a kind of protecting air toward the little girl whose beauty he admired so much, and whom he once thought so sweet and lovely.

As she grew toward womanhood, and her marvellous beauty expanded day by day until it became the remark of even passers-by, who saw her at the window, he worshipped her as a being infinitely superior to himself, and when a great and crushing sorrow came upon her early in life, he stood bravely by her, shielding her as far as possible from disgrace, and took her to his own fireside, and, boy though he was in years, told her she was welcome then and forever, and overtasked his strength and gave up his hopes of an education, that she might be warmed and fed and clothed, even in dainty apparel which suited her brilliant beauty so well. Latterly their lives had lain apart from each other, hers at Oakwood, where, the petted idol of her indulgent aunt, she had no wish ungratified; and his in the noisy city of the West, where, at the head of a family, he toiled for his mother and the little Annie who was like a sister to him, and whom he loved with a deeper love than he had given to Georgie, inasmuch as she was more worthy of his love. His mother was now dead; Annie was a cripple; and in his loneliness and perplexity his heart went after Georgie as the proper one to help him. She had acceded to his wishes in part, but refused him where he had the greatest need, and his heart was very sore as he stood looking at her and thinking of all that was past in her life, and of the possible future.

She suspected his thoughts, and with her old, witching smile and manner, arose and stood by him, and parting his hair with her white hand, said coaxingly:

“Don’t be angry with me, Jack. I cannot bear that, for you are the best, the truest friend I have in the world, and I love you so much, and will do anything for you but that; I cannot stay with you. I should neither be happy myself nor make you so; and then my remaining in Chicago would seriously interfere with my plans, which may result in bringing us all together beneath one roof. Trust me, please, and believe I am acting for the best.”

She was thinking of Roy Leighton, and how her staying in Chicago might prevent what she so ardently desired. The living together beneath one roof was a thought of the instant, and nothing she had ever considered for a moment, or ever would. But it answered her purpose just as well; and she smoothed Jack’s hair so lovingly, and looked at him with so soft, beseeching eyes, in which there was a semblance of tears, that Jack began to forgive her, and feel that she was right after all, and it was not of any use to make her unhappy by insisting upon her staying where she did not wish to stay.

This was in Buffalo, where he met her. Then followed the catastrophe, and Jack uttered no word of remonstrance against staying till Russell came, although he knew just how the little girl at home was longing for them. He wrote her a note, telling her to be patient, as sister Georgie was coming, and then gave himself to the suffering ones around him, with Georgie as a most valuable aid. He had no thought of her turning back to Leighton, and the fact that she was intending to do so, came like a thunderbolt. He could see no reason for it, and when she pleaded Mrs. Churchill’s grief, which she could quiet better than any one else, he was guilty of swearing a little about the whole Leighton tribe, Roy not excepted; and he made Georgie cry, and didn’t care either, and would not ask her when she was coming, but received the chocolates, and the doll, and the puzzle in silence, and put them away in his travelling bag, with a half-muttered oath as he thought of Georgie’s selfishness, and a choking lump in his throat as he remembered the little one at home, and her disappointment. Georgie was all sweetness to the last, and her face wore an injured, but still a forgiving, angelic look, as she bade Jack good-by and said to him:

“I shall be with you almost before you know it. Tell Annie not to cry, but be a good girl till sister comes.”

Jack did not reply, and his face was very sad when he went back to Edna, and asked what he could do for her. He had done for her already something she would never know, but which, nevertheless, was just as great a kindness. After hearing from Georgie of Charlie’s entire dependence upon Roy, it had occurred to him to take charge of the dead youth’s pocket-book, and see how much it contained. Ten dollars,—that was all,—and Jack’s heart gave a great throb of pity, as he counted out the little roll, and thought how much Edna would need.

“Oh, I do so wish I was rich,” he said; and then he drew out his own purse and counted its contents,—twenty-five dollars, and twenty of that he had mentally appropriated for the purchase of a coat, to be worn in the store, as the one he was wearing now was getting shabby and old. “Maybe Aunt Luna can fix it up,” he said to himself. “It is not threadbare; it’s only shiny-like in spots. I’ll wear it another quarter, and here goes for that poor, little frightened thing.”

He put fifteen dollars in Charlie’s purse, and ten back into his own; then he looked at Charlie’s watch, but when he saw upon it, “Presented by his mother, Christmas, 18—,” he said this must go back to Leighton, and the watch was reverently laid aside to be given into Russell’s care, but the purse he kept for Edna, telling Georgie that he had it, and when she asked how much was in it, answered, “twenty-five dollars,” but said nothing of his coat and generous self-denial. He was used to such things; he would hardly have known himself with no one to care for, and when Georgie was gone with Charlie’s body, he turned to Charlie’s wife, and began to plan for her comfort. It never occurred to him that much as he desired to be at home, he could leave her alone with only a woman to look after her. If it had, he might have gone that night, but he chose to wait till the next day, when he hoped Edna would be able to bear the journey.

She was very weak and feverish when the morrow came, and Jack lifted her in his arms as if she had been Annie, and carried her into the car, where by turning two seats together he improvised a very comfortable bed, with his own and Mrs. Dana’s travelling shawl. Nor did he say good by until he had carried her into Mrs. Dana’s house, and deposited her upon a lounge around which four little children gathered wonderingly.

“I shall run in and see how you are to-night or to-morrow. Now I must go to Annie,” he said; and Edna felt drearier, more desolate than ever, as the door closed upon him, and she heard his footsteps going from her, and leaving her there in that strange place alone, with the children huddling around her, and the baby screaming loudly at the sight of its mother.

CHAPTER XI.
EDNA’S FIRST WEEKS AT MRS. DANA’S.

Mrs. Dana did not live in a block, but in a little wooden house standing by itself in the suburbs of the city. John Dana, who was a carpenter by trade, though he now kept a small grocery, had built the house himself at odd hours of leisure, fashioning it after no particular style, but rather according to his means, which were somewhat limited. It was neither pretty nor commodious, but very comfortable, and nicely kept by his thrifty wife, who tried to make Edna feel that she was not in the way, notwithstanding the smallness of the quarters and the hosts of children which seemed to fill every nook and corner of the kitchen, and followed even into the spare room, where, though dignified with the name of parlor, there was a bed on which poor Edna laid her aching head, feeling more desolate and homesick than she had ever felt in her life before, and in her desolation even longing for the old familiar chamber at Aunt Jerusha’s which looked out upon the graveyard. She was not accustomed to city ways of living, and the house seemed so small and the noise in the street so great that she felt it was impossible for her to stay there. But what should she do and where should she go? To return to Aunt Jerusha was not to be thought of, and so she did not consider that for a moment; but her thoughts did keep straying away toward Leighton, Charlie’s home. Perhaps Georgie had been mistaken and Charlie had a right there after all, or if he had not, possibly his mother and brother would take some interest in her for Charlie’s sake, and ask her to come to them or try to help her in some way.

“And if they do, I’ll accept their overtures,” she thought to herself, as she held her throbbing head with both hands, and tried to keep back the scalding tears.

The children had been quieted down by this time. The baby was asleep in its cradle; Rachel, the girl who in Mrs. Dana’s absence had cared for the family, had gone home, and Mrs. Dana, having laid aside her travelling suit, was busy putting things to rights and preparing supper for her husband, the master of the house, whom Edna had not yet seen, and whose approach was hailed by the children with a perfect storm of joy.

“Papa’s comin’. I seen him, I did.”

“I mean to tell him first ma’s here.”

“You shut, ’cause I’m goin’ to. You’re always doin’ everything and me nothin’.”

These and similar outcries fell on Edna’s ears, and she began to feel a little curiosity about this man, who, finding her there in the capacity of a poor, sick relation, might consider her in the light of an intruder. But she did not know John Dana. Everybody was welcome so long as he had a crust, and as soon as he had been made a little more presentable by a fresh collar and necktie, and had washed his hands to get off what his wife called “a mackerel smell,” he went to Edna’s room and spoke very kindly to her, and said he hoped Susan had made her comfortable, and that the youngsters would not drive her crazy.

He had one in his arms then, and two more were holding to his coat skirts and climbing up his knees, and Edna felt at once just how kind and generous and unselfish he was, and the terrible pain lessened a little, and the homesickness was not so great as before. He had a letter for her, he said, or rather one directed to Mr. Churchill, and placing in her hands the letter written by Mrs. Churchill to her son, he called his troop of children to come out while “Cousin Edna read her letter.”

His wife had brought in a lamp, and sitting up in bed Edna held the letter a moment while her hand grew icy cold and her heart beat almost audibly. For a single moment she thought, “I will not open it. I will send it back unread;” then there came over her an intense desire to know what Mrs. Churchill or Roy thought about the marriage. Charlie had said to her on the morning of the bridal, “I have written to Roy and told him we were coming home after a little;” and this, of course, was the reply.

“Maybe I shall know if what Miss Burton said was true or false, if I read this,” Edna thought, and with a hope for the best she opened the envelope and read the letter through, knowing when she had finished it how contemptuously Charlie’s mother looked upon the girl who had entangled her son into a mésalliance, and how mercenary her motives were regarded.

“I cannot help feeling that if she had known all, your unfortunate entanglement would have been prevented,” Mrs. Churchill had written, and Edna commented sadly upon it:

“Yes, if I had known all, it would have been prevented; but it is not the money,—no, not the money; oh, Charlie, it is losing faith in you which hurts me the worst,” she moaned; then, resentment toward Mrs. Churchill got the better of her grief, and she said, “I’ll write to that woman, and tell her how mistaken she is.”

But only for an instant did she harbor such a thought. She would not wound Mrs. Churchill more deeply than she was already wounded. She would not write her at all, but to Roy, the heir,—Roy, the master of Leighton. The money came from him, and to him it should be returned, but not all at once. Fortunately for her Roy had sent a check payable to the bearer, and so she had no trouble in getting it cashed, and she decided that she must keep a part and pay it afterward. She had seen enough of the arrangements of the house to know that while there was not poverty, there was not a great plenty, and the owners could ill afford any additional expense.

“I may be sick for weeks,” she thought, “and I shall need money, and that twenty-five dollars in poor Charlie’s purse will not go very far. Oh, if only Aunt Jerusha was kind and forgiving; she has means; she could help me, if she would.”

At this point Mrs. Dana came in, bringing Edna’s supper, which she had tried to make as inviting as possible. But Edna could not eat; and, as the evening advanced, she grew so hot and feverish, and said such queer things, that Mrs. Dana sent for a physician, who managed by dint of bleeding, and blistering, and pills, to reduce his patient to a desirable state of weakness and keep her an invalid for two weeks or more; during which time Jack Heyford came many times to inquire after her, and bring her some little present which he thought might please her. Now it was an orange, or a bunch of grapes, and again a bouquet of flowers, which he left; and Edna liked these the best, and always cried over them, and thought of the little patch of flowers which, after a vast amount of pleading, she had been permitted to have for her own in Aunt Jerusha’s garden.

From Aunt Jerusha there had as yet come no reply to the message sent from Iona, and Edna began to feel that she was alone in the world, with herself to care for, unaided by any one. And with returning strength she felt equal to it. The blow which had taken Charlie from her and opened her eyes to Charlie’s defects, and showed her the estimation in which Charlie’s mother held her, seemed to have cut her loose from all that was giddy, and weak, and foolish in the Edna Browning of old. All the lightness and thoughtlessness of her young girlhood fled away and left her at seventeen a woman, self-reliant, and determined to fight her own way in the world independent of friend or foe.

And so her first act when able to do anything was to send the three hundred dollars back to Roy, with her note for the balance. How proud and strong she felt as she wrote that note, and then read it aloud to see how it sounded, and how she anticipated the time when she could pay it even to the utmost farthing. Once she thought to sell her watch and corals, the pretty gifts which Charlie had brought her just before she went with him to the house of the clergyman. He had come into the room after she was dressed, and stealing up behind her, had laid the chain across her neck, and with his arms around her had held the watch before her eyes and said:

“Look here, my darling! see what I have brought you.”

With boyish delight, he fastened it in her belt, and put the delicate pink jewels in her ears, and then bade her look at herself in the mirror to see the effect. That scene was as vividly in her mind as if it had occurred but yesterday; the happy, blushing face which the mirror reflected, and behind the young girl the tall young man whose lips touched her glowing cheeks as they whispered, “My beauty, my wife!”

She could not part with the bridal gift, so she kept a part of Roy’s money, and put the coral away as unsuited to her black dress, but she wore the watch, and its muffled ticking beneath her belt seemed like some friendly human heart throbbing against her own. This was before she received Aunt Jerusha’s effusion, which came to her the same day on which she sent her first letter to Roy, and which deserves a place in another chapter.

CHAPTER XII.
HOW AUNT JERUSHA RECEIVED THE NEWS.

Aunt Jerusha had never heard of Charlie Churchill, or dreamed of her niece’s love affair, and she sat milking Blossom, her pet cow, with her skirts tucked up around her, and an old sun-bonnet perched on her head, when the boy from Livonia station came furiously round the corner of the church, and reined up his panting, hard driven horse so suddenly, that Blossom, frightened out of her usually grave, quiet mood, started aside, and in so doing upset the pail, and came near upsetting the highly scandalized woman, who, turning fiercely to the boy, demanded what he wanted, and what he meant by tipping over all that milk, which was as good as a quarter right out of her pocket.

The boy, who knew the contents of the telegram, made no reply with regard to the milk, except a prolonged whistle as he saw the white liquid streaming along upon the ground, and then glanced curiously at the tall, grim woman confronting him so angrily.

“Here’s a telegraph,” he said, “and there’s two dollars to pay on it, ’cause I had to fetch it so far; and your nephew, or niece, Edna, I forgot which, is dead, killed by the cars.”

At the mention of the price she must pay for that bit of paper, Miss Pepper bristled at once, and began to revolve the propriety of not taking it from the boy, who could not compel her to pay for what she never received; but when, boy-like, he blurted out the contents, making a great blunder, and telling her Edna was dead, she grew whiter than the milk which Tabby, her cat, was lapping at her feet, and forgetting the two dollars leaned up against the fence, and taking the telegram in her hands, began to question the boy as to the when and how of the terrible catastrophe.

“Edna killed!” she gasped, and to do her justice, she never thought of the piles of carpet-rags the girl was to have cut that winter; for she had made up her mind to bring her home when she went with her poultry to Canandaigua; but she did think of the dreary look she had so often seen in the young girl’s face; of the tears, which Edna had shed so plentifully when under discipline; and there arose in her heart a wish that she had been less strict and exacting with the girl who was said to be dead. “How came she near the cars to get killed?” she asked, and the boy replied:

“Read for yourself, and you’ll know all I do.”

It was growing dark, and Miss Pepper led the way into the house, and bade the boy sit down while she hunted up a tallow candle and lighted it from a coal taken from the hearth. There was certainly a tear on her hard face as she blew the coal to a blaze, and the pain in her heart kept growing until with the aid of the candle she read:

“Iona, October 8th, 18—.

“To Miss Jerusha Pepper:

Allen’s Hill, Ontario Co., N.Y.

(via Livonia Station.)

“There has been a railroad accident, and your niece Edna’s husband was killed. They were married yesterday morning in Buffalo.

Miss Georgie Burton.”

“Edna’s husband! Married yesterday morning in Buffalo! What does it mean?” she exclaimed, forgetting the dreary look, and the tears, and the harsh discipline, and in her amazement seizing the boy by the collar, as if he had been the offending Edna, and asking him again “what it meant, and where he got that precious piece of news, and who Edna’s husband was, and how he knew it was true, and if it was not, how he dared come there with such ridiculous stuff and tip her milk over and charge her two dollars to boot?”

She had come to herself by this time, and the milk and the money were of more importance to her than the story, which she believed was false; and she continued to shake the boy until he twisted himself loose from her grasp and retreated toward the door.

“Goll darn ye,” he said, “a pretty actin’ woman you be, with some of yer relations dead. What do I know about it? Nothin’, only it was telegraphed to the office this afternoon, and they posted me off to once to tell you ’bout it. I’ll take the two dollars, or if you won’t they’ll send you a writ to-morry;” and the boy, grown bold from the fact that he was standing on the door-step and out of the vixen’s reach, began to whistle “Shoo Fly” with a great deal of energy.

People like Miss Pepper usually have a great terror of a writ, and without stopping to consider the probabilities of the case, the good woman reluctantly counted out two dollars, and handing them to the boy, bade him be off and never darken her door again. Once alone, Miss Pepper read and re-read the telegram, which gave her no further intelligence than that first imparted to her. There had been a railroad accident out west and Edna’s husband was killed. What could it mean, and who was Edna’s husband? Then as she thought of Canandaigua and reflected that somebody there knew something about it, she resolved upon going to town on the morrow and ascertaining for herself what it all was about. But the next morning was ushered in with a driving rain, which came in under Miss Jerusha’s front door, and drove into the cellar and through that patch of old shingles on the roof, and kept the old dame hurrying hither and thither with mop, and broom, and pail, and drove Canandaigua from her mind as utterly impracticable.

The next day, however, was tolerably clear; and having borrowed a neighbor’s horse, and arrayed herself in an old water-proof cloak, with the hood over her head, she started for town, where the news had preceded her, and produced a state of wild excitement among the seminary girls, who pounced upon Miss Pepper at once, each telling what she knew, and sometimes far more than she knew. First, they had heard that Charlie Churchill had run away from the academy, then of the marriage in Buffalo, and then the last evening’s papers had brought the news of the fearful tragedy, which changed the public feeling of blame into pity for poor Edna. But Aunt Jerusha knew no pity. That four hundred dollars which she must now pay for Edna’s education precluded the possibility of pity in a nature like hers, and she felt only anger and resentment towards her luckless niece who had thrown such a bill of expense upon her. Not that the principal spoke of the bill so soon; he had no fears of its being unpaid, and would have waited till a more fitting time, before touching upon so delicate a point. It was Miss Pepper herself who dragged in the subject and insisted upon knowing about how much it was, even if she could not know exactly, and showed so much bitterness that Mr. Stone threw off fifty dollars and made it an even four hundred, and told her not to trouble herself, and a good deal more meant to conciliate her.

But he might as well have talked to the wind, for any effect his words had upon the excited woman. Everything which it was possible to learn with regard to Charlie Churchill she learned, and in her secret heart felt that if it had turned out well, she should be a little proud of the Leighton family; but it had not turned out well, and she expressed herself so freely, that a few of the girls who had always been envious of Edna, and Charlie’s attentions to her, dropped a hint of a rumor they had heard about some bill at Greenough’s, and forthwith the incensed Jerusha drove to the jeweller’s, and by dint of questioning and cross-questioning, learned about the watch, and the coral, and the ring; then hurrying back to the Seminary, she picked up the clothes Edna had left, and cramming them into a little square hair-trunk which had held Henry Browning’s wardrobe when he first went to college, carried it to the buggy by the gate, and putting her feet upon it, drove back to the Hill in a state of greater mental excitement than she had ever been in before.

Two days after Jack’s letter came, telling her the particulars, and saying “Mrs. Churchill sends her love and will write herself when she is able. She is very sorry to make you feel as badly as she knows you must, and hopes you will forgive her.”

This letter, instead of conciliating Miss Pepper, threw her into a greater rage than ever. This might have been owing in part to the fact that she was suffering from an attack of neuralgia, induced by a cold taken the day she went to Canandaigua in Edna’s behalf. Neuralgia is not pleasant to bear at any time, and Miss Pepper did not bear it pleasantly, and looked more like a scarecrow than a human being as she crouched before the fire, with her false teeth out, a hasty pudding poultice on her face, a mustard paste on the back of her neck, and an old woollen shawl pinned over her head to keep it warm.

“Mrs. Churchill! Mrs. Fiddlesticks! That chit of a child,” she said, when she finished reading Jack Heyford’s letter, “sends her love, and is sorry, and hopes I’ll forgive her! Stuff! I hope I won’t! Brought up religiously as she was, confirmed and all that, and then ran away with a beggar who breaks his neck. No, I shan’t forgive her; leastwise not for a spell. She ought to suffer awhile, and she needn’t think to wheedle me into asking her home right away. By and by, when she is punished enough, I may take her back, but not now. She has made her bed and must lie in it.”

This was Miss Pepper’s decision, and taking advantage of a few minutes when her face was easier, she commenced a letter to Edna, berating her soundly for what she had done, telling her she could not expect her friends to stand by her when she disgraced herself by “marrying a man or boy who did not own so much as the shirt on his back, and who was mean enough to buy a lot of jewelry and never pay for it. Greenough told me about the watch, and coral, and ring, and he’s going to send the bill to Mr. Leighton. I should think you’d feel smart wearing the jimcracks. Yes, I should.”

Edna was better when the letter came to her, and the world did not look one half so dreary as it had done when viewed from her sick bed in that little front room of Mrs. Dana’s. For the first time since the accident, she had given some thought to her toilet, and had brushed and arranged her beautiful hair, and thought of Charlie with a keen throb of pain as she wound round her fingers the long curls he used so to admire. Edna was proud of her hair, which so many people called beautiful, but which Aunt Jerusha had set herself so strongly against. Twice had that maiden’s scissors been in dangerous proximity to the mass of golden brown, but something in the girl’s piteous expression had reminded her of the dead man under the shadow of the cherry-trees, and the curls had not been harmed. Edna thought of Aunt Jerusha now, as she shook back the shining ringlets, which rippled all round her neck and shoulders, and with the thought came a desire to know what that worthy woman would say, and a wonder as to why she did not write. She was beginning to long for some expression with regard to her conduct, even though it should be anything but commendatory. She knew she would be blamed; she deserved it, she thought, but she was not quite prepared for the harsh tone of Aunt Jerusha’s letter, and she felt for a moment as if her heart would burst with a sense of the injustice done to her.

One piece of information which the letter contained hurt her cruelly, and that was the news concerning the jewelry, which Roy Leighton must pay for, even to her wedding ring which she clutched at first with an impulse to tear it from her finger and thrust it from her forever. But the solemn words—“With this ring I thee wed”—sounded again in her ears, and brought back that hour when she stood at Charlie’s side, loving him, believing in him, trusting him implicitly. She did not ask herself how much of that faith, and trust, and love was gone; she dared not do that, for fear of what the answer might be. Charlie was dead, and that was enough; and she wrung her hands helplessly and looked at the ring, the seal of her marriage, but could not take it off then, even though Roy Leighton must pay for it. She wrote to him again that very day, with what sore heart and utter humiliation we have seen in her letter to him, but with a firm determination to do what she promised him she would do, namely: liquidate her indebtedness to him and arrange if possible with the jeweller.

