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.

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.

HUGH WORTHINGTON
A Novel.

BY

Mrs. MARY J. HOLMES,

AUTHOR OF “DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT,” “’LENA RIVERS,” “MARIAN GREY,” “MEADOW BROOK,” “HOMESTEAD,” “DORA DEANE,” “COUSIN MAUDE,” “TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE,” “ENGLISH ORPHANS,” ETC.

NEW YORK:

Carleton, Publisher, Madison Square.

LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.

M DCCC LXXV.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868 by

DANIEL HOLMES,

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the Northern District of New York

John F. Trow & Son, Printers,

205–213 East 12th St., New York.

CONTENTS.

HUGH WORTHINGTON

CHAPTER I.
SPRING BANK.

It was a large, old-fashioned, wooden building, with long, winding piazzas, and low, square porches, where the summer sunshine held many a fantastic dance, and where the winter storm piled up its drifts of snow, whistling merrily as it worked, and shaking the loosened casement, as it went whirling by. In front was a wide-spreading grassy lawn with the carriage road winding through it, over the running brook and onward beneath tall forest trees until it reached the main highway, a distance of nearly half a mile. In the rear was a spacious garden, with bordered walks, climbing roses and creeping vines showing that some where there was a ruling hand, which, while neglecting the sombre building and suffering it to decay, lavished due care upon the grounds, and not on these alone, but also on the well kept barns, and the white-washed dwellings of the negroes,—for ours is a Kentucky scene, and Spring Bank a Kentucky home.

As we have described it so it was on a drear December night, when a fearful storm, for that latitude, was raging, and the snow lay heaped against the fences, or sweeping down from the bending trees, drifted against the doors, and beat against the windows, whence a cheerful light was gleaming, telling of life and possible happiness within. There were no flowing curtains before the windows, no drapery sweeping to the floor—nothing save blinds without and simple shades within, neither of which were doing service now, for the master of the house would have it so in spite of his sister’s remonstrances.

“Some one might lose their way on that terrible night,” he said, “and the blaze of the fire on the hearth, which could be seen from afar, would be to them a beacon light to guide them on their way. Nobody would look in upon them, as Adaline, or ’Lina as she chose to be called seemed to think there might, and even if they did, why need she care? She was looking well enough, and she’d undone all those little braids which disfigured her so shockingly in the morning, but which, when brushed and carefully arranged, gave her hair that waving appearance she so much desired. As for himself, he never meant to do anything of which he was ashamed, so he did not care how many were watching him through the window,” and stamping his heavy boots upon the rug, for he had just come in from the storm, Hugh Worthington piled fresh fuel upon the fire, and shaking back the mass of short brown curls which had fallen upon his forehead, strode across the room and arranged the shades to his liking, then, sitting down before the fire, he went off into a reverie, the nature of which his mother, who was watching him, could not guess; and when at last she asked of what he was thinking so intently, he made her no reply. He could hardly have told himself, so varied were the thoughts crowding upon his brain that wintry night. Now they were of the eccentric old man, from whom he had received Spring Bank, together with the many peculiar ideas which made him the strange, odd creature he was, a mystery to his own sex, and a kind of terror to the female portion of the neighborhood, who, looking upon him as a woman-hater, avoided or coveted his society, just as their fancy dictated. For years the old man and the boy had lived alone in that great house, enjoying the freedom from all restraint, the liberty of turning the parlors into kennels if they chose, and converting the upper rooms into a hay-loft, if they would. No white woman was ever seen upon the premises, unless she came as a beggar, when some new gown, or surplice, or organ, or chandelier, was needed for the pretty little church, lifting its modest spire so unobtrusively among the forest trees, not very far from Spring Bank. John Stanley didn’t believe in churches, nor gowns nor organs, nor women, but he was proverbially liberal and so the fair ones of Glen’s Creek neighborhood ventured into his den, finding it much pleasanter to do so after the handsome, dark-haired boy came to live with him for about Hugh there was then something very attractive to the little girls, while their mothers pitied him, wondering why he had been permitted to come there, and watching for the change in him, which was sure to ensue.

Not all at once did Hugh conform to the customs of his uncle’s household, and at first there often came over him a longing for the refinements of his Northern home, and a wish to infuse into Chloe, the colored housekeeper, some of his mother’s neatness. But a few attempts at reform had taught him how futile was the effort, Aunt Chloe always meeting him with the argument,

“’Tain’t no use, Mas’r Hugh. A nigger’s a nigger; and I spec’ ef you’re to talk to me till you was hoarse bout your Yankee ways of scrubbin’, and sweepin’, and moppin’ with a broom, I shouldn’t be an atomer white-folksey than I is now. Besides Mas’r John wouldn’t bar no finery; he’s only happy when the truck is mighty nigh a foot thick, and his things is lyin’ round loose and handy.”