“I must go to work now,” she said to herself. “I can be idle no longer.”

But what to do, and where to seek employment in that city, where she was an utter stranger, was the point which puzzled her greatly; and when Jack Heyford came next to see her, she told him of her plans and asked him for advice. Had he been rich, Jack would have offered to pay her debts and make her free from want, for never was there a more generous, unselfish heart than that which beat under his old worn coat. But Jack was not rich, and his salary, though comparatively liberal, could not at present warrant any additional expense to those he already had to meet; and when she asked him if he knew of any scholars either in music or drawing, which she would be likely to get, he replied that he did know of one, and it would be just the thing for her, too, and help to relieve the tedium of sitting all day long in her chair, or reclining on the couch. Annie should take lessons of Mrs. Churchill, and commence to-morrow, if that would suit, and meantime he would inquire among his friends, and tell them Edna’s story.

And so it was arranged that Edna should go to little Annie Heyford the next day, at two o’clock, and give her first lesson in drawing.

“You will have no difficulty in finding your way,” Jack said. “I would come for you myself, but might not be able to leave the store at the hour.” Then, just before leaving, he added: “Suppose you make it one, instead of two, and lunch with Annie. That will please her vastly, she complains of eating alone so often.”

As there was no special reason why Edna should decline this invitation, she accepted it readily; and that night, just as she was falling away to sleep, and dreaming that she had more scholars than she could well manage, and that her debt to Roy was nearly paid, Jack was conferring with old Luna concerning the lunch of the next day.

“Get up a tip-top one, auntie,” he said, handing her a bill. “She was half-starved in the seminary, I’ll warrant, and I don’t believe those Danas know much about good cooking; anyway they fry their beefsteak, for I’ve smelled it, and that I call heathenish. So scare up something nice, irrespective of the expense.”

CHAPTER XIII.
JACK’S HOME.

Jack’s four rooms on the second floor, No. 30 —— street, though plain and poor, compared with the splendors of Oakwood, were very pleasant rooms at all times; and on the morning of the day when Edna was expected, they were swept and dusted, and put in order much earlier than was usual for Aunt Luna, who was not gifted with remarkably swift powers of locomotion.

The front room answered the double purpose of parlor by day and sleeping room by night, the bed disappearing in the shape of a broad, luxurious-looking sofa, or lounge, whose neat covering of green and white chintz, with the soft, motherly cushions, gave no hint of the bedding stowed carefully away beneath. The carpet also was green, of a light, cheerful pattern, while the easy chairs were covered with the same material. Plain muslin curtains were draped gracefully back from the windows, in one of which a bird-cage was hanging, and in the other a wire basket of moss, from which the German ivy hung in festoons, and then was trained back to the wall, making for both the windows a beautiful cornice, and reaching still further on to a pretty chromo which it surrounded with a network of leaves. Over the mantel was another and a larger-sized chromo, and on the wall opposite two or three first-class engravings. These, with a few brackets and vases, a book-case of well-chosen books, and a head of Schiller and Dante, completed the furniture of the room, if we except the bright fire blazing in the grate and the pretty lion’s-head rug lying before the fender.

To the left of the front windows was a door opening into the hall bedroom, Jack’s room, with its single bed, its strip of carpeting, its one chair, its little square stand, and on the wall a porcelain-type of Georgie, whose black eyes, though soft and beautiful, seemed to have in them a look of contempt, as if they scorned their humble surroundings.

A narrow passage, with closets and shelves on either side, divided the parlor from the room in the rear, which also did double service as dining-room and kitchen, where Luna baked, and washed, and ironed, and served her master’s meals with as much care and attention as if he had been the richest man in the city, and dined each day from solid plate.

Old Luna’s sleeping apartment was the little room or closet off from the kitchen, which she kept so neat and tidy that few would have shrunk from resting there in her easy chair, or even from sleeping, if need be, in her clean, wholesome-looking bed.

And here Jack lived content and happy till his mother died. With her death a great light had gone from his dwelling, for the mother and son were tenderly attached; but whatever Jack suffered, he suffered alone, in the privacy of his own room, or out in the dark streets, which he often traversed at night after his work was done. There was seldom a trace of sadness in his genial, good-natured face when he went back to Annie, who, since her accident and his mother’s death, had at times been given to fits of weeping and depression.

“I want somethin’, and I don’t know,” was what she had said at first when questioned as to the cause of her grief.

Gradually the want had resolved itself into an intense longing for “sister Georgie,” whom the child regarded as little less than an angel, almost worshipping the beautiful picture which she sometimes had brought to her bed, where she could see it and talk to it when Jack was away and Luna busy in the kitchen.

With all the eagerness of a child, she had waited for Georgie’s coming; and when Jack’s telegram from Iona had told her there must necessarily be a delay, she cried herself into a headache, and finally went to sleep with her white cheek pressed against the portrait of Georgie, who was not worthy of this child’s pure love, and whose heart was as cold and hard as the block of porcelain which shadowed forth her marvellous beauty.

It was a very sad heart which Jack Heyford carried up the stairs to his home on that day of his return, for he knew how bitter was the disappointment in store for the expectant little one, who had been dressed and waiting so long, and whose blue eyes shone like stars when the familiar step was heard upon the stairs. One look of welcome they gave to Jack, and then darted past him out into the passage,—out into vacancy; Georgie was not there.

“Oh, Jack,” and the eyes were like Georgie Burton’s, when looking afar off. “Where is sister? Didn’t she come with you?”

Jack told her where Georgie was as gently as possible, and without a word or tone which sounded like blame, and Annie listened to him; and when he said, “she bade me tell you not to cry, but be a good girl, and she will soon come to you,” the pretty lip quivered in a grieved kind of way, and the breath came in quick gasps as the child tried to do her sister’s bidding.

“Is it naughty to cry? then I won’t. I will try and be a good girl, but oh, I am sorrier than Georgie can guess,” Annie said at last, and Jack felt something rising to his lips like a curse upon the heartless woman this little child loved so much.

He gave her the chocolates, and the doll, and the puzzle, and the book, and sighed to see how quietly she put them away without so much as tasting her favorite candies. And then he told her about the terrible accident, and of Edna, who, he said was so young, and pretty, and who was suffering such terrible sorrow. Annie was interested, and the tears she had repressed to please Georgie, flowed in torrents now, as she said:

“I am so sorry for the lady, and I want to see her so much, and I mean to pray for her that Heaven will make it better for her sometime;” and that night, while Edna in her lonely bed at Mrs. Dana’s was weeping over her desolation and feeling so friendless and alone, a little crippled child lay on its back, and with hands clasped reverently, prayed for the poor lady whose husband was killed; prayed that “Heaven would bring it right some day, and make it better, and make her well, and make her happy, and make her another husband for Christ’s sake.” “I reckon that will do,” Annie whispered softly. “Mother said, ‘ask for Christ’s sake, and believe you’ll have it, and you will,’ but then”—and here a dark doubt of unbelief began to creep in—“if that is so, why didn’t sister come? I asked God to send her, and I believed He would just as hard, and He didn’t. Maybe it’s that lie I told the other day;” and again the waxen hands were folded, while the little trusting child asked, as she had done many times, to be forgiven for the falsehood told to Jack two weeks before.

She had confessed it to Jack, and he had forgiven her, and promised not to tell Georgie when she came. She had also confessed it to God many times, and asked Him not to let her do such naughty things; and now when she told Him about it again, she felt as if that one sin was forgiven, but away down in her heart was a shadow of unbelief, the first she had ever known. She had trusted Heaven, and her faith was firm as a rock that Georgie would come. But the contrary had been the case; Georgie had not come; Heaven had not heard and answered her, and she could not account for it. Poor child, she is not the first or the only one who has found it hard to understand just what Christ meant when He said, “What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye shall receive them, and ye shall have them.”

CHAPTER XIV.
EDNA AND ANNIE.

Bright and cheery as was the parlor at No. 30 on that autumnal morning when Edna was expected, the brightest, prettiest thing by far in it was the little girl whom Aunt Luna had dressed with so much care, and who sat propped with cushions and pillows in her easy chair, with her hair falling in soft curls about her face, and her eyes shining with eager expectancy. She was a little vain, and as she settled herself among her cushions and saw Aunt Luna’s evident admiration, she asked:

“Do I look nice, Aunt Luna? Do I make a pretty picture? I hope so, for Mrs. Churchill is an artist, you know, and ’preciates such things.”

Aunt Luna’s reply was satisfactory, and after making some change in the adjustment of the shawl on the arm of her chair, and lifting her dress so as to show her high-heeled slipper with its scarlet rosette, Annie was ready for her visitor. Nor had she long to wait ere a step was heard on the stairs, and Aunt Luna opened the door to Edna. Jack had said she was young and small, but neither Aunt Luna nor Annie was prepared for any one so very young looking and so small as the little lady who asked if Mr. Heyford lived there, and announced herself as Mrs. Churchill.

“Yes, he do live here,” a blithe voice replied, and Edna walked straight up to the chair whence the voice came, and bending over the little girl kissed her tenderly, saying:

“And you are Annie, I know.”

“And you are Mrs. Churchill,” Annie said, winding her arms around Edna’s neck. “Jack said I’se sure to love you, and I know it, without his saying so.”

That was their introduction to each other, and they grew familiar very fast, so that before lunch was ready, Annie had told Edna how funny it seemed to think her a big married woman, and how glad she was she had come, and how sure she was to love her.

“I think I begin to know what Aunt Luna meant by God’s making it up to me,” she said, after a moment’s silence, during which she had been holding and caressing Edna’s hand.

Edna looked inquiringly at her, and she continued:

“I was so sorry about Georgie,—that’s sister, you know. You seen her, Jack said.”

“Yes.”

And Edna gave a little shiver as she recalled the face which had looked so coldly and proudly upon her.

It had evidently never looked thus to this little child, who went on:

“I cried so hard when she didn’t come, and was kind of mad at Heaven, I guess, and Aunt Luna talked and said how He’d make it up some way, if I was good, and so He sent me you, though it’s funny you didn’t go back with that poor man. He was your beau, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, my husband,” Edna faltered, adding: “I was sick, hurt, you know.”

She could not explain why she had not gone with her husband’s body, as it seemed natural that she should have done. Neither did Annie wait for any explanation, but went on talking in her old-fashioned way, which greatly surprised Edna, who was not much accustomed to children. Annie was an odd mixture of childish simplicity and womanly maturity. From having lived all her life with no other companions than grown-up people, she was in some respects much older than her years, and astonished Edna with her shrewd remarks and her mature ways of thinking. Georgie was the theme of which she never tired, and Edna found herself feeling more lenient toward the haughty woman whom she had instinctively disliked. There must be something good in her, or this little child would not love her so devotedly.

“The bestest sister and the beautifulest,” Annie said, and when Edna, who had gathered from Jack that it was nearly two years since Georgie had been in Chicago, remarked that she should hardly suppose Annie could remember how she looked, Annie replied: “Oh yes, I ’members ’stinctly, or thinks I do. Any way, I has her picture and her letters; they are so nice. I want to show you one.”

She touched a little bell on the table beside her, and summoning Luna from the kitchen, bade her bring the portfolio which held sister’s letters.

“There they are; read any of them,” she said.

And more to please the child than from curiosity, Edna did read one of the notes, bearing date six or seven months before, and as she read she felt a growing interest and even liking for Georgie Burton, who, however cold and proud she might be to strangers, showed a deep interest in Annie’s well-being.

One thing struck Edna forcibly, and that was the hope Georgie expressed that her dear little sister would grow up truthful, and break herself of the habit she had of sometimes equivocating. At Annie’s request Edna read the letter aloud, and when she had finished it she saw that Annie’s face was crimson with a look of sorrow and shame.

“I didn’t know as ’twas that one,” she said, “and I don’t want you to hate me. I did use to tell lies, oh, so many”—and the voice sank to a whisper—“and mother spanked me once and wrote it to Georgie, and told me how wicked it was, and I do try not to now, so much, though Jack says I will romance a little, that’s what he calls it, meaning, you know, that I made up some. It’s my blood; I heard Jack tell mother so. Bad blood, he said, though that time I cut my finger so and bleeded so much, it looked like Jack’s did when he had the nose-bleed.”

She had taken the matter literally, and Edna could not repress a smile at her interpretation of bad blood, while she began to wonder how much of this same blood, if any, was in Jack Heyford’s veins. Georgie was only his half-sister she knew, while Annie was still further removed, although she called him brother. Any questions, however, which she might have put to Annie with regard to the relationship, were prevented by the appearance of Luna with the lunch.

It was a very tempting lunch, and Edna felt her lost appetite returning when she saw the oysters fried to just the brown she liked, the slices of rich baked ham, the delicate rolls, home-made and fresh from the oven, the creamy butter, the pot of raspberry jam, and the steaming chocolate which Annie liked so much and was occasionally allowed to drink. A dish of apples and oranges with clusters of rich purple grapes completed the bill of fare, and Annie proved herself a very competent little hostess, as she did the honors of the table and urged the good things upon Edna, who enjoyed it nearly as much as Annie herself, and forgot in part the dark shadow which had fallen upon her life. As if they had been princes lunching in some palatial mansion, old Luna waited upon them, showing a skill and readiness which rather surprised Edna until she heard from the negress herself that she had been a house servant in her late mistress’s family in St. Augustine, Florida, that her duties had been wholly confined to the dining-room and its appointments until three years since, when she came to Mrs. Heyford.

Since then, to use her own words, “she has done little of everything, tend here, tend there, bake, and wash, and iron, and do what only low-lived trash does at home.”

She seemed a very capable, intelligent woman, and evidently regarded “Master Jack and Miss Annie” with feelings amounting almost to adoration. Of Georgie she said but little, and that little showed conclusively her opinion of a young lady “who would turn her back on her own flesh and blood, and never come a nigh even when they sickened and died, just because they was poor and couldn’t give her all the jimcracks she wanted.”

“She was here oncet, two years or so ago,” she said to Edna, who, after lunch, went with her to the kitchen for a moment. “She staid about three weeks, and seemed to think it was such a piece of condescension on her part to do even that. And we waited on her as if she’d been a queen, and Master Jack’s bill for the ices, and creams, and fruit, and carriages, which he got for her was awful, and pinched us for three months or more. I must say though that she took wonderfully to Miss Annie. Never seen anything like it. Don’t understand it, no how, and ’taint none of my business if I did.”

Here Aunt Luna broke off abruptly, and Edna went back to Annie, to whom she gave the first lesson in drawing. Annie bade fair to prove an apt pupil, and Edna felt all her old ambition and love for the work coming back as she directed the child’s hand, and then with a few rapid curves and lines made a little sketch of her pupil’s face. The likeness was perfect, and Annie screamed with delight as she took it in her hand and inspected it more closely.

“It looks some like Jack,” she said, “but none like Georgie. I wish I was like her, but Jack says I’m most like my father.”

“How long has he been dead?” Edna asked, and Annie replied:

“Oh, ever so many years; before I was born, I guess. I never ’member him.”

Edna laughed heartily at this characteristic reply, and as the afternoon was drawing to a close, she bade her pupil good-by, promising to come again the next day if Annie felt equal to another lesson so soon.

Regularly each day after this Edna went to Annie Heyford, who improved rapidly and evinced almost as much talent for drawing as Edna herself. Jack, who sometimes came in while Edna was there, became greatly interested and tried to secure other pupils for Edna. But his immediate friends were mostly too poor to incur any additional expense, while the ladies whom he only knew as he served them behind the counter did not care to patronize a total stranger who had no recommendation save that given her by her enthusiastic admirer, Jack. And so poor Edna was not making money very fast, and Jack was contemplating taking lessons himself by way of adding a little to her store, when an event occurred which changed the whole tenor of Edna’s life and drove her to seek a home elsewhere than in Chicago. Without a shadow of warning, Mrs. Dana was suddenly smitten with paralysis, and after three days of silent suffering, died, leaving her five children to such care as the motherless poor can find. For a week or two Edna devoted herself to them entirely, and then the father startled her with an offer of marriage, saying, by way of excuse for his haste, that he must have a housekeeper, that he preferred her to any one he knew, and that in order to save talk they might as well be married then if she was willing.

Edna did not leave his house at once as some would have done, for she knew he meant well, though he had erred greatly in his judgment of her. Firmly, but kindly, she declined his offer, and then again stunned and bewildered, sat down to think what she should do next, and as she thought, her heart began to go out longingly for that old house by the graveyard. It was her home, the only one she had ever known, and Aunt Jerusha, with all her peculiarities, had many excellent traits of character, and would perhaps be glad to see her by this time.

Since that first letter, no communication whatever had passed between them, and Edna did not know how much Aunt Jerry might have softened toward her. As she could no longer remain with Mr. Dana, and as she could not afford to board elsewhere, and would not accept of the home which Jack Heyford offered her temporarily, it seemed that the only thing left for her was to go back to Aunt Jerry until some better situation presented itself to her. Jack himself advised it, after he found she would not stay with him, and so Edna bade adieu to Chicago, and with a sad heart turned her face toward Aunt Jerry, feeling many misgivings with regard to her reception the nearer she came to home.

CHAPTER XV.
AUNT JERRY.

Edna had planned it so as to reach home on Thanksgiving day, thinking within herself:

“Her heart will be softer on that day, sure, and she will not be so hard on me.”

Fortunately for her she saw no one in Canandaigua whom she knew, for the morning train, which was a little behind time, arrived just before the departure of the stage which would take her to the Hill. She was the only passenger, and as she rode along over the rough, uneven road, she had ample time for reviewing the past, and living over in fancy all she had experienced since last she traversed that route, drawn by Deacon Williams’s old white horse, with Aunt Jerry beside her, prim and straight, and grimly silent, save when she gave her niece some wholesome advice, or reproved her for what she had not done quite as much as for what she had. Then she was Edna Browning, the happy school-girl, who knew no care sharper than Aunt Jerry’s tongue, and from that she was escaping for a time, for she was going back to school, to all the fun and frolic which she always managed to extract from her surroundings; and Charlie was there to meet her,—aye, did meet her right by the gate, as the old white horse drew up, and would have helped her out, but for the signal she gave that he must not notice her. Aunt Jerry was death on academy boys, and her face assumed a still more vinegary expression as she asked:

“What young squirt was that who looked as if he was going to speak?”

Edna had not replied, as she was busily occupied in climbing over the wheel, and so Aunt Jerry had never heard of Charlie Churchill until the telegram was brought to her announcing his death. That scene was very fresh in Edna’s mind, and her tears flowed like rain as she thought of herself as she was then, and as she was now, scarcely three months later. A wife, a widow, friendless and alone, going back to Aunt Jerry as the only person in the world on whom she had a claim.

“She won’t turn me off,” she said to herself. “She can’t, when I’ve nowhere to go; and I mean to be so humble, and tell her the whole story, and I’ll try to please her harder than I ever did before.”

Thus Edna reasoned with herself, until from the summit of a hill she caught sight of the tall poplars, and saw in the distance the spire of St. Paul’s. Behind it was Aunt Jerry’s house; she was almost there, and her heart beat painfully as she tried to think what to say, how to word her greeting so as not to displease. It did not occur to her that probably Aunt Jerry was at church, until the stage left her at the gate, and she tried the door, which was locked. Fortunately, she knew just where to look for the key, and as she stooped to get it, Tabby, who had been sitting demurely on the windowsill, with one eye on the warm room from which she was shut out, and one on the church whence she expected her mistress to come, jumped down, and with a meow of welcome came purring and rubbing against Edna’s dress, and showing,—as much as a dumb creature can show,—her joy at seeing her young playmate again. Edna took the animal in her arms, and hugging it to her bosom, let fall a shower of kisses and tears upon the long, soft fur, saying aloud:

“You, at least, are glad, old Tabby, and I’ll take your welcome as a good omen of another.”

She let herself into the house, and with Tabby still nestled in her arms, stood looking around the familiar room. It seemed to her years since she was there, and she found herself wondering to find it so unchanged. The same rag carpet which she had helped to make, with what weariness and tears she could not recall without a shudder. The same calico-covered lounge, with Aunt Jerry’s work-basket and foot-stove tucked away under it, the same fall leaf table with its plaid spread of red and green, Aunt Jerry’s straight-back chair by the oven door, the clock upon the mantel, and could she believe her senses, a picture of herself upon the wall above the fireplace; a photograph taken three years before by a travelling artist, whose movable car had ornamented the common in front of the church, a terror to all the horses, and a thing of wonder and fascination to all the school boys and girls, most of whom first and last saw the inside of the mysterious box, and came out reproduced. Edna had picked blackberries to pay for her picture, and sat unknown to Aunt Jerusha, whose comment on the likeness was, “Better have saved the money for something else. You ain’t so handsome that you need want to be repeated. It looks enough sight better than you do.”

Edna knew that the picture did not look half as well as she did. The mouth was awry, the chin elevated, the hands immense, and the whole body indicative of awkwardness, and lack of taste on the artist’s part. But it was herself, and Edna prized it and kept it hidden away from Aunt Jerry, who threatened to burn it when she found her niece looking at it instead of knitting on her stocking. Latterly, Edna had ceased to care for it, and did not know where it was, but Aunt Jerry had found it and put it in a little frame made of hemlock twigs, and hung it over the mantel; and Edna took heart from that, for it showed that Aunt Jerry had a warm place for her memory at least, or she would not preserve that horrid caricature of her.

“She is not so hard after all,” Edna said, as she laid aside her wraps, and then, as she remembered something she had read about there being a parlor and a kitchen in every person’s heart, and the treatment one received depending very much upon which room they get into, she thought, “I guess I’ve always been in the kitchen, but hereafter I’ll stay in the parlor.”

The stove, which Aunt Jerry used in winter, was closed tightly, but Edna caught the odor of something cooking in the oven, and opening the door, saw the nicely dressed turkey simmering slowly in preparation for Miss Pepper’s dinner, and then the impulse seized her to hasten the fire, and have the dinner ready by the time her aunt came in from church. The vegetables were prepared and standing in pans of water, and Edna put them on the stove, and basted the turkey, and set the table with the best cloth and dishes, just as she used to do on Thanksgiving day, and felt her old identity coming back as she moved about among the familiar things, and wondered what Aunt Jerry would say, and how long before she would come.