To a certain extent this was true, for John Stanley would have felt sadly out of place in any spot where, as Chloe said, “his things were not lying round loose and handy,” and as habit is everything, so Hugh soon grew accustomed to his surroundings, and became as careless of his external appearance as his uncle could desire. Only once had there come to him an awakening—a faint conception of the happiness there might arise from constant association with the pure and refined, such as his uncle had labored to make him believe did not exist. He was thinking of that incident now, and it was not strange that he did not heed his mother when she spoke, for Hugh was far away from Spring Bank, and the storm beating against its walls was to him like the sound of the waves dashing against the vessel’s side, just as they did years ago on that night he remembered so well, shuddering as he heard again the murderous hiss of the devouring flames, covering the fated boat with one sheet of fire, and driving into the water as a safer friend the shrieking, frightened wretches who but an hour before had been so full of life and hope, dancing gayly above the red-tongued demon stealthily creeping upward from the hold below, where it had taken life. What a fearful scene that was, and the veins grew larger on Hugh’s brow while his broad chest heaved with something like a stifled sob as he recalled the little childish form to which he had clung so madly until the cruel timber struck from him all consciousness, and he let that form go down—‘neath the treacherous waters of Lake Erie never to come up again alive, for so his uncle told him when, weeks after the occurrence, he awoke from the delirious fever which ensued and listened to the sickening detail.

“Lost, my boy, lost with many others,” was what his uncle had said.

“Lost”—there was a world of meaning in that word to Hugh and though it was but a child he lost, yet in the quiet night, when all else around Spring Bank was locked in sleep, he often lay thinking of her and of what he might perhaps have been had she been spared to him. He had talked with her scarcely an hour in all, but even in that time she had made upon him an impression which could never be effaced. He was thinking of her now, and as he thought, visions of a sweet, young face, shadowed with curls of golden hair, came up before his mind, and he saw again the look of surprise and pain which shone in the soft, blue eyes and illuminated every feature when in answer to some remark of hers he gave vent to the half infidel principles he had learned from his uncle. Her creed was different from his, and she explained it to him so earnestly, that he said to her at last he did but jest to hear what she would say, and though she seemed satisfied he felt there was a shadow between them which was not swept away, even after he promised to read the Bible she timidly offered him and which he had accepted wondering at her interest in one whose name she did not even know. Hers was written on the fly-leaf of the little book which he had yet hidden away where no curious eye could find it, while carefully folded between its leaves was a curl of golden hair. That tress and the Bible which enclosed it had made Hugh Worthington a better man. He did not often read the Bible, it is true, and his acquaintances were frequently startled with opinions which had so pained the little girl on board the St. Helena, but this was merely on the surface, for far below the rough exterior there was a world of goodness, a mine of gems kept bright by memories of the angel child who flitted for so brief a span across his pathway and then was lost forever. He had tried so hard to save her—had clasped her so fondly to his bosom when with extended arms she came to him for aid. He could save her, he said—he could swim to the shore with perfect ease; and so without a moment’s hesitation she had leaped with him into the surging waves, and that was about the last he could remember, save that he clutched frantically at the long, golden hair streaming above the water, retaining in his grasp the lock which no one at Spring Bank had ever seen, for this one romance of Hugh’s life was a secret with himself. No one save his uncle had witnessed his emotions when told that she was dead; no one else had seen his bitter tears or heard the vehement exclamation, “You’ve tried to teach me there was no hereafter, no Heaven for such as she, but I know better now, and I am glad there is, for she is safe forever.”

These were not idle words, and the belief then expressed became with Hugh Worthington a fixed principle, which his skeptical uncle tried in vain to eradicate. “There was a Heaven, and she was there,” comprised nearly the whole of Hugh’s religious creed, if we except a vague, misty hope, that he, too, would some day find her, how or by what means he never seriously inquired; only this he knew, it would be through her influence, which even now followed him every where, producing its good effects. It had checked him many and many a time when his fierce temper was in the ascendant, forcing back the harsh words he would otherwise have spoken, and making him as gentle as a child; and when the temptations to which young men of his age are exposed were spread out alluringly before him, a single thought of her was sufficient to lead him from the forbidden ground.

Every incident connected with his brief acquaintance with Golden Hair seemed to be recalled to his mind this wintry night, and so absorbed was he in his reverie that until twice repeated he did not hear his mother’s anxious inquiry,

“What is that noise? It sounds like some one in distress.”