Church was out at last, she knew by the pealing of the organ, and by seeing Mr. Swift go behind the church and unhitch his gray horses. There was a brisk step outside the gate; Aunt Jerry was coming, and with her hands clasped together, and her head slightly bent forward in the attitude of intense expectancy, Edna stood waiting for her.

There was a heightened color on her cheek, and her eyes shone with such brilliancy as to make them seem almost black, while her long curls fell forward and partly covered her face like some bright satin veil.

To say that Miss Pepper was surprised, would but faintly express the perfect amazement with which she regarded the apparition which met her view as she hastily opened the door, her movements accelerated by the mysterious smells of savory cooking which had greeted her olfactories when outside the gate. And yet Edna had really been much in the spinster’s mind that Thanksgiving morning, when she bustled about here and there and made her preparations for her solitary dinner,—solitary unless Miss Martha Ann Barnes, the only intimate friend Miss Pepper had, could be induced to spend the remainder of the day with her.

“It will seem more Christian-like and pleasant to have somebody sit opposite you at table on such a day as this, won’t it, Tabby?” Miss Pepper said to her cat, to whom she was sometimes given to talking, and who showed her appreciation of the remark by a friendly mew and by rubbing against her mistress’ dress.

And then Miss Pepper’s thoughts went straying back into the past, forty years ago, and she saw a group of noisy, happy children, of which she had been the merriest, the ringleader, they had called her at first, and afterward the flirt, who cared but little how many hearts she broke when, at the gay Thanksgiving time, she joined them at her grandfather’s house among the Vermont hills, and with her glowing beauty, set off by some bright bit of ribbon or string of beads, made sad havoc with the affections of her young male relatives. There was a slight jerking of her shoulders, and a bridling of her head, as Miss Pepper remembered those far-off days, and then her thoughts came a little nearer to the present time, to thirty-five years ago that Thanksgiving day, and the dress of white brocade, with its bertha of dainty lace, and the orange flowers sent by a city cousin who “could not be present on the happy occasion.” The flowers were never worn, neither was the lace, nor the brocade; and yellow and soiled with time, they lay together, far down in the old red chest, where the linen sheets and the sprigs of lavender were, and where no one had ever seen them but Miss Pepper herself.

As regularly as Thanksgiving day came round, she opened the red chest, and undoing the precious parcel, shook out the heavy folds of the brocade, and held the orange flowers a moment in her hands, and wondered where he was to-day, and if he thought of thirty-five years ago, and what had almost been.

As she had always done so, Miss Pepper did now on the day of which we write; and did it, too, earlier than had been her wont. Usually her visit to the chest was reserved for the afternoon, but this morning there was a strange yearning at her heart, a longing for something her life had missed, and before her breakfast dishes were washed she had made her yearly visit to the chest, and sitting down beside it, as by an open grave, with the faded brocade across her lap, and the orange flowers in her hand, said softly to herself, “If this had come to pass I mightn’t have been alone to-day.” And then, as she remembered the girl of thirty-five years ago, and thought of herself as she was now, she arose, and going to the glass, inspected, with a grim kind of resignation, the face which met her view; the thin, sharp features, the straight nose, with its slightly glaring nostrils, the firmly compressed lips, the broad, low forehead, and the round black eyes which age had not dimmed one whit, though it had given them a sharper, harder expression than in their youth they had worn.

“And they called me handsome,” she said, as she stood contemplating herself. “I was Jerry then, pretty Jerry Pepper, but now I’m nobody but Aunt Jerusha, or worse yet, old Mother Pepper, as the school boys call me.”

And with a sigh, the lonely woman locked up her treasures till another year, and went back to her household cares and her lonely life. But there was a softer look upon her face, and when, as she was dusting, she came to Edna’s picture, which from some unaccountable impulse she had only a few days before framed and hung upon the wall, she held her feather duster suspended a moment, and looked earnestly at the face of the young girl who for twelve years had been with her on Thanksgiving day. And as she looked there arose a half wish that Edna was there now, disgraced though she thought her to be by her unlucky marriage.

“She bothered me a sight, but then it’s kind of lonesome without her. I wonder what she’s doing to-day,” she said, as she resumed her dusting and thought again of Martha Ann Barnes, who might be induced to occupy Edna’s old seat at the table.

But Martha Ann was not at church. Miss Pepper must eat her dinner alone; and with the thought that “it did not pay to buy that head of celery and make a parade just for herself,” she turned to the Prayer-Book and minister, and felt her ire rise so high at his bowing so low in the creed, that, as she wrote to Mrs. Churchill, she withheld a dollar and gave as her offering only fifty cents; taking care as she came out of church to tell what she had done to one who she knew would communicate it to her pastor. Excellent Miss Pepper! the Thanksgiving sermon must have done her a world of good, and she went home prepared to enjoy as best she could her solitary dinner, but not prepared to find her niece waiting there for her.

CHAPTER XVI.
AUNT JERRY AND EDNA.

If Miss Pepper had owned the truth, she was not sorry to see Edna, and the feeling of loneliness which all the morning had been tugging at her heart, began to give way at once; but she was one of those people who feel bound to “stick to their principles,” whether right or wrong, and as one of her principles was that her niece had behaved very shabbily and deserved punishing, she steeled her heart against her, and putting on her severest look and manner, said to her:

“Edna Browning, how dare you come here after disgracing me so?”

This was the speech with which Miss Pepper had intended to greet her niece if she ever came back unannounced, and she had repeated it many times to herself, and to Tabby, and to the teakettle boiling on the stove, and the clock ticking upon the mantel, and from having said it so often, she had come to repeat it without any great amount of genuine indignation; but this Edna did not know, and the eager, expectant look on her face died out in a moment as she heard the words of greeting.

“Oh, auntie,” she cried, and her little hands clasped each other more tightly as she took a step forward, “don’t speak so to me. I am so desolate, and I had not anywhere else to go. I thought you would be lonely eating dinner alone, and might be glad to see me.”

“Glad to see you after all you’ve done! You must think me a saint, which I don’t pretend to be,” was the harsh reply, as Aunt Jerusha hurried past Edna, without noticing the hand involuntarily stretched out toward her.

Going into her bedroom to lay her bonnet and cloak aside, Miss Pepper’s lip quivered a little as she said to herself,—

“The child has suffered, and no mistake, but I’m not going to be talked over at once. She deserves a good lesson. If she was a youngster, I’d spank her smartly and be done with it, but as I can’t do that I shall carry a stiff upper lip a spell, till she’s fairly cowed.”

With this intention Miss Pepper returned to the attack, and once having opened her volley of abuse,—reproof she called it,—she did not know where to stop, and said far more than she really felt or had at first any intention of saying. The runaway match with a mere boy; the meanness, aye the dishonesty of breaking the contract with the principal of the seminary, and leaving that four hundred dollars for some one else to pay; the littleness of wearing jewelry which a stranger must pay for, and the wickedness of decoying a young man into marriage, and thereby causing him to lose his life, and making her a murderess, were each in turn brought up and eloquently handled; while Edna stood with bowed head and heard it quietly, until her aunt reached the ring, and asked if she was not ashamed to wear it. Then it was that the “pale-gray look came over her face and the steel-gray look in her eye,” as she took the golden band from her finger, and laid it away in her purse, saying in a voice Miss Pepper would never have recognized as Edna’s,—

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

Something in her tone and manner stopped Miss Pepper, and for a moment she gazed curiously at this young girl who seemed to expand into a dignified, self-assured woman as she drew off her wedding ring, and, putting it away from her sight, walked quietly to the window, where she stood looking out upon the dull November sky from which a few snowflakes were beginning to fall. Miss Pepper was puzzled, and for an instant seriously contemplated taking back a part, at least, of what she had said, but that would not have been in accordance with her theory of managing young people, and so she contented herself with doing instead of saying. She made the kind of gravy for the turkey which she remembered Edna liked, and put an extra lump of butter in the squash, and brought from the cellar a tumbler of cranberry jelly and a pot of peach preserves, and opened a bottle of pickled cauliflower, and warmed one of her best mince pies, and made black tea instead of green, because Edna never drank the latter, and then, when all was ready, said, in a half-conciliatory tone, “Come now, the victuals is ready.”

Then Edna came away from the window and took her seat at the table, and took the heaped-up plate offered to her, and made some casual remarks about the price of butter, and asked if Blossom gave as much milk as ever, but she did not eat. She had been very hungry, but the hunger was gone now, and so she sipped her tea and toyed with her fork, and occasionally put it to her lips, but never with anything on it which Aunt Jerusha could see. In short, the dinner was a failure; and when it was over Aunt Jerry removed her turkey nearly as whole as when it went upon the table, and carried back her cranberries and peaches untouched, and felt as if she had been badly used that her dinner was thus slighted. Edna did not offer to help her as she cleared the dinner away, but sat with folded hands looking out to where a brown, blighted rose-bush was gently swayed by the wind.

Once when Aunt Jerry could endure the silence no longer, she said:

“What under the sun do you see out there? What are you looking at?”

“My future life,” Edna replied, without so much as turning her head, and Aunt Jerry gave an extra whisk to her dish towel as she went on washing her dishes.

As it began to grow dark, Miss Pepper brought out her candle, and was about to light it, when Edna started suddenly, and turning her white, stony face toward her aunt, said:

“Don’t light the candle now. I like the dark the best. I want to talk with you, and can do it better if I do not see your face.”

There was a ring in the voice which puzzled Aunt Jerry a little, but she humored her niece, and felt glad that at last Edna was going to talk. But she was not quite prepared for what followed when her niece, who had suddenly outgrown all fear of her aunt, spoke of some things in the past, which, had they been different, might have borne a different result and have kept her from doing what she had done.

“I believe you meant well, Aunt Jerry,” she said, “and perhaps some would say you did well. You gave me a home when I had none; gave me food and clothes, and taught me many things; but for the one great thing which children need the most and miss the most, I did hunger so terribly. I wanted some love, auntie; some petting, some kind, caressing act which should tell me I was more to you than the poor orphan whom you took from charity. But you never gave it, never laid your hand upon me fondly, never called me a pet name, never kissed me in your life, and we living together these dozen years. You chide me for turning so readily to a stranger whom I had only known for a few months, and preferring him to my own flesh and blood. Auntie, in the few months I knew Charlie Churchill, he gave me more love, more kindness than I had ever known from you in the twelve years we lived together, and when he asked me to go with him, as I did, I hesitated, for I knew it was wrong; but when your letter came threatening to bring me home, the thought of the long, dreary winter during which scarcely a kind, pleasant word would be spoken to me, was more than I could bear, and so I went with Charlie.”

Edna paused a moment with the hope that what she had said might bring some expression of regret from the woman sitting so straight, and prim, and silent in the chair near by. But it did not, and as Edna could not see her face she never dreamed of the effect her words had produced, and how the great lumps were swelling in her aunt’s throat, as that peculiar woman forced down the impulse of her better nature which did prompt her to say she had been to blame. To confess herself in error was a hard thing for Miss Pepper to do, and glad that the darkness prevented her niece from seeing the tear which actually rolled down her cheek, she maintained a perfect silence while Edna told her more of Charlie, and of her life in Chicago, and her indebtedness to Roy, and her resolve to cancel it as well as to pay for her education if her aunt would wait patiently till she could earn it.

“I am very tired,” she said, when she had finished her story. “I rode all night, you know, and if you don’t mind being left alone so early, I think I’ll go to bed. I shall find my room the same as ever, I suppose.”

Then Aunt Jerry arose and struck a light, and without looking at her niece, said to her: “Hadn’t you better go up to the front chamber? It’s a nicer bed, you know; nicer every way. I guess you better try it.”

This was a great concession on Aunt Jerry’s part, and Edna was touched by it, but she preferred her old room, she said; she should not feel at home elsewhere, and taking the candle from Aunt Jerry’s hand she said good-night, and went up the steep, narrow stairs she had so often climbed in childhood. As she reached the landing, Aunt Jerry called after her:

“You’ll find a blanket in the chest if there ain’t clothes enough. You better take it, anyway, for it is cold to-night.”

This was another olive branch, and Edna accepted it as such, and took the blanket more to please her aunt than because she needed it. Her room was the same as ever, with the exception of a few rolls of carpet-rags which were lying in one corner, and at which Edna looked with a kind of nervous dread, as if they had been cut and sewed by her own unwilling hands. It was too dark outside to distinguish more than the faint outline of the tombstones in the graveyard, but Edna singled out her father’s, and putting out her candle knelt down by the low window and gazed long and earnestly at the spot where her father slept. She was bidding his grave farewell, it might be forever, for her resolution was taken to go away from there, and find a place among entire strangers.

“It is better so,” she said, as she leaned her hot forehead against the cool window-pane. “’Tis better so, and father would bid me go, if he could speak. Oh, father, if you had not died, all this might have been spared to me.”

Then, as she remembered her other Father, her Heavenly one, and His promise to the orphan, she clasped her hands over her face and prayed earnestly for His protection and blessing upon her wherever she might go. And then she thought of Aunt Jerry, and asked that God would bless her, too, and if in what she had said that night there was any thing harsh and wrong, He would forgive her for it, and help her to make amends. Her prayers ended, she crept into her bed, which seemed, with its softness and warmth, to embrace and hold her as a mother might have done, and so embraced and held, she soon fell away to sleep, and forgot all that was past, and ceased to dread what might be in store for her.

Meantime Aunt Jerry sat in the room below, with her feet on the stove hearth, her hands locked together around her knees, and her head bent forward until her forehead almost touched her dress. Perhaps she maintained this attitude to accommodate Tabby, who had mounted upon her back and nestled across her neck, and perhaps she did it the better to think intently, for she was thinking of all Edna had said to her with reference to her childhood, and wondering if, after all, her theory was wrong, and children were like chickens, which needed brooding from the mother hen.

“But sakes alive, how was I to know that,—I, a dried-up old maid, who never had a baby of my own, and never held one either, except that young one of Mrs. Atwood’s that I stood sponsor for, and almost dropped when I presented it? If things had turned out different, why, I should have been different.”

And with a little sigh as she thought of the yellow brocade in the chest upstairs, Miss Pepper put Tabby from her neck, and bringing out her prayer-book read the Gospel and Epistle and Collect for the day, and then kneeling by her chair said the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, and a few words of her own improvising, to the effect that if she was too hard the Lord would thaw her out and make her softer, and help her somehow to make it up to Edna, and then she went to bed.

Edna was hungry the next morning, and did full justice to the cold roast turkey and nicely browned potato, and when her aunt asked if she would like some cranberry jelly, she said she would, for she felt that her aunt wanted her to have it, and did not begrudge the journey to the cellar in quest of it. There was but little talk on either side, until Edna asked if the stage went out the same hour as usual, and announced her intention of going away. Then Aunt Jerry spoke her mind again, and said Edna “was a fool to go sky-larkin’ off alone, when she was welcome there, and could get plenty of scholars too, if that was what she wanted;” and she even went so far as to say “they might as well let bygones be bygones, and begin anew, and see if they couldn’t pull together a little better.”

But Edna was not to be persuaded from her purpose. She did not know exactly where she was going, she said, but would let her aunt know when she was located, and if she did not succeed she might perhaps come back.

“That is, if you will let me. This is all the home I have at present, you know,” she added, looking wistfully up in her aunt’s face, as if for some token that she was cared for by that undemonstrative woman, who scolded the driver for bringing in so much snow and mud when he came for Edna’s trunk, and scolded the boy who came to help him for leaving the door open, and did it all to hide what she really felt at parting with her niece.

“Of course I’ll let you. I’d be a heathen to turn out my own flesh and blood,” she said, in reply to Edna’s remark, and then as the driver’s shrill “all ready” was heard, she gave her hand to Edna, who would have kissed her but for the forbidding look upon her face, and the pin between her teeth.

Aunt Jerry went with her to the stage, and stood looking on until she was comfortably seated, and then, as the driver mounted to his box and gathered up his reins, she said, “Wall, good-by again,” with a tone in her voice which made Edna throw back her veil to look at her more closely. But the horses, obedient to the lash, had started forward, and Aunt Jerry was left, feeling more alone than she had ever before felt in her life.

“I wonder if she would have staid if I’d been more outspoken, and told her how much I really wanted her?” Aunt Jerry said, as she returned to the house and began to put it to rights. “But that’s the way with me. I can’t say what I feel. I guess I’m ugly, if I do belong to the Church. I let him go when a word would have kept him, only I was too proud to speak it; and now I’ve lost her, just as I was beginning to know that I did like her some. I wish she knew how near crying I was when she said so queer-like, ‘You never kissed me, auntie, in my life, and we living together these dozen years.’ Don’t she know I ain’t the kissing sort? Still, I might have kissed her when a little child, and not hurt myself.”

She was dusting the clock and the mantel, and when she came to the little picture in the rustic frame, she stopped, and continued her soliloquy:

“I wonder if she noticed that. If she did, she must know I think something of her, if I never did kiss her, and make a fuss. The likeness ain’t much like her, any way, but still it’s her picture, and I’ve half a mind,—yes, I b’lieve I will;” and reaching up her hand, the strange woman, who in twelve years had never shown her orphan niece a single mark of genuine affection, took down that photograph and kissed it.

That was a great deal for her to do, and being done, she began to feel as if she had made atonement for all that had, been wrong in herself heretofore, and that Edna really ought now to come back. But Edna had gone, and as the days went by and brought no news of her, Aunt Jerry began to grow indignant, and finally relieved herself by writing to Mrs. Churchill the letter we have seen. Roy’s reply and the check threw her into a violent rage, and after letting him know her mind, she washed her hands, as she said, of the whole of them, and settled back into her lonely life, sharper, harsher than before, and more disposed to find fault with her clergyman and battle with his decided tendency to High Church and Ritualism.

CHAPTER XVII.
WHERE EDNA WENT.

To Canandaigua first, but not to the seminary, nor yet the jeweller’s, as she had once thought of doing. She had heard from her aunt that Mr. Greenough was paid, and she shrank from meeting him face to face, or from seeing any of her old friends. So she sat quietly in the ladies’ room, waiting for the first train going east, and thinking it would never come. She had bought her ticket for Albany, but, with her thick black veil drawn closely over her face, the ticket agent never suspected that she was the gay, light-hearted girl he used sometimes to see at the station, and who recently had become so noted for the tragic ending of her marriage.

No one recognized her, for it was not the hour when the seminary girls were ever at the depot, and when, at last, the train came and took her away with it, nobody was the wiser for her having been there.

And where was she going? Have you, my reader, ever crossed the mountain range between Pittsfield and Albany? And if you have, do you remember how many little villages you saw, some to the right, some to the left, and all nestled among and sheltered by those tall mountains and rocky hills, with here and there a stream of water, as clear and bright as crystal, rippling along under the shadow of the willow and the birch, or dancing headlong down some declivity?

Edna was bound for one of these towns, where Uncle Phil Overton had lived for many years. He was her great uncle on her mother’s side, though she had never heard of him until she met her cousin, Mrs. Dana, in Chicago. Mrs. Dana had known Mr. Overton well, and had lived with him for a few months while she taught in the little academy which stood upon the common. He was an eccentric old man, who for years had lived among the mountains, in the same yellow farm-house, a mile, or more, from the village, which represented to him the world, and which we call Rocky Point.

Edna could not tell why her thoughts kept turning to Uncle Phil as they did. In her utter despair, while listening to Aunt Jerry’s abusive greeting, her heart had cried out:

“Oh, what shall I do?”

“Go to Uncle Phil,” was the answer which came to her cry, and she had clung to that as a drowning man to a straw.

Mrs. Dana had said he was kind and generous, if you touched the right chord. He had no wife, or children, but lived alone with a colored woman, who had been in the family for years. He was getting to be old,—sixty, if not more,—and, perhaps, he would be glad of some young creature in the house, or, at all events, would let her stay till she could look about and find something to do. Maybe she could teach in the academy. Mrs. Dana had done so, and Edna felt that her acquirements were certainly equal to those of her cousin. And so she was going to Rocky Point, and Albany lay in her way, and she stopped there until Monday, and took her watch and coral to a jeweller’s, and asked what they were worth.

It was a beautiful little watch, and the chain was of exquisitely wrought gold; and, as the jeweller chanced to be an honest man, he told her frankly what it was worth, but said, as it was second-hand, he could not dispose of it so readily, and consequently could not afford to give her quite so much as if it were new. Edna accepted his offer, and, with a bitter pang, left the watch and coral lying in the glass case, and, going back to the hotel, wrote a letter to Roy, and sent him one hundred dollars.

How near Roy seemed to her there in Albany, which was not so very far from Leighton Place, and how she was tempted to take the New York train, and go to Charlie’s home; not into it, but to the town, where she could see it and visit Charlie’s grave. But a few moments’ reflection showed her the inexpediency of such an act. She had no money to waste in useless trips. She should need it all, and more, unless Uncle Phil opened his door to her; and so she put the scheme aside, and took, instead, the Boston train, which long before noon left her upon the platform at Rocky Point. Everybody knew Uncle Phil Overton, and half a dozen or more answered her questions at once, and wondered who she was, and what the queer old chap would do with such a dainty bit of femininity as she seemed to be. One man, a farmer, whose road homeward lay past the Overton place, offered to take her there, and she was soon riding along through scenery so wild and romantic, even in early December, as to elicit from her many an exclamation of surprise and delight, while her fingers fairly ached to grasp her pencil and paper and sketch some of the beautiful views with which the neighborhood abounded. The man was very respectful, but rather inquisitive; and as his curiosity was in no wise abated by the sight of her glowing face when, at the top of a hill, she threw back her veil, and asked him to stop a moment while she gazed at the scenery around her, he began to question her, and found that she was Phil Overton’s grand-niece, an orphan without friends, and that she had come to Rocky Point, hoping to find something to do. Did he know whether they were in want of a teacher in the academy, and did any of the scholars take lessons in drawing or music? She could teach both, though drawing was her preference.

Mr. Belknap was very sorry to tell her that the old academy was closed,—“played out,” he said; and the “Deestrict” School had been commenced for a week, or more. “But then,” he added, as he saw the look of disappointment on Edna’s face, “maybe we could scare up a s’leck school. We had one last winter, kep’ by a man in a room of the academy; but he was a poor stick, and the boys raised the very old Harry with him. They wouldn’t with you, a slip of a girl. Ain’t you pretty young to teach?”

“Yes, perhaps so; but I must do something,” Edna replied.

She did not tell him she was a widow; and, seeing her clothed in so deep mourning, the man naturally concluded it was for her parents, and he began to feel a deep interest in her, telling her she might count on his children if she opened a school; that he would also help her to get scholars, if needful, and then he asked if she had any idea of the kind of man Uncle Phil Overton was. Something in Mr. Belknap’s question set Edna’s heart to beating rapidly, but before she could reply, they turned the corner in the road and came close to the house.

“I wish you success with Uncle Phil,” Mr. Belknap said, as he handed Edna from the wagon and deposited her trunk upon the stoop. “Maybe I and the girls will drop in to-night and see how you get on,” he added, as he climbed over the wheel, and chirruping to his horse, drove off, leaving Edna standing by the door, whose huge brass knocker sent back a dull, heavy echo, but did not for some little time bring any answering response.

CHAPTER XVIII.
AT UNCLE PHIL’S.

It was one of those old-fashioned farm-houses rarely found outside of New England, and even there growing more and more rare, as young generations arise with cravings for something new, and a feeling of having outgrown the old homestead with its “front entry” and crooked stairway leading to another “entry” above; its two “square rooms” in front and its huge kitchen and smaller sleeping apartment in the rear. Those who do not emigrate to some more genial atmosphere, where their progressive faculties have free scope to grow, have come to feel a contempt for the old brown houses which once dotted the New England hills so thickly; and so these veterans of a past century have gradually given way to dwellings of a more modern style, with wide halls and long balconies and bay-windows, and latterly the much-admired French roofs. But Uncle Phil Overton was neither young nor a radical, nor was there anything progressive in his taste. As his house had been forty years ago, when by his father’s death and will it came to him, so it was that day when Edna stood knocking at the door. It had been yellow then and it was yellow now; it had been void of shade-trees then and it was so now, if we except the horse-chestnut which grew near the gate, and which could throw no shadow, however small, upon the house or in the great, glaring rooms inside.

Uncle Phil did not like trees, and he did like light, and held it a sin to shut out Heaven’s sunshine; so there never was a blind upon his house; and the green-paper shades and curtains of Holland linen, which somehow had been smuggled in and hung at a few of the windows, were rolled up both day and night. Uncle Phil had no secrets to shut out, he said, and folks were welcome to look in upon him at any time; so he sat before the window, and washed before it, and shaved before it, and ate before it, and dressed before it; and when his housekeeper, old Aunt Becky, remonstrated with him, as she sometimes did, and told him “folks would see him,” he answered her, “Let ’em peek, if they want to;” and so the curtains remained as they were, and the old man had his way.

Many years ago, it was said that he had thought to bring a wife to the farm-house, which he had brightened up a little, putting a red and green carpet on the floor of the north room, painting the wood-work a light blue, and covering the walls with a yellowish paper of most wonderful design. Six chairs, and a looking-glass, and bureau, and table, had completed the furnishing of that room, to which no bride ever came; and, as Uncle Phil had been wholly reticent with regard to her, the story came gradually to be regarded as a mere fabrication of somebody’s busy brain; and Uncle Phil was set down as one whose heart had never been reached by anything fairer than old black Becky, who had lived with him for years, and grown to be so much like him that one had only to get the serving-woman’s opinion to know what the master’s was. Just as that stiff, cold north room had looked years ago, when made ready for the mythical bride, so it looked now, and so, too, or nearly so, looked the south room, with its Franklin fireplace, its painted floor, and the two strips of rag carpet before the fire, its tall mantel-piece, with two cupboards over it, holding a most promiscuous medley of articles, from a paper of sage down to the almanacs for the last twenty years. Uncle Phil didn’t believe in destroying books, and kept his almanacs as religiously as he did his weekly paper, of which there were barrels full, stowed away in the garret. Besides being the common sitting-room, the south room was also Uncle Phil’s sleeping apartment, and in one corner was his turned-up bed, with its curtain of copperplate, and beyond it the clock-shelf and the clock, and a tall writing-desk, where Uncle Phil’s valuables were kept. Two or three chairs, one on rockers, and one an old-fashioned wooden chair with arms and a cushion in it, completed the furniture, if we except the table, on which lay Walker’s Dictionary, and the big Bible, and a book of sermons by some Unitarian divine, and Uncle Phil’s glasses. The pleasantest room in the whole house was the kitchen, where Aunt Becky reigned supreme, even Uncle Phil yielding to her here, and never saying a word when she made and put down a respectable rag carpet at the end of the long room in which she kept her Boston rocker for company, and her little stuffed sewing chair for herself, and her square stand covered with a towel, and on it a pretty cushion of blue, which matched the string of robins’ eggs ornamenting the little glass hanging beside the window, with its box for brush and combs made of pasteboard and cones. This was Aunt Becky’s parlor, and her kitchen was just as neat and inviting, with its nicely painted floor, and unpainted wood-work, scoured every week, and kept free from dust and dirt by daily wipes and dustings, and a continued warfare against the luckless flies and insects, to whom Becky was a sworn foe. Out in the back room there was a stove which Becky sometimes used, but she would not have it in her kitchen; she liked the fireplace best, she said, and so in winter nights you could see from afar the cheerful blaze of the logs Becky piled upon the fire, giving the “forestick” now and then a thrust by way of quickening the merry flames, which lit up her old black face as she stooped upon the hearth to cook the evening meal.

And this was the house where Edna stood knocking for admission, and wondering why her knock remained so long unanswered. Old Becky was at the barn hunting for eggs with which to make her master’s favorite custard pie, and never dreamed that she had a guest, until, with her woollen dress pinned up around her waist, and a wisp of hay ornamenting her hair, she returned to the house, and entering the kitchen by the rear door, heard the knock, which by this time was loud and imperious. No one but strangers ever came to the front door in winter, consequently Aunt Becky, who had a good deal to do that morning, bristled at once, and wondered “who was making that to do, and why they didn’t come to the kitchen door, and not make her all that extra trouble.”

“Whale away,” she said, as Edna again applied herself vigorously to the knocker. “I shan’t come till I’ve put up my aigs and let my petticoats down.”

This done, she started for the door, and, catching sight through the window of Edna’s trunk, exclaimed:

“For Heaven’s sake, if thar ain’t a chist of clothes, a visitor; Miss Maude, perhaps, and I nothin’ for dinner but a veal stew, or,—yes, I can open a bottle of tomarterses, and roast some of them fall pippins.”

And with this consoling reflection, old Becky undid the iron bolt and opened the door; but started back when, instead of the possible Miss Maude, she saw a young girl dressed in black, “with just the sweetest, sorriest, anxiousest face you even seen, and which made my bowels yearn to oncet,” she said to Miss Maude, to whom she afterward related the particulars of her first introduction to Edna.

“Does Mr. Philip Overton live here?” Edna asked so timidly that Becky, who was slightly deaf, could only guess at what she said from catching the name Overton.

“Yes, miss, he does; walk in, please,” and she involuntarily courtesied politely to the young lady, who, save that she was shorter and smaller every way, reminded her of her favorite Miss Maude. “You’ll have to come right into my kitchen, I reckon; for when master’s out all day we never has a fire in the south room till night,” she continued, as she led the way through the “south room” into her pleasant quarters, which, in spite of the preparations going on for dinner, looked home like and inviting, especially the bright fire which blazed upon the hearth.

Edna went up to this at once and held her cold hands near the blaze, and Becky, who was a close observer, noticed first the cut of her dress, and then decided that “it had as long a tail as Miss Maude’s” (the reader will bear in mind that this was before the days of short dresses), “but was not quite as citified.” She noticed, too, the little, plump, white hands which Edna held up to the fire, and said within herself,—

“Them hands has never done no work; I wonder who she can be?”

Edna told her after a moment that she had come from Chicago, from Mrs. Dana’s, whom Becky might perhaps remember, as she was once an inmate for a time of the farm-house. Becky did remember Miss Susan, and after expressing her surprise and regret at her sudden death, she continued:

“You’ve come to visit yer uncle,—have you ever seen him?”

Edna had never seen him, and she had not exactly come visiting either. In fact she hardly knew why she had come, and now that she was here, and had a faint inkling of matters, she began to wish she had staid away, and to wonder herself why she was there. To her uncle she intended to tell everything, but not to Becky, though she instinctively felt that the latter was a person of a great deal of consequence in her uncle’s family, and must have some explanation, even though it was a very lame one. So she said:

“I lived with Mrs. Dana when she died. I have lost all my friends. I have no home, and so I came to Uncle Overton, hoping he would let me stay till I find something to do. Mrs. Dana said he was kind and good.”

“Yes, but mighty curis in his ways,” was Becky’s rejoinder, as she wondered how her master would receive this stranger, who had no home nor friends unless he gave her both. “It’s jest as the fit catches him,” she thought, as she asked Edna to lay aside her wrappings, and then told her to make herself at home till the “marster came.” “He’s gone over to Millville, six or eight miles or so, and rode old Bobtail, who never trots faster than an ant can walk, so he won’t be home till three o’clock, and I’m goin’ to have dinner and supper all to oncet, but if you’re hungry, and I know you be, I’ll jest clap on a cold bite and steep a drawin’ of tea,” she said.

But Edna was not hungry; she had breakfasted at the station not many miles from Albany, and could wait until her uncle came.

“I’ll fetch yer things in, only I dunno whar marster’ll have ’em put. Any ways, I’m safet in the back bedroom,” Becky continued, and with Edna’s help, the trunk was brought into the house and carried up the back stairs to a little room directly over the kitchen, where the bare floor and the meagre furniture struck cold and chill to Edna’s heart, it was so different from anything she had ever known.

That room at Aunt Jerry’s, looking out upon the graveyard, was a palace compared to this cheerless apartment; and sitting down upon her trunk after Becky left her, she cried from sheer homesickness, and half resolved to take the next train back to—she did not know where. There was no place for her anywhere, and in utter loneliness and despair she continued to cry until Becky came up with a pitcher of warm water and some towels across her arm. She saw that Edna was crying, and half guessing the cause, said very kindly:

“I reckon you’re some homesick, and ’tain’t to be wondered at; this room ain’t the chirkest in the house, and ’tain’t no ways likely you’ll stay here, but I dassen’t put you in no other without marster’s orders; he’s curis, and if he takes to you as he’s sure to do, you’re all right and in clover right away. He sarves ’em all dis way, Miss Maude an’ all, but now nothin’s too good for her.”

Edna did not ask who Miss Maude was, but she thanked Becky for her kindness, and after bathing her face and eyes, and brushing her hair, went down to the kitchen to wait with fear and trembling for the coming of the “marster who was so curis in his ways.”

Becky did not talk much that morning. She had “too many irons in the fire,” she said, and so she brought Edna a book which Miss Maude had left there more than a year ago, and which might help to pass the time. It was “Monte-Cristo,” which Edna had never read, and she received it thankfully, and glancing at the fly-leaf saw written there, “Maude Somerton, New York, May 10th, 18——”

Becky’s Miss Maude, then, was Maude Somerton, who lived in New York, and whom some wind of fortune had blown to Rocky Point, where she seemed to be an immense favorite; so much Edna inferred, and then she sat herself down to the book, and in following the golden fortunes of the hero she forgot the lapse of time until the clock struck two, and Becky, taking a blazing firebrand from the hearth, carried it into the south room, with the evident intention of kindling a fire.

“Marster always has one thar nights,” she said, “and when we has company we sets the table thar. His bed ain’t no ’count, turned up with the curtain afore it.”

And so in honor of Edna the table was laid in the south room, and Aunt Becky, who had quietly been studying the young girl, and making up her mind with regard to her, ventured upon the extravagance of one of her finest cloths, and the best white dishes instead of the blue set, and put on napkins and the silver-plated forks and butter-knife, and thought how nicely her table looked, and wished aloud that “Marster Philip” would come before her supper had all got cold.

As if in answer to her wish there was the sound of some one at the gate, and looking from the window Aunt Becky joyfully announced that “marster had come.”

CHAPTER XIX.
UNCLE PHIL.

Feeling intuitively that it would be better for Aunt Becky to announce her presence, Edna made some excuse for stealing upstairs, where from the window she had her first view of Uncle Phil, as he rode into the yard and round to the barn on Bobtail’s back. He was a short, fat man, arrayed in a home-made suit of gray, with his trouser legs tucked in his boots, and his round, rosy face protected by lappets of sheepskin attached to his cap and tied under his chin. Taken as a whole, there was nothing very prepossessing in his appearance, and nothing especially repellent either, but Edna felt herself shaking from head to foot as she watched him dismounting from Bobtail, the old fat sorrel horse, who rubbed his nose against his master’s arm as if there was perfect sympathy between them. Edna saw this action, and saw Uncle Phil, as he gently stroked his brute friend, to whom he seemed to be talking as he led him into the barn.

“He is kind to his horse, anyway. Maybe he will be kind to me,” Edna thought, and then she waited breathlessly until she heard the heavy boots, first in the back room, then in the kitchen, and then in the south room, where Becky was giving a few last touches to the table.

The chamber door was slightly ajar, and as Uncle Phil’s voice was loud, Edna heard him distinctly, as he said:

“Hallo, Beck, what’s all this highfallutin for. What’s up? Who’s come,—Maude?”

Becky’s reply was inaudible, but Uncle Phil’s rejoinder was distinct and clear:

“Umph! A poor relation, hey? Where is she? Where have you put her?”

Becky was now in the kitchen, and Edna heard her say:

“In the back chamber, in course, till I know yer mind.”

“All right. Now hurry up your victuals and trot her out. I’m hungry as a bear.”

After overhearing this scrap of conversation, it is not strange if Edna shrank from being “trotted out,” but, obedient to Aunt Becky’s call, she went downstairs and into the south room, where with his back to the fire, and his short gray coat-skirts pulled up over his hands, stood Uncle Phil. He did not look altogether delighted, and his little round twinkling eyes were turned upon Edna with a curious rather than a pleased expression as she came slowly in. But when she stood before him and he saw her face distinctly, Edna could not help feeling that a sudden change passed over him: his eyes put on a softer look, and his whole face seemed suddenly to light up as he took her offered hand.

“Becky tells me you are my kin, grand-niece, or grandaunt, or grandmother. I’ll be hanged if she made it out very clear. Maybe you can explain what you are to me?”

He held her hand tightly in his own, and kept looking at her with an earnest, searching gaze, before which Edna dropped her eyes, as she replied:

“I can claim no nearer relationship than your grand-niece. My mother was Lucy Fuller.”

“Who married the parson and died from starvation?” Uncle Phil rejoined.

And with a heightened color, Edna answered quickly:

“She married my father, sir, an Episcopal clergyman, and died when I was a few days old.”

“Yes, yes, all the same,” Uncle Phil answered, good-humoredly. “I dare say she was half-starved most of the time; ministers’ wives mostly are, Episcopal ones especially. I take it you are of the Episcopal persuasion, too?”

“I am.”

And Edna spoke up as promptly as if it were her mother she was acknowledging.

“Yes, yes,” Uncle Phil said again; and here releasing Edna’s hand, which he had been holding all the time, he took a huge pinch of snuff, and then passed the box to Edna, who declined at once. “What, don’t snuff? You miss a great deal of comfort. It’s good for digestion and nervousness, snuff is. I’ve used it this thirty years; and you are an Episcopalian, and proud of it, I see: jest so. I’ve no great reason to like that sect, seeing about the only one I ever knew intimately turned out a regular hornet, a lucifer match, the very old Harry himself; didn’t adorn the profession; was death on Unitarians, and sent the whole caboodle of us to perdition. She’ll be surprised to find me settin’ on the banks of the river Jordan when she comes across, paddlin’ her own canoe, for she will paddle it, I warrant you. Nobody can help her. Yes, yes. Such is life, take it as you find it. Maude is an Episcopal, red-hot. I like her; maybe I’ll like you; can’t tell. Yes, yes; sit by now, and have some victuals.”

During this conversation, Becky, who had put the dinner upon the table, was standing in respectful silence, waiting until her master was ready, and trembling for the fall of her light snowy crusts which she had made for her pot-pie. But her fears were groundless; the dinner was a great success, and Uncle Phil helped Edna bountifully, and insisted upon her taking more gravy, and ordered Becky to bring a bottle of cider from the cellar.

“Cider was ’most as good as snuff for digestion,” he said, as he poured Edna a glass of the beverage, which sparkled and beaded like champagne.

On old Becky’s face there was a look of great satisfaction as she saw her master’s attentions to the young lady, and as soon as her duties were over at the table, she stole up the back stairs to the little forlorn room where Edna’s trunk was standing,

“I know I kin ventur so much,” she said to herself as she lifted the trunk and carried it into the next chamber, which had a pleasanter lookout, and was more pretentious every way, than its small dark neighbor.

This done Becky retired to the kitchen until dinner was over, and her master, who was something of a gormandizer, was so gorged that three or four pinches of snuff were requisite to aid his digestion; and then like a stuffed anaconda he coiled himself up in his huge arm-chair and slept soundly, while Becky cleared the table and put the room to rights.

The short wintry afternoon was drawing to a close by the time Uncle Phil’s nap was over. He had slept heavily and snored loudly, and the last snore awoke him. Starting up, he exclaimed:

“What’s that? Yes, yes; snored, did I? Shouldn’t wonder if I got into a doze. Ho, you, Beck!”

His call was obeyed at once by the colored woman, who came and stood deferentially before him.

“I say, Beck, I’m ’bout used up, what with eatin’ such an all-fired dinner on top of jouncing along on Bobtail,—might as well ride a Virginia fence and done with it. Can’t you do the chores? Bobtail is fed, and the cows too.”

Becky signified her readiness to do anything her master liked, and after bringing a tall tallow candle and adding a stick to the fire, she departed, leaving Edna alone with Uncle Phil, who was wide-awake now, and evidently disposed to talk.

“Now tell me all about it,” he said, suddenly facing toward Edna. “Tell me who you are in black for, and what sent you here, and what you want, and how you happened to know of me, when I never heard of you; but first, what is your name? I’ll be hanged if I’ve thought to inquire.”

“Edna Louise Browning was my name until I was married.”

“Married! Thunder!” and springing from his chair, Uncle Phil took the candle, and bringing it close to Edna’s face, scrutinized it closely. “You married? Why, you’re nothing but a child. Married? Where was your folks, to let you do such a silly thing? and where is he?”

“My husband is dead, was killed the very day we were married,—killed in the cars,—and I have no folks, no home, no friends, unless you will be one to me,” Edna replied, in a choking voice which finally broke down in a storm of tears and sobs.

Uncle Phil did not like to see a woman cry, especially a young, pretty woman like the one before him, but he did not know at all what to say: so he took three pinches of snuff, one after the other, sneezing as many times, blew his nose vigorously, and then going to the door which led into the kitchen, called out:

“Ho, Beck! come here,—I want you.”

But Beck was watering old Bobtail, and did not hear him, so he returned to his seat by the fire; and as Edna’s tears were dried by that time, he asked her to go on and tell him her story. Edna had determined to keep nothing back, and she commenced with the house by the graveyard, and the aunt, who perhaps meant to be kind, but who did not understand children, and made her life less happy than it might otherwise have been; then she passed on to Canandaigua and Charlie Churchill; and while telling of him and his friends, and where they lived, she thought once Uncle Phil was asleep, he sat so still, with his eyes shut, and one fat leg crossed over the other, and a pinch of snuff held tightly between his thumb and finger. But he was not asleep, and when she mentioned Leighton Place, he started up again and went out to Becky, who by this time was moving in the kitchen.

“I say, Beck,” he whispered in her ear, as he gave his snuff-box a tap with his finger, “move that gal’s band-box into the north-west chamber, d’ye hear?”

Becky did not tell him that she had already done that, but simply answered, “Yes, sar,” while he returned to Edna, who, wholly unconscious of her promotion or the cause of it, continued her story, which, when she came to the marriage and the accident, was interrupted again with her tears, which fell in showers as she went over with the dreadful scene, the gloomy night, the terrible storm, the capsized car, and Charlie dead under the ruins. Uncle Phil too was excited, and walked the room hurriedly, and took no end of snuff, and blew his nose like a trumpet, but made no comment until she mentioned Mrs. Dana, when he stopped walking, and said:

“Poor Sue, if she’d had a different name, I believe I’d kept her for my own, though she wan’t over clever. Dead, you say, and left five young ones, of course; the poorer they be the more they have. Poor little brats. I’ll remember that. And John wanted to marry you? You did better to come here; but where was that aunt, what d’ye call her? I don’t remember as you told me her name.”

“Aunt Jerusha Pepper,” Edna said; whereupon something dropped from Uncle Phil’s lip which sounded very much like “the devil!”

“What, sir?” Edna asked; and he replied:

“I was swearin’ a little. Such a name as that! Jerusha Pepper! No wonder she was hard on you. Did you go back to her at all? and what did she say?”

He took four pinches of snuff in rapid succession, and scattered it about so profusely, that Edna received some in her face and moved a little further from him, as she told him the particulars of her going back to Aunt Jerusha, and what the result had been. She intended to speak just as kindly and cautiously of Aunt Jerry as was possible; but it seemed as if some influence she could not resist was urging her on, and Uncle Phil was so much interested and drew her out so adroitly, that, though she softened everything and omitted many things, the old man got a pretty general impression of Aunt Jerusha Pepper, and guessed just how desolate must be the life of any one who tried to live with her.

“Yes, yes, I see,” he said, as Edna, frightened to think how much she had told, tried to apologize for Aunt Jerry, and take back some things she had said. “Yes, yes, never mind taking back. I can guess what kind of a firebrand she is. Knew a woman once, as near like her as two peas; might have been twins; pious, ain’t this peppercorn?”

Edna did not quite like Uncle Phil’s manner of speaking of her aunt, and she began to defend her, saying she was in the main a very good woman, who possessed many excellent qualities.

“Don’t doubt it in the least. Dare say she’s a saint; great on the creed and the catechism. And she is your aunt? Ho, Beck, come here; or stop, I’ll speak to you in the kitchen,” he said, as Becky came to the door.

The woman retreated to the kitchen fireplace, where Uncle Phil joined her, speaking again in a whisper, and saying,—

“Look here, Beck. Take that girl’s work-bag, or whatever she brought her things in, and carry it into the north chamber.”

“Maude’s room, sar!” Becky asked, with glistening eyes.

“Yes, Maude’s room,” Uncle Phil replied, and then went back to Edna, who had but little more to tell, except of her resolve to come to him as the only person in the world who was likely to take her in, or on whom she had any claim of relationship.

“I don’t wish to be an incumbrance,” she said. “I want to earn my own living, and at the same time be getting something with which to pay my debts. Mr. Belknap, who brought me from the depot, thought I might get up a select school, and if I do, maybe you will let me board here. I should feel more at home with you than with strangers. Would you let me stay if I could get a school?”

There certainly was something the matter with Uncle Phil’s eyes just then.

“The pesky wind made them water,” he said, as he wiped them on his coat-sleeves and then looked down at the girl, who had taken a stool at his feet, and was looking anxiously into his face, as she asked if she might stay.

“Let me be, can’t you. I’ve got a bad cold. I’ve got to go out,” he said; and rising precipitately he rushed into the kitchen, and again summoning old Becky, began with, “I say, Beck, make a fire in the north chamber, a good rousing one too. It’s cold as fury; and fetch down a rose blanket from the garret, and warm the bed with the warming-pan; the sheets must be damp; and make some cream-toast in the morning; all cream,—girls mostly take to that, and stew some crambries to-morrow, and kill a hen.”

Having completed his list of orders Uncle Phil returned to Edna, while Becky, who, in anticipation of some such dénouement had already made a fire in the north and best chamber in the house, went up and added fresh fuel to the flames, which roared, and crackled, and diffused a genial warmth through the room. Meanwhile Uncle Phil, without directly answering Edna’s question as to whether she could stay there, said to her:

“And it’s seven hundred dollars you owe, with interest: three to Mr. Leighton, and four to that Peppery woman, and you expect by teaching to earn enough to pay it, child; you never can do that, never. Schoolma’ams don’t get great wages round here.”

“Then I’ll hire out as a servant, or go to work in the factory. I’m not ashamed to do anything honorable, so that it gives me money with which to pay the debt,” Edna said, and her brown eyes were almost black with excitement, as she walked hastily across the floor to the window, where she stood for a moment, struggling to keep back the hot tears, and thinking she had made a great mistake in coming to a man like Uncle Phil, who, having regaled himself with two pinches of snuff, said:

“Look here, girl. Come back to the fire and let’s have it out.”

Something in his voice gave Edna hope that after all he was not going to desert her, and she came back, and stood with her hand on the iron fireplace, and her eyes fixed on him, as he said:

“You spoke of Mr. Belknap. Did he inquire your name?”

“No, sir,” was the reply.

“Did anybody inquire your name down to the depot?”

“No, sir.”

“Has Beck asked it?”

“No, sir, but I think I told her.”

“Thunder you did. Why will women tell all they know, and more too; ten chances though she didn’t understand, she’s so blunderin’. I’ll go and see.”

And again Uncle Phil went into the kitchen, and while pretending to drink from the gourd, casually said to the servant:

“Ho, Beck, what’s this girl’s name in t’other room; hanged if I want to ask her.”

Becky thought a moment and then replied: “don’t jestly remember, though I b’lieve she told me; but I was so flustified when she came. Spects, though, it’s Overton, seein’ she’s yer kin.”

“Yes, yes, certainly;” and Uncle Phil went back to the south room with a very satisfied look upon his face. “See here, miss,” he began. “Your name is Overton,—Louise Overton. Do you understand?”

Edna looked at him too much surprised to speak, and he continued:

“You are my niece, Miss Overton, Louise Overton, not Browning, nor Churchill, nor Pepper-pod, nor Edna, but Louise Overton. And so I shall introduce you to the folks in Rocky Point.”

Edna saw that he meant her to take another name than her own, and she rebelled against it at once.

“My name is not Overton,” she said, but he interrupted her with—

“It’s Louise though, according to your own statement, Edna Louise.”

“I admit that, but it is not Overton, and it would be wrong for me to take that name, and lose my identity.”

“The very thing I want you to do,” said Uncle Phil, “and here are my reasons, or a part of them. I like you, for various things. One, you seem to have some vim, grit, spunk, and want to pay your debts; then, I like you because you have had such a hard time with that Pepper woman. I don’t blame you for running away; upon my soul I don’t. Some marry to get rid of a body, and some don’t marry and so get rid of ’em that way. You did the first, and got your husband’s neck broke, and got into debt yourself, and seas of trouble. And you are my great niece. And Lucy Fuller was your mother, and Louise Overton was your grandmother, and my twin sister. Do you hear that, my twin sister, that I loved as I did my life, and you must have been named for her, and there’s a look like her in your face, all the time, and that hair which you’ve got up under a net, but which I know by the kinks is curly as a nigger’s, is hers all over again, color and all, and just now when you walked to the window in a kind of huff, I could have sworn it was my sister come back again from the grave where we buried her more than thirty years ago. Yes, you are a second Louise. I’m an old man of sixty, and never was married, and never shall be, and when Susan was here years ago, I thought of adopting her, but I’ll be hanged if there was snap enough to her, and then she took the first chap that offered, and married Dana, and that ended her. There wasn’t a great many of us, and for what I know you are all the kin I have, and I fancy you more than any young girl I’ve seen, unless its Maude, and she’s no kin, which makes a difference. I’ve a mind to adopt you, to give you my name, Overton, and if you do well I’ll remember you in my will. Mind, I don’t propose to pay your debts. I want to see you scratch round and do it yourself, but I’ll give you a home and help you get scholars, or if you can’t do anything at that, help you get a place in the factory at Millville, or in somebody’s kitchen as you mentioned.”

Uncle Phil’s eyes twinkled a little as he said this last, and looked to see what effect it had on Edna. But she never winced or showed the slightest emotion, and he continued:

“Nobody knows that you are a Browning, or a Churchill, or a widow, and it’s better they shouldn’t. I saw the account of that smash-up in the newspaper, but never guessed the girl was Louise’s grandchild. Folks round here read it too; the papers were full of it. Charlie Churchill hunted up in my woods one season; he’s pretty well known hereabouts.”

“Charlie, my Charlie, my husband; was he ever here, and did you know him?” Edna asked, vehemently, and Uncle Phil replied:

“Yes, I knew him when he was a boy, though he couldn’t be much more than that when you run off with him. His brother owns the hotel in town. We are on different roads, but ain’t neither of us such a very great ways from Albany, you know.”

Instantly Edna’s countenance fell.

“Roy Leighton own the hotel! then he will be coming here, and I don’t want to see him till he is paid,” she said, in some dismay, and Uncle Phil replied:

“He don’t often bother himself to come to Rocky Point. Never was here more than two or three times. His agent does the business for him, and that agent is me. He was here once, and I believe his mother was up the mountain at a kind of hotel where city folks sometimes stay and make b’lieve they like it. But this Charlie stayed in town at the tavern, and folks——”

Here Uncle Phil stopped abruptly, and Edna, after waiting a moment for him to proceed, said:

“Folks did not fancy Charlie. He was not popular. Is that what you want to say? If it is, don’t be afraid to say it. I have borne much harder things than that,” and there came a sad, sorry look upon her face. She was thinking of her lost faith in Charlie’s integrity, and Uncle Phil of the scandalous stories there had been about the fast young man of eighteen who had made love to the girls indiscriminately, from little Marcia Belknap, the farmer’s daughter, to Miss Ruth Gardner, whose father was the great man of Rocky Point, and whose influence would do more to help or harm Edna than that of any other person in town. But Uncle Phil could not tell Edna all this, so he merely replied, after a little:

“No, he wan’t very popular, that’s a fact. Young men from the cities are different, you know, and Charles was sowing his wild oats about those days. He passed for rich, you see; called it my hotel, my tenants, and all that, when it was his brother’s.”

A sound from Edna like a sob made Uncle Phil pause abruptly and mentally curse himself for having said so much. The truth was he had never quite forgiven Charlie for inveigling him into loaning fifty dollars with promises of payment as soon as he could get a draft from home. The draft never came, but Roy did, and settled his brother’s bills and took him away while Uncle Phil was absent, and as Charlie made no mention of his indebtedness in that direction, the debt remained uncancelled. Several times Uncle Phil had been on the point of writing to Roy about it, but had neglected to do so, thinking to wait until he came to Rocky Point again, when he would speak to him about it. But after the news of Charlie’s tragical death was received, he abandoned the idea altogether:

“Fifty dollars would not break him,” he thought, and it was not worth while to trouble Roy Leighton any more by letting him know just what a scamp his brother was. So he tore up Charlie’s note and threw it into the fire, and took a great deal of snuff that day, and stayed till it was pitch dark at the hotel where they were discussing the accident, and commenting upon poor Charlie, whose virtues now were named before his faults. Mention was made of him in the minister’s sermon the next Sunday, and it was observed that Miss Ruth Gardner cried softly under her veil, and that pretty Marcia Belknap looked a little pale, and after that the excitement gradually died away, and people ceased to talk of Charlie Churchill and his unfortunate end. But they would do so again, and the whole town would be alive with wonder if it once were known that the young girl in black at Uncle Phil Overton’s was Charlie Churchill’s widow. Ruth Gardner’s pale-gray eyes would scan her coldly and harshly, while even Marcia Belknap would, perhaps, draw back from one who all unknowingly had been her rival. This Uncle Phil foresaw, and hence his proposition that Edna should bear his name and drop that of Churchill, which was pretty sure to betray her. And after a time he persuaded her to do it.

“You are already Louise,” he said, as Edna questioned the right in the matter. “And inasmuch as I adopt you for my daughter, it is right and proper that you take my name, is it not?”

“Perhaps so,” Edna replied faintly; “but I shall have to tell Aunt Jerry, and Mr. Heyford too. I promised him I would write as soon as I was located in business.”

To this, Uncle Phil did not object, provided Jack Heyford kept his own counsel, as Edna was sure he would. With regard to Miss Pepper, he made no remonstrance. He did not seem to fear her, but surprised Edna with the question,

“What sort of a looking craft is this Pepper woman?”

Edna, who felt that she might have told too much that was prejudicial to her aunt, gladly seized the opportunity to make amends by praising her personal appearance.

“Aunt Jerry dresses so queerly that one can hardly tell how she does look,” she said, “but if she only wore clothes like other people, I think she’d be real handsome for her age. She was pretty once, I’m sure, for she has a nice, fair complexion now, and her neck and arms are plumper and whiter than a Mrs. Fosbook’s, whom I saw barenecked and short-sleeved at a sociable in Canandaigua. Her hair is soft and wavy, and she has so much of it, too, but will twist it into such a hard knot always, when she might make such a lovely waterfall.”

“Do you mean those things that hang down your back like a work-bag?” Uncle Phil asked, laughing louder and longer than Edna thought the occasion warranted, especially as he did not know Miss Pepper, and how out of place a waterfall would be upon her.

“What of her eyes?” he asked, and Edna replied—“bright and black as jet beads.”

“And snap like a snap-dragon, I’ll bet,” Uncle Phil rejoined, adding, after a moment, “I’d really like to see this kinswoman of yours. Tell her so when you write, and say she’s welcome to bed and board whenever she chooses to come, and there’s an Episcopal meeting-house over to Millville, and she can have old Bobtail every saint’s day in the calendar.”

There was a perfect shower of snuff after this, and then Uncle Phil questioned Edna as to what she thought she could teach, and how much she expected to get for each scholar; then he summoned Becky and ordered cider, and apples, and fried cakes, and butternuts, and made Edna try them all, and told her about her grandmother Louise when she was a girl, and then, precisely as the clock pointed to nine, called Becky again, and bade her show Miss Overton to her room.

“I breakfast sharp at half-past seven,” he said to Edna; “but if you feel inclined, lie as long as you please, though I can’t say but I’d like to see a fresh young face across the table. Maude generally was up.”

“I shall be up too,” Edna said, as she stood a moment in the door looking at her uncle; then, as she remembered all the kindness he had shown to her, there came over her with a rush the hunger she had always felt for something missed in childhood, and without stopping to think, she walked boldly up to the little man, and said, “Uncle Phil, nobody ever kissed me good-night since I can remember; none of my relatives I mean; will you do so?”

Uncle Phil was confounded. It was more than thirty years since he had kissed anybody, and he began to gather up his short coat skirts and hop,—first on one foot, then on the other, and look behind him toward the door in a kind of helpless way, as if meditating flight But Edna stood her ground, and put up her full, red lips so temptingly, that with a hurried “bless me, girl, bless me, I don’t know ’bout this. Yes, yes, I feel very queer and curis,” Uncle Phil submitted, and suffered Edna’s kiss, and as her lips touched his, he clasped both arms about her neck, and kissed her back heartily, while with a trembling voice, he said, “Heaven bless you, my child, my daughter, Louise Overton. I’m a rough old fellow, but I’ll do my duty to you.”

There was a tear on Edna’s cheek, left there by Uncle Phil, and Edna accepted it as the baptism for her new name, and felt more resigned to “Louise Overton,” as she followed Becky upstairs to the north room, where the bright fire was making shadows on the wall, and diffusing a delightful feeling of warmth throughout the apartment

CHAPTER XX.
UP IN THE NORTH ROOM.

“Oh, how pleasant and nice. Am I to sleep here?” Edna asked, as she skipped across the floor, and knelt upon the hearth-rug in front of the fire. “What’s become of that little room? I thought——”

She did not say what she thought, for Becky interrupted her with:

“Oh, dat’s no ’count room; jes’ put folks in thar when they fust comes, then moves ’em up higher, like they does in Scripter. Marster’s mighty quare.”

“How long have you lived with him?” Edna asked, and Becky replied:

“Oh, many years. I was a slave on the block, in Car’lina, and Marster Phil comed in and seen me, and pitied me like, and bid me off, and kep’ me from gwine South with a trader, an’ brought me home and sot me free, and I’ve lived with him ever since, an’, please Heaven, I will sarve him till I die, for all he’s done for me. Is you gwine to stay, Miss Overton?”

Edna told her that she was, and that she was sure she should like it very much if she could get something to do.

“You likes to work then, and so did Miss Maude, though she ’pears more of a lady than ’nough I’ve seen what wouldn’t lift thar finger to fotch a thing,” Becky said, and Edna asked:

“Who is Maude? Uncle Phil has spoken of her once or twice.”

“Why she’s Maude Somerton, from New York,” Becky replied; “and she came fust to Prospect Cottage, as they call a house way up on the hills whar the city gentry sometimes stay summers for a spell, and whar Miss Maude’s Aunt Burton was onct with her daughter called Georgie, though she was a girl.”

Edna was interested now, and moved a little nearer to Becky, who continued:

“I know precious little ’bout them Burtons, only they was mighty big feelin’, and Miss Maude was a kind of poor relation, I s’pects; leastwise she wanted to teach school, and Uncle Phil was committee-man and let her have it, and she was to board round, and didn’t like it, and went at Marster Phil till he took her in, though he hated to like pison, and it was allus a mystery to me how she did it, for he don’t hanker after wimmen much, and never could bar to have ’em ’round.”

Here Aunt Becky paused a moment, and taking advantage of the pause, we will present our readers with a picture which Aunt Becky did not see, else she would have known just how Maude Somerton persuaded Uncle Philip to let her have a home beneath his roof. The time, five o’clock or thereabouts, on a warm summer afternoon: the place, a strip of meadow land on Uncle Phil’s premises: the Dramatis Personæ, Uncle Phil and Maude Somerton: She, with the duties of the day over, wending her way slowly toward the small and rather uncomfortable gable-roofed house up the mountain-road, where it was her fate to board for that week, aye, for two or three weeks, judging by the number of children, who seldom left her alone for a moment, and who each night contended for the honor of sleeping with the “school marm.” He, industriously raking up into mounds the fragrant hay, and casting now and then a wistful glance at a bank of clouds which threatened rain; when suddenly, across the field, and bearing swiftly down upon him, came an airy form, her blue linen dress held just high enough to clear the grass, and at the same time show her pretty boots, with the Broadway stamp upon them, and her dainty white petticoat, whose tucks and ruffles were the envy of all the girls in Rocky Point, and the bane of the wash-woman’s life. Uncle Phil saw the apparition, and saw the tucks and ruffles, and thought what pretty feet Miss Somerton had, and what tall boots she wore, and wondered why she was coming toward him in such hot haste.

“Most likely some of those Beals’ boys have been raisin’ Cain, and so she comes to me as committee-man. I’ll be blamed if I don’t throw up the office, for I can’t have wimmen taggin’ after me this way,” he thought, and pretending not to see the young girl, now so near to him, he kept on with his raking, until right before his very face came the vision of blue and white, and a little, fat, dimpled hand was laid upon his rake, and a pair of soft, blue eyes looked up into his with something like tears in them, while a pleading voice told him how terrible it was to board round, to eat the best cake every day, to be company all the time, and never feel at home; besides, having from one to three children fighting to sleep with you every night, when you wanted so much to be alone. And then, still grasping the rake, Maude asked if she might stay altogether at his house, where everything was so nice, and cool, and quiet, and she could have a room to herself, undisturbed by children.

“You will, I know you will, Mr. Overton,” and she stopped for his reply.

Uncle Phil was more astounded than when asked by Edna to kiss her. Of his own accord, he would quite as soon have taken a young alligator into his family as a girl, a woman; but there was something about this one standing there before him, and now actually grasping his hand instead of the rake, which completely unmanned him. Those eyes, and the touch of the white fingers clinging so closely to his own, could not be resisted, and with a quick, nervous motion, he began to step backwards, and sideways, and then forwards, ejaculating meanwhile, “Lord bless me,—yes, yes! I feel very queer; yes I do. Let go my rake. This is sudden. Yes, yes. You don’t like sleepin’ with all the young ones in the deestrict. Don’t blame you. I’d as soon sleep with a nest of woodchucks. Yes, yes. This is curis. I must have some snuff.”

He got his hand free from Maude, took two or three good pinches of his favorite Macaboy, offered her some, and then, giving a hitch to his suspender, replied to her question, repeated, “May I stay with you, Mr. Overton?”

“Yes, yes; I s’pose you’ll have to, if Beck is willin’. I’ll see her to-night, and let you know.”

He said this last by way of giving himself a chance to draw back, for already he began to repent, and feel how terrible it would be to have a young woman in his house all the time,—to-day, to-morrow, and next day. It was a great deal worse than sleeping with every child in town, and he brought up Beck as the pack-horse who was to carry the burden of his refusal on the morrow. But Maude outwitted him there.

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” she cried. “You are the dearest man in the world. Becky is all right. I saw her first, and she said if you were willing, she was. I shall move this very day, for I cannot stay with Mrs. Higgins another hour. Thank you again, ever so much, you dear, darling man.”

She was tripping off across the fields, leaving the enemy totally routed and vanquished, and sick at his stomach, and dizzy-headed, as he tried to think how many more weeks there were before vacation.

“Nine, ten, TWELVE!” he fairly groaned. “I can’t stand it. I won’t stand it. I’ll put a stop to it,—see if I don’t. Yes, yes; to have them boots trottin’ up and down the stairs, and them petticoats whiskin’ through the doors, and makin’ me feel so curis. I’ll go crazy,—I feel like it now.”

He tried snuff,—six pinches; but that didn’t answer. Then he tried raking hay so fast, that to use his own words, “he sweat like a butcher;” then he tried cooling his feet in the brook near by, and wiping them on his bandanna; but nothing was of avail to drive away “that curis feelin’ at the pit of his stomach,” and long before sunset he left his work, and wended his way homeward.

The enemy was there before him, or, at least, a part of her equipments, for two of the Higgins’ boys had brought over Maude’s satchel, and sun-umbrella, and water-proof, and two or three books, and a pair of overshoes; all of which were on the kitchen-table, while the boys were swinging on the gate in the front yard.

Uncle Phil ordered the boys home, and “the traps” up in the little “back chamber.”

“That’ll start her. She’ll find that worse than sleepin’ with the Higginses,” he thought, as he gave the order, and then went and took a dose of something he called “jallup.” “He had an awful headache,” he said to Aunt Becky, when she inquired what was the matter; and his headache increased, and sent him to bed before Maude arrived, flushed, delighted, and full of spirits that her boarding ’round was over.

He heard her go up to her little hot back room, and wondered how she liked it, and how long she’d stay in it, and half wished he had nailed the window down so she could not open it.

She was up bright and early the next morning, and drove the cows to their pasture, a distance of half a mile, and brought back a bunch of flowers, which she arranged upon the table; and she looked so fresh and pretty in her blue gown, which just matched her eyes, and ate cold beans so heartily, that Uncle Phil began to relent, and that night she slept in the north-west room instead of the little back one. There she stayed a week; and then, after having helped Uncle Phil rake up his hay one day when a shower was coming up, she was promoted to the north, and best chamber, and some nice striped matting was bought for the floor, and a pretty chestnut set took the place of the high-post bedstead and old-fashioned bureau; and some curtains were hung at the windows, for Uncle Phil said “he didn’t want the whole town to see the girl undress, if they did him.”

And here for weeks Maude reigned, a very queen, and cheered and brightened up the old farm-house until, when in the fall she left and went back to Oakwood, Aunt Becky cried for sheer loneliness, and Uncle Phil took a larger dose of “jallup” to help the feeling at his stomach, than when she first came to him.

And this was how Maude Somerton chanced to be an inmate of Uncle Phil’s family, and enshrined in his heart, as well as in old Becky’s, as a kind of divinity, whom it was not so very wrong to worship.

“’Pears like we never could get over hankerin after her,” Becky said to Edna, “she was so chirk and pert-like, and made the house so different.”

Edna was longing to ask another question, but did not quite know how to get at it. At last she said:

“Does Miss Somerton live in New York all the time? Has her Aunt Burton no country residence?”

“Yes, bless you, a house as big as four of this, down to Oakwood, whar thar’s looking-glasses as long as you be, Miss Maude said, and furniture all covered with satin.”

Edna was no nearer her point than before, and so she tried again.

“Have they any neighbors at Oakwood, any families they are intimate with?”

“Yes, thar’s the Leightons, to my way of thinkin’ quite as sot up as the Burtons, and thar place, Miss Maude say, is handsomer and bigger than the one to Oakwood.”

“Oh, indeed, Mrs. Leighton must be a happy woman. Did you ever see her?” Edna asked, and Becky replied,

“Thar ain’t no Miss Leighton; she’s Miss Churchill, married twicet; her oldest boy, Mr. Roy, owns the property, and is the nicest man I reckon you ever seen. He stayed to the hotel oncet a few weeks, and I done his washin’, ’case he couldn’t find nobody handy, and Marster Phil let me do it and keep the pay. He wore a clean shirt a day, and cuffs and collars, and white vests, and pocket handkerchiefs, and socks without end; and gave me seventy-five cents a dozen just as they run, which made me a nice handful of money.”

“Yes,” Edna said, musingly; “I suppose he must be very rich? Is he the only child?”

“Ne-oo,” and Aunt Becky spoke a little scornfully, while Edna moved so as to hide her burning face.

She had reached the point at last, and her heart beat almost audibly as Aunt Becky continued:

“Or he wasn’t the only child when they was here. Thar was a younger one, a Charles Churchill, who got killed on the railroad a spell ago. You should speak well of the dead, and I mean to; but I reckon he wasn’t of so much ’count in these yer parts as Master Roy.”

“Did he do anything bad,” Edna asked, and her voice was very low and sad.

“No, not bad, only wan’t of much ’count. He druv fast horses, and smoked all the time, and bragged about his money when he hadn’t a cent, and flirted with the girls awfully. Thar’s Miss Ruth Gardner, all of three years older than him, thought she should catch him sure, and little Marcia Belknap was fairly bewitched; and both on ’em cried when they heard he was dead, though he left a wife, the papers said, married that very day.”

“Oh, dreadful,” and Edna groaned aloud, for she saw again that awful scene, and the white, still face upturned to the angry sky, and it seemed wrong to sit there and make no sign while Becky went on.

“I hain’t seen Miss Maude since, so I don’t know nothin’ about his wife, who she was, nor whar she is. Down to the Leighton Place, maybe, though it’s been surmised that she warn’t much,—kind of poor white folksy, I reckon; and if that’s so, Miss Churchill ain’t a-goin’ to own her, ’case she’s mighty big feelin’, and turned up her nose at Miss Ruth, and took her boy home to git shet of her. But Miss Ruth is enough for her, and I’ve hearn she talked awful about that wife of Charlie’s, and said she jest wished she could see her long enough to tell her she had the best and fustest right to her husband. Oh, she’s a clipper, Miss Ruth is.”

Edna’s hands were locked firmly together, and the nails were making red marks upon her flesh, while she longed for Aunt Becky to leave her. She had heard enough, and she looked so white and tired, that Becky noticed it at last, and asked if she was sick.

“No, only tired,” she said; and then Becky said good-night, and left her alone with her sad thoughts, which, however, were not all sad and bitter.

She had lost her first love in more ways than one, and as, with her head bent down, she sat thinking of him and all she had heard, she felt a fresh pang of remorse cut through her heart at her own callousness in feeling that perhaps for herself it was better that Charlie died. But only for herself. When she thought of him, and what he might have been, had space for repentance been granted him, her tears flowed like rain, and, prone upon her face, she prayed that if the prayers of the living for the dead could avail, hers might be heard and answered for her lost, wayward Charlie.

CHAPTER XXI.
MISS OVERTON.

To the young and healthy sleep comes easily, and notwithstanding her excitement, Edna slept soundly in her new home; and when the first signs of daylight began to be visible in her room, and she heard sounds of life below, she arose with a feeling nearer akin to happiness than she had known since Charlie died. Aunt Becky soon appeared, chiding her for getting up before her fire was made, and finally coaxing her back to bed, while she kindled a blazing fire upon the hearth, and then brought a pitcher of hot water for her young lady’s ablutions. Breakfast would be ready in half an hour, she said, as she left the room; and then Edna rose again, and remembering what Uncle Phil had said about her grandmother’s hair, and inferring therefrom that he liked curls, she brushed and arranged her own thick tresses in masses of wavy curls, and then went down to Uncle Phil, who, after bidding her good-morning, said, softly, as he held his hand on her flowing hair:

“Wear it so always; it makes me think of my sister.”

“I am going to town,” he said, when breakfast was over, “to see what I can do towards scarin’ up a school, though I haint a great deal of confidence; but if I fail, there’s still the factory to Millville, and the hired-girl business, you know.”

He gave Edna a knowing wink, offered her a pinch of snuff, told her “to keep a stiff upper lip,” and then rode off on old Bobtail to Rocky Point.

Long before noon everybody in town knew that the young lady in black was Miss Louise Overton, Uncle Phil’s niece, who wanted a school, and could teach music and drawing and everything, and Miss Ruth Gardner’s name was actually down as a pupil in drawing, while Squire Gardner headed the list with his two youngest children. It was a stroke of policy on Uncle Phil’s part to get the Gardners interested, especially Miss Ruth, whose name as a pupil in drawing was the direct means of gaining several more, so that when at noon Uncle Phil went home to dinner, it was settled that a select school should be opened at once in one of the rooms of the old Academy, Uncle Phil pledging himself to see that it was thoroughly cleaned and put in order, besides supplying the necessary fuel. Twenty scholars were promised sure, and Uncle Phil rode home in great spirits, and gave Bobtail an extra amount of hay, and then went in to Edna, to whom he said:

“I dunno ’bout the school, but there’s a place you can have at Squire Gardner’s as second girl, to wait on the door and table, and pass things on a little silver platter; wages, two dollars a week and found. Will you take it?”

“Certainly, if nothing better offers. I told you I would do anything to earn money,” Edna replied, whereupon Uncle Phil called her a “brick,” and said:

“He’d like to see her waiting on Ruth Gardner, yes he would,” and took a pinch of snuff, and told her the exact truth, and that Miss Ruth was to call on her that afternoon and see some of her drawings, and talk it over with her.

Miss Ruth, who was very proud and exclusive, was at first disposed to patronize “Miss Overton,” whose personal appearance she mentally criticised, deciding that she was very young and rather pretty, or would be if she had a little more style. Style was a kind of mania with Ruth, who, being rather plain, said frankly, that “as she could not be handsome, she would be stylish, which was next best to beauty;” and so she studied fashion and went to the extreme of everything, and astonished the Rocky Pointers with something new every month, and carried matters with a high hand, and queened it over all the young people, whom she alternately noticed and snubbed, and did more to help Edna by being a pupil herself than any six other young ladies could have done. She liked Edna from the first, and being of a romantic turn of mind, she liked her the more because she fancied her to be suffering from some other cause than the mere loss of friends. “A love affair, most likely,” she thought; and as one who knew how to sympathize in such matters, she took a great interest in her young teacher, and, after a time, grew confidential, and in speaking of marriage, said with a sigh and a downcast look in her gray eyes, that “her first and only love was dead, that the details of his death were too dreadful to narrate, and had made so strong an impression upon her that it was not at all probable she should ever marry now.”

And Edna listened with burning cheeks, and bent her head lower over the drawing she was making from memory of a bit of landscape seen from Aunt Jerry’s upper windows. Edna stood somewhat in awe of Miss Ruth with her dash and style, and flights of fancy, but from the moment little Marcia Belknap called and looked at her with her great, dreamy eyes, and spoke with her sweet low voice, she was the young girl’s sworn friend, and when the two grew so intimate that Marcia, who was also given to sentiment and fancies, and had a penchant for blighted hopes and broken hearts, told her teacher one night, just as Ruth had done, of her dead love, Edna caressed her bowed head and longed to tell her how foolish she was, and how the lost fruit, if gathered, would have proved but an apple of Sodom.

“Charlie was not worthy of so much love,” was the sad refrain ever repeating itself in her heart, until at last the old soreness began to give way, and she felt that the blow which had severed his life from hers had also set her free from a load she would have found hard to bear as the years went on, and she saw more and more the terrible mistake she had made.

The school was a great success, thanks to Uncle Phil, who worked like a hero to get her scholars, and who carried her each day to and from the old academy, while Becky vied with him in caring for and petting her young mistress. And Edna was very happy. Her school, including her pupils in drawing, was bringing her in over one hundred and fifty dollars a quarter, and as she had no outgoing expenses she was confidently expecting to lessen her debt to Roy in the spring, besides sending Aunt Jerry a draft which should surprise her.

As soon as her prospects were certain she wrote her aunt a long letter, full of Rocky Point and Uncle Phil, whose invitation for Aunt Jerry to visit him she gave word for word.

“I have no idea she’ll come,” Edna said to herself as she folded up the letter, “but maybe she will feel better for the invitation.”

And Aunt Jerry did, though the expression of her face was a study for an instant as, by her lone evening fire, with only Tabby for company, she read her niece’s letter. She did not exactly swear as Uncle Phil had done, when he first heard her name and knew that Edna was her niece, but she involuntarily apostrophized the same personage, addressing him by another name.

“The very old Harry!” she exclaimed, and a perceptible pallor crept into her face, as, snuffing her tallow dip, she commenced again to see if she had read aright.

Yes, there it was in black and white. Philip Overton was Edna’s great uncle, to whom in her distress she had gone, and he had taken her as his daughter, and given her his name, and sent a friendly message to her, Jerusha Pepper, asking her to visit him, and couching his invitation in language so characteristic of the man that it made the spinster bristle a little with resentment. She sent more than a quart of milk that night to the minister’s wife, whose girl, as usual, came for it, and wondered with her mistress to find her pail so full; and next day at the sewing society she gave five yards of cotton cloth to be made into little garments for the poor children of the parish, and that night she wrote to Edna, telling her, “she was glad to know she was so well provided for, and hoped she would behave herself, and keep the right side of her uncle, and not go to the Unitarian meeting if she had any regard for what her sponsors in baptism promised for her, let alone what she took on herself the time she renewed the promise. The Orthodox persuasion was a little better, though that was far enough from right; and if she couldn’t be carried over to Millville, and it wasn’t likely Mr. Overton was one to cart folks to church, she’d better stay at home and read her prayer-book by herself and one of Ryle’s sermons. She would send the book as a Christmas gift.” The letter closed with, “Thank your uncle for inviting me to his house, but tell him I prefer my own bed and board to anybody’s else. I’ve toughed it out these thirty years, and guess I can stand it a spell longer.”

Uncle Phil brought the letter to Edna, and when she had finished reading it, asked:

“What does the Pepper-corn say? or maybe you wouldn’t mind letting me see for myself. I own to a good deal of curiosity about this woman.”

Edna hesitated a moment, and then reflecting that the letter was quite a soft, friendly epistle for Aunt Jerry to write, gave it to Uncle Phil, who, putting on his glasses, read it through carefully till he came to the part concerning the proper way for Edna to spend her Sundays. Then he laughed aloud and said, more to himself than Edna, as it would seem:

“Yes, yes, plucky as ever. Death on the Unitarian church to the end of her spine; Orthodox most as bad; Ryle and the prayer-book; good for her.”

Then, when he reached the reply to his invitation to visit him, he laughed so long and loud, and took such quantities of snuff, that Edna looked at him with a half fear lest he had suddenly gone mad. But he had not, and he handed the letter back, saying as he did so:

“Tough old knot, isn’t she?”

Edna made no reply, for something in his manner made her sorry that she had shown him Aunt Jerry’s letter, and she resolved never to do so again. She had written to Jack Heyford, telling him of her new name and prospects, and her proximity to Charlie’s friends, and Jack had replied in a long, kind, brotherly letter, in which he told her that Georgie was at present with him, but he did not know how long she would stay.

“Annie is better,” he wrote, “but we fear will never be able to walk again without the aid of crutches. She talks of you a great deal, and wonders where you are. I have not told her, for I thought it better not to do so while Georgie is here, as I fancy your uncle has some reason for not wishing the Leightons to know where you are at present. I am thinking of changing my quarters from Chicago to Jersey City, where I have a chance in an Insurance Company, but nothing is decided yet. Will let you know as soon as it is, and perhaps run up for a few days to Rocky Point, as there is something I wish to say to you, which I would rather not put on paper. I was there once with Roy Leighton some years ago; his mother was at the Mountain House, and Georgie was there too. Strange how matters get mixed up, is it not?”

Jack signed himself “yours truly,” but something in the tone of his letter made Edna’s heart beat unpleasantly, as she guessed what it was Jack Heyford had to say to her, which he would rather not commit to paper, and thought of the disappointment in store for him.

There was no Christmas tree at Rocky Point that winter. The Unitarians thought of having one, but gave it up on account of the vast amount of labor which must necessarily fall upon a few, and contented themselves with a ball, while the Orthodox portion of the community, who did not believe in dancing, got up a sleigh-ride to Millville, with a hot supper at the hotel, followed by a game of blind man’s buff, in which Marcia Belknap bruised her nose until it bled, and had the back breadth of her dress torn entirely from the waist, in her frantic endeavors to escape from Uncle Phil.

For Uncle Phil, though a Unitarian to his very marrow, cast in his lot for once with the other side, and hired a fancy team, and went to the sleigh-ride, and took Edna with him, and astonished the young people with his fun and wonderful feats of agility.

But, if there was no Christmas tree at Rocky Point, Santa Claus came to the old farm-house, and deposited various packages for “Miss Overton.” There was a pretty little muff, and the box which contained it had “Chicago” marked upon it; and Edna felt a keen pang of regret as she thought how much self-denial this present must have cost the generous Jack, and how poorly she could repay it. Another package from Aunt Jerry, contained the promised book of sermons, and a pair of lamb’s-wool stockings—“knit every stitch by myself and shaped to my own legs,” Aunt Jerry wrote; adding, in reference to a small square box which the package also contained: “The jimcracks in the box, which to my mind are more fitting for a South Sea Islander than a widow, who has been confirmed, was sent to me by Roy Leighton, who deigned to say they was for his sister, Mrs. Charles Churchill,—a Christmas gift from himself; and he wanted me to give them to you, if I knew where you was, as he supposed of course I did by this time; and asked me to give him your address. Maybe you’ll think I did wrong, but I just wrote to him that I’d got the toggery, and would see that you had it,—that you was taking care of yourself, and earning money to pay your debts, and inasmuch as you did not write to him, it was fair to suppose that you wanted to stay incog., and I should let you. You can write to him yourself, if you wish to.”

The box when opened was found to contain a full set of beautiful jets,—bracelets, ear-rings, pin, chain, and all,—with a note from Roy, who called Edna “My dear little sister,” and asked her to accept the ornaments as a Christmas gift from her “brother Roy.” There was a warm, happy spot in Edna’s heart for the remainder of that day, and more than once she found herself repeating the words, “my dear little sister.” They were constantly in her mind, both at home and on the way to Millville, when the sleigh-bells seemed to chant them, and the soft wind, which told of rain not far away, whispered them in her ears, as it brushed her hair in passing. But as her heart grew warmer with the memory of those words written by Roy Leighton, so the little hands clasped together inside Jack Heyford’s muff, grew colder and colder, as she wished he had not sent it, and thought of the something he was to say when he came to Rocky Point.

CHAPTER XXII.
MAUDE’S VISIT.

Two weeks after the ride to Millville, Uncle Phil received a letter from Maude, who said that as it was vacation with her now, she was coming for a few days to the farm-house. “So, dear Mr. Overton,” she wrote, “give Bobtail an extra supply of oats, for if it chances to be sleighing, I mean to make you into a gay cavalier, a second Sir Launcelot, of whom all the Guinevres and Elaines of Astolat shall be jealous, as we go driving through the country. Tell dear Aunt Becky to get out her warming pan, and hold her fattest chicken in readiness. She knows my taste. Aunt Burton has sent for me to the parlor, so, dear, darling Mr. Overton, au revoir till next Thursday night. I can scarcely wait for thinking of that north room with the wood fire on the hearth, and Becky waiting upon me as if I were a queen instead of a poor Yankee school-mistress. Yours, forever, Maude.”

Uncle Phil read this letter three times to himself, and then three times to Becky, who was almost as much excited as her master. Edna, on the contrary, thought of Maude’s visit with dread. She had no wish at present to be recognized by any friend of the Leightons. The Miss Overton rôle suited her now that she had become accustomed to it, and began to see that it was for the best. Sometime she meant to see Roy Leighton and his mother, and if she could do so without their knowing who she was, it would add greatly to the interest and excitement of the meeting; but if Maude should discover her secret, her pretty project would be spoiled. Still, the more she reflected upon it, the more she saw how improbable it was that Maude should suspect her of being other than Miss Overton, and her unwillingness to meet Miss Somerton gradually gave way until, at last, she was almost as anxious as Becky herself for the arrival of their guest, who came a train earlier than she was expected, and took them by surprise.

Edna walked home from school that day, and seeing no one as she entered the house, went directly to her chamber, where Maude was sitting in her blue flannel dressing-gown, with her bright, beautiful hair rippling over her shoulders, and the brush lying forgotten on the floor, as she sat gazing into the fire upon the hearth. As Edna entered unannounced, she started to her feet, and shedding back her luxuriant tresses, exclaimed with a merry laugh:

“Oh, you must be Miss Overton, I know; my rival in Becky’s heart, and Mr. Overton’s too; but you see I am not to be vanquished, and have come right back into my old quarters, trusting to your generosity to divide with me the towels and the hooks for my dresses. Let me help you, please. You look tired.”

And she walked up to Edna, who was vainly trying to undo her water-proof. At sight of Maude, who had known Charlie so well, there had swept over Edna a faint, dizzy feeling, which made her for a moment very pale and weak; then the hot blood came surging back to her cheeks, which were bright as carnations by the time the troublesome knot had been untied by Maude Somerton’s skilful fingers.

“What a little dot of a girl you are,” Maude said, when at last Edna was disrobed and stood before the fire.

“And you are so much taller than I had supposed,” Edna replied, looking up into the sunny blue eyes, which were regarding her so intently.

“Yes; I must seem a perfect amazon to one as petite as yourself. I used to want to stop growing, and once actually thought of tying a stone to my head, as Charlie Churchill teasingly suggested.”

Edna felt a great heart throb at the mention of that name, but made no reply, and Maude continued:

“I suppose it is time now to dress for dinner. Becky tells me that on ‘Miss Louise’s’ account, they dine after your school hours, by which I see that your position with Uncle Phil is in all respects ‘comme il fait,’ but you must have commenced on the lower round. Did you try the little back chamber?” and Maude’s eyes brimmed with mischief as she asked the question.

“Yes, and nearly froze for half an hour or so. Were you put in there, too?”

“Yes, and nearly melted. Of course you were promoted to the north-west room next.”

Edna, who knew nothing of the gradation by which she had reached her present comfortable apartment, pleaded not guilty to the north-west room, whereat Maude professed to feeling terribly aggrieved at the partiality shown.

“It must be because you are a little dot,” she said; “and because—,” she hesitated a moment, and then added, softly, “because of your deep mourning and trouble. That always opens one’s heart. Mr. Overton told me all about you.”

Maude’s face was turned away from Edna, and so she did not see the violent start, as Edna asked:

“What did he tell you about me?”

“Oh, nothing improper,” and Maude put a part of her front hair in her mouth, while she twisted her back locks into a massive coil. “He said you had lost your father and mother, and that made me feel for you at once, for I am an orphan, too; he said, also, that since their death, you had had a hard time generally, and was obliged to teach school, every item of which will apply to me. I am a poor schoolma’am,—which, in New York society, don’t pass for much; and if Uncle Burton should close his doors upon me, I should have nowhere to lay my head, and so you see we ought to be friends. I wish you would hold that lock of hair, please; it bothers me to get the last new kink. Can you do it?”

She looked up suddenly at Edna, who was curiously studying this girl, who mixed things so indiscriminately, poverty, orphanage, friendlessness, and the last style of dressing the hair.

“I don’t try. I curl my hair, and that is all. I don’t know a thing about fashion,” she said, while Maude, who had succeeded in winding her satin braids, coil after coil, about her head, until the last one came almost to her forehead, replied, “Your curls are lovely. I would not meddle with them. Fashion is an exacting dame, but Aunt Burton and Georgie make such a fuss if I do not try to be decent.”

“Who is Georgie?” Edna asked, feeling guilty for the deception she was practising.

“Georgie is Aunt Burton’s adopted daughter and niece, while I am Uncle Burton’s relation, which makes a vast difference,” Maude replied. “She is a belle and a beauty, and an heiress, while I, as I told you, am poor, and a schoolma’am, and nobody but ‘that young girl who lives with Mrs. Burton.’”

Edna had made no attempt at arranging her own toilet, but completely fascinated with her visitor, stood leaning on the bureau, watching the young girl who rattled on so fast, and who, while pleading poverty, arrayed herself in a soft, flowing dress of shining blue silk, which harmonized so admirably with her fair, creamy complexion.

“One of Georgie’s cast-offs,” she explained to Edna. “Most of my wardrobe comes to me that way. I am fortunate in one respect; fortunate in everything, perhaps, for everybody is kind to me. Look, please, at my beautiful Christmas present, the very thing of all others which I coveted, but never expected to have.”

She took from the little box on the bureau a gold watch and chain, and passed it to Edna, who held it in her hand, and with a face as pale as ashes, turned to the window as if to see it better, while only the most superhuman effort at control on her part kept her from crying outright, for there lying in her hand, with the old familiar ticking sounding in her ear, was her watch, the one Charlie had given to her, and which she had left in Albany. There could be no mistake. She knew it was the very same, and through it she seemed again to grasp the dead hand of her husband, just as she had grasped it that awful night when he lay beneath the wreck, with the rain falling on his lifeless face. Edna felt as if she should faint, and was glad of Maude’s absorption in a box of collars and bows, as that gave her a little time in which to recover herself. When she felt that she could speak, she laid the watch back upon the bureau, carefully, tenderly, as if it had been the dead body of a friend, and said:

“It is a charming Christmas gift. Your aunt’s, I suppose?”

She knew she ran the risk of seeming inquisitive by the last remark, but she wanted so much to know how that watch of all others came into Maude Somerton’s possession.

“No, you don’t catch her making me as costly a present as that. She selected it, but Roy Leighton paid for it.”

“Roy Leighton!” Edna exclaimed, her voice so strongly indicative of surprise, that Maude stopped short and glanced quickly at her, saying, “what makes you say ‘Roy Leighton’ in that tragic kind of way? Do you know him?”

The wintry light had nearly faded from the room by this time, and under cover of the gathering darkness, Edna forced down the emotion which had made every nerve quiver, and managed to answer indifferently:

“I have heard Uncle Phil speak of him. He owns the hotel here in town, I believe. He must be a very dear friend to make you so costly a present.”

Edna could not define the nature of the pang which had shot through her heart when she heard that to Roy Leighton Maude owed the watch she had once called hers, and surrendered with so many tears. It certainly was not jealousy, for why should she be jealous of one who had never evinced any interest in her save such as was expressed in the ornaments of jet, and the words “My dear little sister.” Edna did not know how closely those four words had brought Roy Leighton to her until she saw his costly gift to another.

“That’s just what I told Aunt Burton that people would say,” Maude replied; “and I expect Georgie will be highly scandalized, for she it is who expects to be Mrs. Roy Leighton, some day, and not poor, humble I. Mr. Leighton’s half-brother, Charlie, was killed the very day he was married. Perhaps you saw it in the paper. It was a dreadful thing. I’ll tell you all about it sometime. I was with poor Mrs. Churchill a few days, and Roy, who had a broken leg, and could not sit up, greatly overrated my services, and resolved to make me a present. He had heard me say once or twice that I wanted a watch which was a watch, instead of the great big masculine thing of Uncle Burton’s, and so he concluded to give me one, and asked Aunt Burton, who was going up to Albany, to pick it out. I suppose I should be deceiving you if I did not tell you that the watch was second-hand, and the jeweller sold it a little less because he bought it of a lady who had seen better days. Auntie had admired it very much before he told her that, and she took it just the same. I was perfectly delighted, of course, though I have built all sorts of castles with regard to its first owner, who she was and how she looked, and I’ve even found myself pitying her for the misfortune which compelled her to part with that watch.”

Maude’s toilet was finished by this time, and as Uncle Phil’s voice was heard in the south room below, she asked if they should not go down.

“Yes, you go, please. Don’t wait for me, I have my hair to brush yet,” Edna said, feeling that she must be alone for a few moments, and give vent to the emotion she had so long been trying to repress.

She opened the door for Maude to pass out, and stood listening till she heard her talking to Uncle Phil; then with a sob she crouched upon the hearth and wept bitterly. Maude’s presence had brought back all the dreadful past, and even seemed for a time to have resuscitated her girlish love for Charlie, while in her heart there was a fierce hungering for Charlie’s friends, for recognition by them, or at least recognition by Roy, who had called her his “dear little sister.” It was the memory of these words which quieted Edna at last. He had had her in his mind when he sent the jet, and perhaps he would think of her again, and sometime she might see him and know just how good he was; and as Becky called to say supper was waiting, she hastily bathed her face, and giving a few brushes to her hair, went down to the room where Maude, full of life and spirits, was chatting gayly with Uncle Phil, and showing him the watch which Roy Leighton had given her.

As Edna came in, Uncle Phil glanced anxiously at her, detecting at once the traces of agitation upon her face, and as Maude suddenly remembered leaving her pocket-handkerchief upstairs, and darted away after it before sitting down to the table, he improved her absence by saying, softly:

“What is it, little Lu? Has Maude brought the past all back again? Yes, yes, I was afraid she would.”

“Not that exactly,” Edna said, with a quivering lip and smothered sob; “but, Uncle Phil, that was my watch once,—Charlie gave it to me, and—and—I sold it, you remember, in Albany. I knew it in a moment.”

“Yes, yes. Lord bless my soul! things does work curis. Your watch, and Roy Leighton bought it for Maude! there couldn’t a likelier person have it, but that don’t help its hurting. Poor little Lu! don’t fret; I’ll buy you one, handsomer than that, when I sell my wool. You bet I will. Yes, yes.”

He took a large pinch of snuff, and adroitly threw some of it in Edna’s eyes, so that their redness, and the tears streaming from them, were accounted for to Maude, who came tripping in, all anxiety to know what was the matter with “Little Dot,—that’s what I call her, she is so very small,” she said to Uncle Phil, as she took her seat at the table, talking all the time,—now of her school, now of Aunt Burton, and Georgie who was in Chicago, and at last of Charlie Churchill’s tragical death, and the effect it had on his mother.

When she reached this point Uncle Phil tried to stop her, but Maude was not to be repressed. Uncle Phil knew Charlie, and of course he must be interested to hear the particulars of his death. And she told them, as she had heard them from Georgie, and said she pitied the poor girl for whom nobody seemed to care,—unless it was Roy, who was lame at the time and could do nothing for any one. And Edna heard it all, with an agony in her heart which threatened to betray itself every moment, until Maude spoke of “the poor young wife, for whom nobody seemed to care but Roy.” Then there came a revulsion; the terrible throbbing ceased; her pulse became more even, and though she was paler than usual, she seemed perfectly natural, and her voice was firm and steady as she said, “Then the wife did not come to Leighton?”

“Lord bless me! That is curis,” Uncle Phil muttered to himself, as, having finished his dinner, he walked hastily to the window, while Maude, without heeding him, replied:

“No, and I was so sorry. I had her room ready for her, too,—Charlie’s old room, because I thought she would like it best. You see, Mrs. Churchill was sick, and I had it all my own way, except as I consulted Roy, who evinced a good deal of interest, and I think was really disappointed that Edna did not come. That was her name,—Edna,—and I think it pretty, too, because it is not common.”

Supper was over by this time; and the conversation concerning Charlie Churchill was not resumed until the two girls had said good-night to Uncle Phil, and were alone in their room. Their acquaintance had progressed rapidly, and, girl-like, they sat down before the fire for a good long talk before going to bed. Passing her fingers through Edna’s flowing curls, Maude made some remark about Georgie’s hair, and then added, “Georgie said Edna had handsome curls. Poor thing! I wonder where she is.”

“Don’t they know?” Edna asked, feeling that she must say something.

“No; they only know that she is somewhere working to pay the debt she fancies she owes to Roy.”

“I almost wonder Roy told anybody about that; seems to me he should have kept it to himself,” Edna said, feeling a little hurt that her affairs should be so generally known to strangers.

“Roy didn’t tell of it,” Maude replied. “Mrs. Churchill told it first to auntie, and then to Georgie. She tells them everything, and against Roy’s wishes, too, I am sure; for he is not a gossip. Roy Leighton is splendid everyway,—the best man I ever knew.”

Edna looked up at her with a peculiar smile, which Maude readily understood; and, shaking her head, she said:

“No; I am not in love with him. I would as soon think of aspiring to the moon; but I admire him greatly, and so does every one. He is very different from Charlie, with whom I used to flirt a little.”

Edna would rather hear about Roy than Charlie; and so she asked:

“Do you think he cares anything about his sister-in-law?”

“Of course he does. He wrote her a letter to Chicago; but she had left before it reached there; and once, in speaking of her to Georgie, he called her ‘a brave little woman;’ and, if you believe me, I think Georgie didn’t quite like it.”

There were little throbs of joy quivering all along through Edna’s veins, and softly to herself she repeated: “Brave little woman,” trying to imagine how Roy looked when he said that of her, and how his voice sounded. She did not care for Georgie Burton’s liking or disliking what Roy said. She did not care even if Georgie became his wife, as Maude said she probably would. If he only gave her a place in his heart as his sister, and esteemed her “a brave little woman,” she was more than content; and in Edna’s eyes there was a brightness not borrowed from the fire-light, as, long after Maude was in bed, she sat upon the hearth, combing her curls, and thinking of Roy Leighton, who had called her “a brave little woman,” and acknowledged her as his sister.

Maude’s visit did Edna a world of good, for it brought her glimpses of a life widely different from any she had known, and stirred her up to higher aims, by inspiring her with a desire to make herself something of which Roy should not be ashamed, if ever she chanced to meet him. And she should meet him sometime, she was sure of that; and Maude would be the medium, perhaps; for, if necessary, she would tell her everything, knowing she could trust her as her own sister. They grew to liking each other very much during the few days Maude stayed at the farm-house; and Edna roused herself from a certain morbid listlessness into which she had fallen, with regard to herself and her personal appearance, thinking it did not matter how she looked or what she wore, as black was black anyway. But Maude did not think so.

“Needn’t look like a Guy, if you do wear black,” she said.

And so she coaxed Edna into white collars and cuffs, and, spying the jet, made her put it on, and screamed with delight when she saw how it brightened her up, and relieved the sombreness of her attire.

“If you were a widow, you could not go into deeper mourning than you have,” she said, as she was trying the effect of arranging Edna’s curls a little more fashionably, and twisting in a bit of lavender ribbon taken from her own box.

“Oh, no, not that,” Edna cried, as she looked at herself in the glass, and thought of the driving rain, the terrible wreck, and the white, drenched face beneath.

But Maude, who knew nothing of this as connected with Edna, insisted upon the ribbon just for that evening, and managed to have Uncle Phil praise the effect, and say he liked bright, pretty things, and wished Edna would wear ribbons and jet all the time.

The next day was Sunday; and Maude suggested that Uncle Phil should drive herself and Edna over to St. Jude’s, at Millville.

“Dot tells me she has never been there, and I think it’s a shame,” she said.

“Yes, yes; maybe ’tis; but she never came right out as you do, rough shod, on a feller. She reads her prayer-book at home, and adorns her profession that way. Yes, yes; you want to go to the true church,” Uncle Phil said, adding that he “didn’t think no great things of that persuasion, or leastwise never had till he knew Louise and Maude. They were the right stripe, if they were ’Piscopals; and maybe for once he’d go to the doin’s; but they mustn’t expect him to jine in the performance, nor bob his head down when he went in, nor keep jumping up like a dancing-jack. He should jest snuggle down in the pew, and sleep it out,” he said.

Maude gave him full permission to do as he liked, and, just as the bell of St. Jude’s was pealing forth its last summons, old Bobtail drew up in front of the church, and deposited his load upon the steps. Whether it was from a wish to surprise his young ladies, or because of the softening influence around him, Uncle Phil did not lounge or sleep in one corner of the pew, but, greatly to Edna’s astonishment, took a prayer-book from the rack in front, and followed the service tolerably well for a stranger. Only in the Creed he was silent, and in the fourth response to the Litany; “The Trinity part,” he “couldn’t go;” and he took a pinch of snuff on the sly, and glanced furtively at the two young maidens kneeling so devoutly at his side.

“They act kinder as if they did mean it, and were not puttin’ on, and thinkin’ of their neighbors’ bunnets,” he thought, as he listened to the services, which he decided were “confoundedly long, and a very trifle tedious.”

It was many a year since Uncle Phil had heard our church service; and something in its singular beauty and fitness impressed him as he never was impressed before. All those kneeling people around him were not “putting on.” Some of them surely were earnest and sincere, and were actually talking to somebody who heard, and whose presence even he could almost feel, as he sat listening to the sermon, which was from the text, “For he loveth our nation, and hath builded us a synagogue.” The sermon was a plain, straightforward one; and, as the clergyman took the ground, as an inducement for good works, that the building of a synagogue was the direct means of commending the centurion to the Saviour’s notice, Uncle Phil, who believed more in works than in faith, began to prick up his ears, and to wonder if he hadn’t better do something which would be put to his credit in Heaven’s great book of record.

“I can’t snivel, and say I’m sorry when I ain’t, but I should like to have a balance sheet in my favor, when I get on t’other side,” he thought; and then he began to wonder if “it wouldn’t please the gals, and the Lord, too,” if he was to build a chapel at Rocky Point.

If that synagogue had really been a help to the centurion, and led the Saviour to deal mercifully with him, what might not the building of a chapel do for Uncle Phil? He did not believe in the divinity of Christ; but he had a warm feeling in his heart for the man who had lived on earth thirty-three years, and known all the sorrows which could be crowded into a human life. He believed, too, in heaven, and, in a kind of mystical half way, he believed in hell, or in purgatory, at least, and deemed it well enough, if there was a route which led away from that place, to take it. That chapel might be the very gate to the road of safety; and when, during the last prayer, he put his head down with the rest, his thoughts were on a little knoll, half way between his house and the village proper, and he was wondering how much lumber it would take, and if Carson would cheat his eye-teeth out if he gave him the job.

As from little streams mighty torrents sometimes flow, so from that Sunday at St. Jude’s sprang the beautiful little Gothic structure, whose spire you may see just behind a clump of trees, as you whirl along in the cars through the mountain passes between Albany and Pittsfield. “St. Philip’s,” they call it, though the old man who planned it, and paid for it, and run it, as the people said, would have liked it better if “they had called it St. Maude or St. Louise, he didn’t care which.” Both girls were perfect in his estimation, though for a time he gave the preference to Maude, as having been the first who had torn the thick coating away from his heart, and made it vibrate with a human interest. He liked Maude wonderfully well, and when, on the Monday following the ride to St. Jude’s, she said good-by to them all, and went back to her school on the Hudson, he stole out behind the smoke-house, and, after several powerful sneezes, wiped his eyes suspiciously upon his butternut coat-sleeve, and wondered to himself “why the plague he wanted to be a snivelin’ when he didn’t care shucks for the neatest woman in the land.”

Uncle Phil was terribly out of sorts that day, and called poor Beck a nigger, and yelled furiously at some boys who were riding down hill on his premises, and swore at Bobtail because he didn’t trot faster on his way from the depot, and forgot all about the chapel, and was generally uncomfortable and disagreeable, till Edna came from school, and he found her waiting for him in the south room, with the ribbon in her hair, just as he had said he liked to see it, and the jet brightening her up, and making her a very pretty picture to contemplate, as she came forward to meet him. Hearing from Becky how forlorn he was, she put aside her own longing for the girl, who had brought so much sunshine with her, and made herself so agreeable to her uncle, that the frown between his eyes gave way at last, or rather she kissed it away, telling him she knew why it was there, and did not like to see it, and was going to be just as much like Maude as it was possible to be.

“Bless my soul, a gal’s lips feel mighty curis on such a tough old rhinoceros hide as mine,” he said; but he caught the little hands which were smoothing his hair, and held them in his own, and talked of his dead sister, whom Edna was like, and of the old days at home when he was young; and then the conversation drifted to Aunt Jerusha and Roy Leighton, and the payments Edna hoped to make them both in the spring when her first quarter was ended.

She would have one hundred and fifty dollars, she said, and fifty should go to Roy, and one hundred to her aunt; and she drew a comical picture of that dame when the money was received, proving that her niece’s promise had been no idle thing.

“And you don’t mean to keep a cent for yourself, Dot?” Uncle Phil asked, adopting the name Maude had given to his niece, and which suited her so well.

“No, not a cent till my debts are paid. I’ve clothes enough to last until that time, I guess, if I am careful. At all events I shall buy nothing unnecessary, I assure you,” Edna said; and then Uncle Phil fell into a fit of musing, and thought how for every dollar Edna paid to Jerusha Pepper and Roy, he would put a corresponding dollar in the Millville Savings Bank to the credit of Louise Overton, who might one day find herself quite a rich little woman.

CHAPTER XXIII.
PAYING DEBTS.

Early in April, Aunt Jerry received a letter from Edna containing a draft for one hundred dollars. “All honestly earned,” Edna wrote; “and affording me more pleasure to pay it than you can well imagine. I have fifty dollars beside, which I enclose in an envelope, and wish you to send to Mr. Leighton; but don’t tell him where I am, for the world.”

Aunt Jerry was not in the best of spirits when she received the letter. She had been having a cistern dug under her back stoop, and what with hurrying Robbins, who dug it, and watching her clock to see that he worked his hours, she had worried herself almost sick; while to crown all, the poor old man, who at her instigation had spent nearly one entire day in wheeling the dirt to a safe distance from the house, where it wouldn’t “stand round in a great ugly pile,” found on sinking his hogshead that he had dug his excavation too large, and would need all, or nearly all, the dirt to fill it up again; and greatly to the horror of the highly incensed Miss Pepper, he spent another day in wheeling his dirt back again. It was of no use for Miss Jerusha to scold, and call the man a fool. She had ordered the dirt away herself, and now she listened in a half-frantic condition to the slow tramp, tramp of Robbins’ feet, and the rattling sound of the wheelbarrow which brought it back again, and undid the work of yesterday.

“Shiffless as the rot,” was Aunt Jerry’s parting comment, spoken to herself, as, the cistern finally finished, Robbins departed, just as a boy brought her Edna’s letter.

The sight of the money mollified her a little, and for a long time she sat thinking, with her pasteboard sun-bonnet on her head, and Tabby in her lap. At last, her thoughts found vent in words, and she anathematized Roy Leighton, and called him “a stingy hunks if he touched a dollar of that child’s hard earnings. Don’t catch me to do it, though I dare say he thinks I will!” and Aunt Jerry gave a contemptuous sniff at the mysterious he, whoever he might be.

The next day she went to Canandaigua, and got a new bank-book, with “Edna Browning’s” name in it, and put to her credit two hundred dollars, and then at night wrote to her niece, telling her “she had done better than she ever ’sposed she would, and that if she kept on she might in time make a woman, perhaps.”

Not a word, however, did she say with regard to her disposition of the funds: that was a surprise for the future; but after finishing her letter, she caught up a half sheet of paper, in a fierce kind of way, and wrote hurriedly:

“Philip Overton:—I dare say you think me as mean as pussley, and that I kept that money Edna sent for my own, but I assure you, sir, I didn’t. I put every dollar in the bank for her, and added another hundred besides.

“Yours to command, Jerusha Pepper.”

“P.S.—I hope, from some things Edna tells me, you are thinking about your depraved state, while out of the ark of safety.

J. P.”

Edna never saw this letter, for Uncle Phil did not think it best to show it to her; but he read it many times with infinite satisfaction, and took a pinch of snuff each time he read it, and chuckled over it amazingly, and said to himself:

“There’s now and then a good streak about the old gal. Maybe she gets it from the Church,—the ark she calls it. Anyhow, I’ll speak to Carson to-day about the plan. I couldn’t please three wimmen folks better.”

He answered the letter at once, and said:

“Miss Jerusha Pepper:—Well done, good and faithful servant. Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all. Three cheers and a tiger for you.

“P.S.—I ain’t thinkin’ particularly about my depraved condition, but I am thinkin’ of building a chapel for you to enjoy religion in, when you come to visit Edna.

“Philip Overton.”

Uncle Phil did see Carson, as he proposed doing; and as a result of the conference, a delegation of the leading men in the Unitarian Church called upon him the next morning, to know if it was true that he had abjured their faith, and was going to be confirmed at St. Jude’s, and build a church in Rocky Point, and pay the minister himself. They had heard all this, and a great deal more; and unwilling to lose so profitable and prominent a member from their own numbers, they came to expostulate and reason with him, and if necessary use harsher and severer language,—which they did before they were through with him. For Uncle Phil owned to the chapel arrangement, and said he thought it well enough for a man of his years to be thinking about leaving behind him some monument by which he should be remembered; otherwise, who would think of the old codger, Phil Overton, three months after he was dead.

Then Squire Gardiner suggested that their own church needed repairing, and that a new and handsome organ would be quite as fitting a monument, and do quite as much toward wafting one to heaven as the building of an Episcopal chapel, and introducing into their midst an entirely new element, which would make fools of all the young people, and set the girls to making crosses and working altar-cloths. For his part, he would advise Mr. Overton to think twice, before committing himself to such folly.

Uncle Phil replied that “he didn’t want any advice,—he knew his own business; and as to repairing the church, he wouldn’t say but what he would give as much toward that as anybody else; but he’d ‘be darned’ if he’d buy an organ for them to fight over, as to who should or shouldn’t play it, and how much they should have a Sunday. A choir was a confounded nuisance, anyway,—always in hot water, and he didn’t mean to have any in his chapel. No, sir! he’d have boys, as they did over to St. Jude’s.”

“Ha, a Ritualist, hey?” and one of the number drew back from him, as if he had had the small-pox, asking how long since he had become a convert to that faith, and when he met with a change?

Uncle Phil told him it was “none of his business;” and after a few more earnest words, said, “the whole posse might go to thunder, and he would build as many churches as he pleased, and run ’em ritual, if he wanted to, for all of anybody.”

This was all the satisfaction the Unitarians got; while the Orthodox, who, like their neighbors, rebelled against the introduction of the Episcopal element into their midst, fared still worse, for the old man swore at them; and when one of them asked “how soon he intended to be confirmed?” vowed “he would be the very first chance he got, so as to spite ’em.”

Uncle Phil was hardly a fit candidate for confirmation, but the lion was roused in him, and the chapel was now so sure a thing, that before the first of June, the site was all marked out, and men engaged to do the mason-work.

Edna’s school was still a success, and Edna herself was very happy in her work and her home. She heard from Maude frequently, and the letters were prized according to the amount of gossip they contained concerning Leighton Place and its inmates. Roy had written a few lines acknowledging the receipt of the fifty dollars, and asking her, as a favor, not to think of paying him any more.

“I’d so much rather you would not,” he wrote; “I do not need the money, and it pains me to think of my little sister working so hard, and wearing out her young life, which should be happy, and free from care. Don’t do it, Edna, please; and I so much wish you would let me know where you are, so that I might come and see you, and sometime, perhaps, bring you to Leighton, where your home ought to be. Write to me, won’t you, and tell me more of yourself, and believe me always,

“Your brother, Roy.”

It was a very blithe, merry little girl which went singing about the farm-house after the receipt of this letter, which came through the medium of Aunt Jerusha; and Uncle Phil stopped more than once to look after her, wondering to see her so different from what she had been when she first came to Rocky Point. Then she was a sad, pale-faced woman, with a dreary, pitiful expression in the brown eyes, which now sparkled and danced, and changed their color with every passing emotion, while her face glowed again with health and girlish beauty. All the circumstances of her life at Rocky Point had been tending to this result, but it was Roy’s letter which produced the culminating effect, and took Edna back to her old self, the gay, light-hearted girl, who had known no greater care than Aunt Jerry’s rasping manner. From this she was free now, and life began to look as bright and beautiful to her as did the hill-sides and the mountain-tops when decked in their fresh spring robes.

She answered Roy’s letter at once, and told him how glad she was to know that he had an interest in her, but that she must pay him every dollar before she could feel perfectly free again, and that for the present she preferred to remain where she was. In reply to this, Roy sent her a few hurried lines saying that early in June he should sail for Europe with his mother, whose health required a change. They might be gone a year or more, and they might return at any time. It all depended on his mother, and how the change agreed with her. Edna cried over this letter, and when she knew that Roy had sailed, her face wore a sober, anxious look, and she said often to herself the prayer for those upon the sea, and watched eagerly for tidings of the arrival of the “Adriatic” across the water. And when they came, and she knew Roy was safe, there was a kind of jubilee within her heart, and she offered a prayer of thanksgiving to Him who rules the winds and waves, and had suffered no harm to befall her brother, Roy Leighton.

CHAPTER XXIV.
GEORGIE AND JACK.

Georgie staid in Chicago nearly two months, and for that sacrifice mentally arrogated to herself the right to a martyr’s crown, if not to be canonized as a saint. She had found Annie better than she expected, and that of itself was in some sort a grievance, as it implied undue anxiety, if not actual deception, on Jack’s part. In order to get her there, he had represented Annie as worse than she was, Georgie thought; and at first she was inclined to resent it, and made herself generally disagreeable, to Jack and Aunt Luna, but not to Annie, whose arms closed convulsively around her neck, and whose whole body quivered with emotion when she first saw her sister, and knew she had really come. For two days Georgie sat by her, continually gazing at her, and listening to her prattle, until there came a softer look into her face, and her eyes lost somewhat of their cold, haughty expression. Annie told her everything she could think of about Mrs. Churchill, who had gone, no one knew where, and about herself and her little joys, and griefs, and faults. Everything bad which she had done was confessed, her impatience and fretfulness, and the falsehoods she had told, and then with a faltering voice Annie said:

“I have asked Jesus to forgive, and I most know He has, for I don’t feel afraid of the dark any more, and I love to think He is here with me when my back aches, and I lies awake nights and can’t sleep a bit. And will you forgive me too, sister Georgie; and did you ever tells a lie, though in course you never. You’s always so good. I wonder what makes me bad? Do you know, sister Georgie?”

Oh, how abased and sinful Georgie felt while listening to this innocent little child, whose garment she was not worthy to touch, but who had exalted her so highly, and held her as something perfect. Perhaps she might have solved the mystery which troubled Annie so much as to what made her so given to the bad, when she wanted to be good. She might have told of blood, so tainted with deceit that a single drop of it in one’s veins would make the fountain impure. But she did not; she kissed and comforted the child, and folding her arms about her said, with a gush of real, womanly feeling:

“Oh, Annie, my darling, what would I give to be as innocent as you; continue what you are; shun a lie or deceit of any kind as you would shun the plague, and pray for me that I may be half as good as you.”

She lifted herself up, panting with emotion, while Annie looked wonderingly at her.

“Why, sister Georgie,” she said. “You can’t be bad. You are the goodest woman I know. I does pray for you that Jesus will take care of you, but never that He’d make you good, because I thought you were.”

“No, child, I am not,—” and the proud Georgie sobbed aloud. “I’m not good, but I love you. I want you to remember that, Annie, whatever may happen; remember that I do love you, oh my darling, my darling.”

There was some terrible pain tugging at Georgie’s heart,—some fierce struggle going on, and for a few moments she cried aloud while Annie looked wonderingly on and tried to comfort her. After that she never gave way again, but was her old, assured self. Of the influences warring within her the wrong one had prevailed, and she had chosen to return to her formal life of ease rather than remain where her duty clearly lay, and where the touch of a little child’s hand might have availed to lead her away from the ruinous path she was treading.

Between herself and Jack there was a stormy interview one night after Annie was asleep, and the brother and sister sat together before the grate, talking first of the past and then of the future. Jack had received, as he thought, an advantageous offer to go to Jersey City and enter an insurance office. There was a house there for sale on very reasonable terms, and Jack’s friend urged him to buy it, and have a home of his own. How Jack’s heart beat at the thought of a home of his own, with no constantly recurring rent-bill to pay, and no troublesome landlord spying about for damages! A home of his own, which he could improve and beautify as he pleased, with a sense of security and ownership, and where, perhaps, Georgie might be induced to stay a portion of the time. In Annie’s present helpless condition it was desirable that she should not often be left alone, and as old Luna must at times be out, it seemed necessary that a third person should form a part of Jack’s household, and who more fitting and proper than Georgie, provided she could be made to think so. Jack did not expect her to give up Aunt Burton’s home, with its luxuries, altogether; only for a time he wanted her, and he was revolving in his mind how to tell her so, when she surprised him with the announcement that “she was going back to New York in a few days; that she had already stayed longer than she intended doing, especially after she found how well Annie was, and how little she needed her except for company.”

Jack was astonished. He had fully expected Georgie to remain with him until spring, and he told her so, and told her further of his plans for the future, and his hope that she would be interested in his new home, if he had one, and stay there a portion of the time. Georgie heard him through, but there was an expression in her black eyes which boded ill to the success of Jack’s plan, and her voice, when she spoke, had in it a cold, metallic ring, which made Jack shiver, and involuntarily draw nearer to the fire.

“I bury myself in Jersey City! You must be crazy to propose such a thing. Why, I’d rather emigrate to Lapland, out and out. I can’t endure the place, and I don’t see why you want to go there. You are doing well here, and these rooms are very comfortable.”

The fact was Georgie did not care to have Jack and Annie quite so near to herself as they would be in Jersey City, and she quietly opposed the plan, without however changing Jack’s opinion in the least.

“Are you not afraid that your return to New York will bring up old times? There are those there still who have not forgotten,” she said, and in her eyes there was a kind of scared look, as if they were gazing on some horrid picture of the past.

“And suppose they do remember,” Jack said, a little hotly. “There’s nothing in the past for which I need to blush; and surely no one could possibly recognize in the heiress Georgie Burton, the——”

“Hush, Jack, I won’t hear what I was, even from your lips,” Georgie said, fiercely. “Perhaps there is no danger for myself; but I never walk the streets even now, as the daughter of Ralph Burton, without a fear of meeting some one who remembers. Still I know that as Miss Burton, of Madison Square, I am safe, but as your sister, in Jersey City, I should not be; and I will run no risks.”

“Not for Annie’s sake?” Jack asked; and Georgie answered:

“No, not for Annie’s sake,” though her chin quivered a little as she glanced at the sleeping child.

Then they talked on and on, Jack trying to persuade his sister to stay with him a little longer, and she as persistently refusing, saying she must be home, that she had already lost too much time there in Chicago.

“Georgie,” and Jack began to get in earnest, “by losing time, I suppose you mean losing your chance with Roy Leighton. I’ve never said much to you upon that subject, but now I may as well free my mind. If Roy Leighton really cares for you he has had chances enough to make it known; and that he has not done so is pretty good proof that he does not care. But supposing he does, and asks you to be his wife, will you marry him without telling him all?”

“Most certainly I will;” and Georgie’s eyes flashed defiantly. “I need have no concealments from you, who know me so well, and I tell you plainly there’s scarcely anything I would not do to secure Roy Leighton; and do you imagine I would tell him a story which would so surely thrust him from me? A story, too, which only you know; and you remember your oath, do you not?”

She said the last words slowly, and her eyes fastened themselves upon Jack, as a snake’s might rest upon a bird.

“Yes, I remember my oath;” and Jack returned her gaze unflinchingly.

Something in his manner made Georgie wince a little, and resolve to change her tactics. Sweetness and gentleness had always prevailed with Jack, when nothing else could move him, and so she tried them now, and her voice grew very soft, and reverent, and beseeching, as, laying her hand on his shoulder, she said:

“Don’t let us quarrel, brother. I do want to do right, even if I cannot tell that dreadful thing to Roy. I am not going home either so much to see him as for another reason, of which I ought perhaps to have told you before. Jack, I am trying to be a better woman, and have made up my mind to be confirmed when our bishop comes to the little church near Oakwood, which will possibly be week after next. Aunt Burton is anxious for it, and is going to arrange to be there; and so you see I must go. You do not blame me now, I am sure. You respect religion, even if you do not profess it.”

Her hand pressed more lovingly on Jack’s arm, but he shook it off, and, starting to his feet, confronted her with a look which made her shiver, and turn pale.

“Blame you?” he began. “Respect religion? Yes, I do; and respect it so much that sooner than see you take those solemn vows upon you, knowing what I do, I would break my oath a hundred times, and feel I was doing right.”

Georgie’s breath came pantingly, and the great drops of sweat stood around her lips, as she asked:

“What do you propose to do?”

He did not answer her question directly, but went on to say:

“I do not profess to be good myself, or to have the first principles of goodness, but my mother, who died there in that bed”—and he pointed to where Annie lay—“knew what religion was, and lived it every day; and when she died, there was a peace and a glory around her death-bed, which would not be around yours or mine, were we to die to-night. I am not judging harshly. By their fruits ye shall know them. He said so,—the man Jesus, whom mother loved and leaned upon, just as really as she ever leaned on me, and whom she taught Annie to love and pray to, until He is as much her companion when she is alone, as you are when you are with her. Georgie, there is something needed before one kneels at that altar, as you propose doing,—something which you do not possess. You do not care for the thing in and of itself. You have some selfish object in view, and I will not be a party to the deception.”

“Will you drag me from the altar, or tear the bishop’s hands from my head?” Georgie asked, beginning to grow both alarmed and angry at her brother, who replied:

“No; but this I will do: If you go to confirmation, and if before or after it Roy Leighton asks you to be his wife, and you do not tell him the whole truth, I will do it for you. He shall not be deceived.”

“And your oath?” Georgie asked, in a choking voice.

“I break my oath, and do God service in breaking it,” Jack answered.

And then there was silence between them for ten minutes or more, and no sound was heard except the occasional dropping of a dead coal into the pan, and the low, regular breathing of the little child, so terribly in the way of the woman who had so unexpectedly been brought to bay.

She gave up the confirmation then and there, and after a few moments arose and went to Jack, and putting her arms around his neck, cried aloud upon his shoulder, and called him the best brother in the world, and wished she was half as good as he, and a great deal more, which Jack took at its fair valuation. He was used to her moods, and knew about how to prize them. Still, in this instance, he had been a little hard on her, he thought, and he kissed her back at last, and said he was not angry with her, and bade her go to bed lest she should be sick on the morrow.

She staid a week after that, and when at last she went away, her diamond pin, ear-rings, bracelets, and two finger-rings, lay in the show window of a jeweller’s shop where they bought such articles; and Annie held in her hand a paper, which contained the sum of one thousand five hundred dollars, and on which was written, “To help make the first payment on the new house.”

Annie thought her an angel of goodness and generosity, while Jack, who understood now why he had seen his sister coming from Jachery’s shop, said to himself: “There are noble traits in Georgie, after all;” and felt that the house in Jersey was a sure thing.

The bishop came to the little church near Oakwood at the appointed time, but Georgie Burton’s proud head was not one on which his hands were laid. Aunt Burton, who had gone for a week or so up to her country house and taken Georgie with her, had urged her to it, and so too had the rector; and when Georgie gave as a reason for holding back, that she was “not good enough,” the rector said she had set her standard far too high, while Aunt Burton wondered where the good were to be found if Georgie was not of the number, and cried softly during the ceremony, because of her darling’s humility. What Georgie felt no one knew. She sat very quietly through the service, with her veil dropped over her face, and only turned her head a little when Maude, who was among the candidates, went up to the altar. But when Roy Leighton too arose, and with a calm, peaceful expression upon his manly face, joined the group gathering in the aisle, she gave a start, and the long lashes which dropped upon her burning cheeks were moist with tears. She had not expected this of Roy. He was not one to talk much of his deeper feelings, and so only his God, and his mother, and the rector, knew of the determination to lead a new and better life, which had been growing within him ever since Charlie’s sudden death. “Be ye also prepared, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh,” had sounded in his ears until he could no longer resist the Spirit’s gentle wooings, but gave himself to God without reserve of any kind. There was a slight stir perceptible all through the congregation as Roy went up and stood by Maude. “He was a member worth getting; he, at least, was sincere,” even the cavillers at the holy rite thought within themselves; and when it was over, and he came down the aisle, all noted the expression of his face as of one who was in earnest, and honest in what he had done. Georgie saw it, too, and for a moment the justice of what Jack had said asserted itself in her mind, and in her heart she cried out: “Roy ought not to be deceived, and yet how could I tell him, even supposing—”

She did not finish the sentence, but she meant, “Supposing he does ask me to be his wife.”

And Georgie had again strong hopes that he would. He had seemed very glad to see her when she came to Oakwood; had called on her every day, and shown in various ways how much he was interested in her. There was about her now a certain air of softness and humility very attractive to Roy, and he had half hoped that when he knelt at the altar, Georgie might be with him, and he felt a little disappointed that she was not, and he told her so that night after the confirmation, when, as usual, he called at Oakwood, and they were alone in the parlor. Georgie had borne a great deal that day, and lived a great deal in the dreadful past which she would so much like to have blotted out. Her nerves were unstrung, and when Roy said to her so gently, and still in a sorry kind of way, “Why were you not confirmed, Georgie?” she broke down entirely, and laying her head upon the table, cried for a moment like a child.

“Oh, Roy,” she said, at last, looking up at him with her eyes full of tears, “I did want to; but I am not good enough, and I dared not. But I’m so glad you did, so glad”,—and she clasped her pretty hands in a kind of tragic way,—“for now you will teach me, won’t you?”

Roy was a man, and knew nothing of that scene in Chicago, and Georgie was very beautiful to look upon, and seemed so softened and subdued, that he felt a strange feeling throbbing in his heart, and would without doubt have proposed taking the fair penitent as his pupil for life, if Maude had not just then come suddenly upon them and spoiled their tête-à-tête.

Georgie’s eyes were a little stormy now, but Maude pretended not to notice it, and seated herself very unconcernedly before the fire, with her crocheting, thus putting to an end any plan Roy might have had in his mind with reference to Miss Georgie Burton.

Maude had scarcely seen Roy since her visit to Rocky Point, and she told him all about Uncle Phil, who was his agent there, and of his niece, Miss Overton, the prettiest little creature, to whom she had given the pet name of “Dot,” she was such a wee bit of a thing. And then the conversation turned upon Charlie and Charlie’s wife; and Maude asked if anything had yet been heard from her, or if Roy knew where she was. Roy did not, except that she was teaching, and would not let him know of her whereabouts.

“How do you know she is teaching then?” Georgie asked; and Roy replied:

“I know through an aunt of hers, to whom I wrote last Christmas, asking her to forward a box of jet to Edna.”

“Oh-h!” and Maude jumped as if she had been shot; then quickly recovering herself, she exclaimed: “That dreadful pin,” and put her hand to her collar as if the cause of her agitation were there.

Maude had received an impression, which made her quiver all over with excitement, and sent her at last to her own room, where she bounded about like a rubber ball.

“I knew there was something queer about her all the time, but I never suspected that. Poor little Dot; how I must have hurt her feelings with my foolish talk of Charlie, if she really is his widow, and I know she is, for I remember now how interested she was in the Leightons, and how many questions she asked me about Roy and his mother; and then that box of jet. I’m sure of it,—perfectly sure; but, Dotty, if I can ferret out a secret, I can keep one too: and if you don’t want Roy to know where you are, he never shall from me.”

Maude wrote to Edna that night, and told her everything about the Leightons which she thought would interest her, and then with feverish impatience waited for her summer’s vacation, when she meant to go again to Rocky Point, and satisfy herself.

Roy did not renew the conversation Maude had interrupted, but when in the spring he decided upon his trip to Europe, he half made up his mind to take Georgie Burton with him. He knew it would please his mother, and from all that had passed between himself and the lady he felt that he was in some sort bound to make her his wife; and why wait any longer? She was at Oakwood now. City air did not agree with her as formerly; she felt tired all the time, she told her aunt, who was ever ready to gratify her darling’s slightest whim, consented to leave New York at least a month earlier than usual, but never dreamed that the real cause of Georgie’s pretended weariness was to be found in the pleasant little house in Jersey City, where Jack Heyford was settling himself. Although constantly assuring herself that her fears were groundless, Georgie could not shake off the nervous dread that, by Jack’s presence in New York, the black page of her life might somehow come to light. She went over to Jersey several times, for she could not keep away; but she took the Hoboken Ferry, and then came in the street car to the corner near which Jack lived, thinking thus to avoid meeting any one who knew her, and would wonder what she was doing in Jersey City. Still it was not so much through herself as through Jack that she dreaded recognition; and until he was fairly settled and at work, and swallowed up in the great Babel, it was better for her to be away; and so she went to Oakwood, and saw Roy every day, and was so soft, and sweet, and pious, and interesting in her new rôle of half-invalid, that Roy made up his mind, and started one morning to settle the important question.

His route lay past the post-office, and there he found the letter Edna had written in answer to his own, acknowledging the receipt of the money. He read it in the shadow of an old elm-tree, which grew by the roadside, and under which he dismounted for a moment. There was nothing remarkable in it, but it turned Roy’s thoughts from Georgie for a time, and sent them after the frolicsome little girl whom he had once seen in the car, and who was now his sister. She wrote a very pretty hand, and seemed so grateful for the few crumbs of interest he had given her, that he wished so much he knew where she was. If he did, he believed he would take her to Europe, instead of Georgie; but not as his wife,—he never thought of such a thing in connection with Edna,—but as his sister, for such she was. And so, with her letter in his hand, he sat thinking of her, while his pony fed upon the fresh grass by the fence, and feeling no check from bit or bridle, kept going farther and farther away, until, when Roy’s reverie was ended, and he looked about for his horse, he saw him far down the road, in the direction of Leighton Place, instead of Oakwood. Roy started after him at once; but the pony did not care to be caught, and seeing his master coming, he pricked up his ears and started for home, where Roy found him at last, standing quietly by the stable door, as if nothing had happened. That circumstance kept Roy from Georgie’s side that day, and when on the morrow he saw her at his own house, he was guilty of a feeling of relief that he had not committed himself, and would have no one’s luggage but his mother’s and his own to look after in Europe.

He sailed early in June, and Georgie stood upon the wharf, and watched the vessel as it went down the bay, and felt such bitter pain in her heart as paled the roses on her cheek, and quenched some of the brightness of her eyes.

“Roy is lost to me forever,” she said to herself, as she re-entered her aunt’s carriage, and was driven back to Madison Square.

Still, as long as he remained unmarried, there was hope; and though her youth was rapidly slipping away, she would rather wait on the slightest chance of winning Roy Leighton, than give herself to another. And so, that summer,—at Saratoga, where she reigned a belle,—she refused two very eligible offers; one from the young heir of a proud Boston family; the other from a widower of sixty, with a million and a half of gold, and seven grown-up daughters.

CHAPTER XXV.
IN THE SUMMER.

Maude spent her summer vacation at Uncle Phil’s, where she was received with every demonstration of joy by each one of the family, Uncle Phil dragging her off at once to see the “suller hole” of his chapel, or “synagogue,” as he called it, which was not progressing very fast; “such hard work to get the men, and when they do come, they won’t work more than half the time, and want such all-fired big wages, it is enough to break a feller; but then I’m in for it, and it’s got to go,” he said to Maude, who expressed so much delight, and called him a darling man so many times, and showed her trim, pretty ancles and dainty white tucks and ruffles with such abandon, as she stepped over the stones and sticks of timber, that Uncle Phil felt “curis again at the pit of his stomach,” and did not care how much his synagogue cost, if Maude was only pleased.

Maude did not talk to Edna quite so much as usual at first; she was studying her closely, and trying to recall what she had heard Georgie say of Mrs. Charlie Churchill’s looks. Then she began to lay little traps for her, and Edna fell into some of them, and then fell out again so adroitly, that Maude was kept in a constant fever of excitement, until one day, early in August, when, in walking by herself up the road which led to the hotel on the mountain, she met Jack Heyford, who had arrived the night before, and was on his way, he said, to call on her.

“I was up here a few years ago,” he explained, as they walked back together, “and I retained so pleasant a remembrance of the mountain scenery that I wanted to see it again; so, as I could have a vacation of two weeks, I came first to Oakwood, but it was lonely there with Georgie gone; she’s off to Saratoga, you know, and hearing you were here, I concluded to come too. You are stopping at a farm-house. I have an indistinct recollection of Mr. Overton; a queer old fellow, isn’t he?”

He talked very fast, and Maude did not hear more than half he said, for her tumultuous thoughts. If Louise Overton were really Edna Churchill, then Jack Heyford would recognize her, for he had been with her at the time of the accident, and had seen her frequently in Chicago.

“Yes, I have her now,” Maude thought, as she said to Jack. “Mr. Overton has a niece living with him, Miss Louise Overton, a pretty little creature, whom you are sure to fall in love with. I hardly think she could have been here when you were at Rocky Point before.”

“No, I think not. I have no recollection of seeing a person of that name. Pretty, is she?” Jack answered as indifferently as if he really had no idea of meeting any young lady at the farm-house, except Maude herself, and that his sole object that morning, was to call upon the girl chatting so gayly at his side, and telling him how pretty and charming and sweet Miss Overton was, and how he was certain to lose his heart at once.

“Suppose I have lost it already,” Jack said, glancing at Maude, whose cheeks flushed a little, and who tossed her head airily and made him some saucy reply.

Of all the young men she had known, Maude liked Jack Heyford the best. She had thought him a little awkward and rusty when she first saw him at Oakwood, but had recognized through all the genuine worth and goodness of the man, and felt that he was true as steel. He was greatly improved since that time, and Maude was not unconscious of the attention she was attracting as she sauntered slowly on with the handsome stranger at her side. Edna saw them coming.

Indeed, she had watched all the morning for Jack, for she knew he was to have reached the Mountain House the night before, and that he would call on Miss Somerton that morning, and be introduced to her; and her conscience smote her for the part she was acting.

“If Uncle Phil was not so foolish about it, I should tell Maude at once,” she thought, as after Maude’s departure for a walk she made her toilet, in expectation of Jack Heyford’s call.

She had schooled herself so well that when at last Jack came and was presented to her, she received him without the least sign that this was not their first meeting; and Maude, who watched them curiously, felt chagrined and disappointed that neither manifested the slightest token of recognition, but met as entire strangers.

“It’s funny, when I am so sure,” she thought; and for several days she lived in a constant fever of excitement and perplexity.

Regularly each day Jack came to the cottage, and stayed so long that Becky suspected him to be “Miss Maude’s beau;” while Ruth Gardner, who was there frequently to help make up the game of croquet, interpreted his manner differently, and guessed that while he jested with and teased Miss Somerton, his preference was for Edna, who was evidently bent upon not encouraging him in the least, or giving him a chance to speak.

But Jack had his chance at last, on a morning when Maude and Ruth, with Maria Belknap and the Unitarian minister, were playing croquet upon the lawn behind the farm-house, and Edna was sitting alone on the stoop of the front door. Uncle Phil was gone, and as Aunt Becky was busy with her dinner in the kitchen, there was nothing in the way, and Jack told his story in that frank, outspoken way which characterized all he did. It was not like Charlie’s wooing; it lacked the impetuous, boyish fire which refused to be denied, and yet Edna knew that the love offered to her now was worth far more than Charlie’s love had been; that with Jack Heyford she should rest secure, knowing that no shadow of wrong had ever soiled his garments. And for a moment she hesitated, and thought of Annie, whom she loved, and looked up into the honest eyes regarding her so eagerly, and coming gradually to have a sorry, anxious expression as she did not answer.

“Won’t you speak to me, Edna?” he said. “Won’t you answer me?”

“Oh, Mr. Heyford,” she cried at last. “I am so sorry you have told me this, for I don’t believe I can say yes, at least not now. Give me till to-morrow, and then if I find that I can be to you what your wife ought to be, I will.”

Jack did not press her further, and when the croquet party came round from the lawn, they found Edna sitting there alone, and Mr. Heyford gone back to the Mountain House.