Hugh started at last, and after listening for a moment he, too, caught the sound which had alarmed his mother, and made ’Lina stop her reading. A moaning cry, as if for help, mingled with an infant’s wail, now here, now there it seemed to be, just as the fierce north wind shifted its course and drove first at the window of the sitting-room, and then at the ponderous doors of the gloomy hall.

“It is some one in the storm,” Hugh said, going to the window and peering out into the darkness.

“Lyd’s child, most likely. Negro young ones are always squalling, and I heard her tell Aunt Chloe at supper time that Tommie had the colic,” ’Lina remarked, opening again the book she was reading, and with a slight shiver drawing nearer to the fire.

“Where are you going, my son?” asked Mrs. Worthington, as Hugh arose to leave the room.

“Going to Lyd’s cabin, for if Tommie is sick enough to make his screams heard above the storm, she may need some help,” was Hugh’s reply, and a moment after he was ploughing his way through the drifts which lay between the house and the negro quarters.

“How kind and thoughtful he is,” the mother said, more to herself than to her daughter, who nevertheless quickly rejoined,

“Yes, kind to niggers, and horses, and dogs, I’ll admit, but let me, or any other white woman come before him as an object of pity, and the tables are turned at once. I wonder what does make him hate women so.”

“I don’t believe he does,” Mrs. Worthington replied. “His uncle, you know, was very unfortunate in his marriage, and had a way of judging all our sex by his wife. Living with him as long as Hugh did, it’s natural he should imbibe a few of his ideas.”

“A few,” ’Lina repeated, “better say all, for John Stanley and Hugh Worthington are as near alike as an old and young man well could be. What an old codger he was, and how like a savage he lived here. I never shall forget how the house looked the day we came, or how satisfied Hugh seemed when he met us at the gate, and said, ‘everything was in splendid order,’” and closing her book, the young lady laughed merrily as she recalled the time when she first crossed her brother’s threshold, stepping, as she affirmed, over half a dozen dogs, and as many squirming kittens, catching her foot in some fishing tackle, finding tobacco in the china closet, and segars in the knife box, where they had been put to get them out of the way.

“But Hugh really did his best for us,” mildly interposed the mother. “Don’t you remember what the servants said about his cleaning one floor himself because he knew they were tired!”

“Did it more to save the lazy negroes’ steps than from any regard for our comfort,” retorted ’Lina. “At all events he’s been mighty careful since, how he gratified my wishes. Sometimes I believe he perfectly hates me, and wishes I’d never been born,” and tears which arose from anger, rather than any wounded sisterly feeling, glittered in ’Lina’s black eyes.

“Hugh does not hate any one,” said Mrs. Worthington, “much less his sister, though you must admit that you try him terribly.”

“How, I’d like to know?” ’Lina asked, and her mother replied,

“He thinks you proud, and vain, and artificial, and you know he abhors deceit above all else. Why he’d cut off his right hand sooner than tell a lie.”

“Pshaw!” was ’Lina’s contemptuous response, then after a moment, she continued, “I wonder how we came to be so different. He must be like his father, and I like mine, that is, supposing I know who he is. Wouldn’t it be funny if, just to be hateful, he had sent you back the wrong child!”

“What made you think of that?” Mrs. Worthington asked, quickly, and ’Lina replied,

“Oh, nothing, only the last time Hugh had one of his tantrums, and got so outrageously angry at me, he said he’d give all he owned if it were so, but I reckon he’ll never have his wish. There’s too much of old Sam about me to admit of a doubt,” and, laughing spitefully, ’Lina returned to her book, just as Hugh re-entered the room.

“Have you heard that sound again?” he asked. “It wasn’t Tommie, for I found him asleep, and I’ve been all round the house, but could discover nothing. The storm is beginning to abate, I think, and the moon is trying to break through the clouds,” and going again to the window, Hugh looked out into the yard, where the shrubbery and trees were just discernible in the greyish light of the December moon. “That’s a big drift by the lower gate,” he continued “and queer shaped, too. Come see, mother. Isn’t that a shawl, or an apron, or something blowing in the wind?”

Mrs. Worthington arose, and joining her son, looked in the direction indicated, where a garment of some kind was certainly fluttering in the gale.

“It’s something from the wash, I guess,” she said. “I thought all the time Hannah had better not hang out the clothes, as some of them were sure to be lost.”

This explanation was quite satisfactory to Mrs. Worthington, but that strange drift by the gate troubled Hugh, and the signal above it seemed to him like a signal of distress. Why should the snow drift there more than elsewhere? He never knew it do so before. He had half a mind to turn out the dogs, and see what that would do.

“Rover,” he called suddenly, as he advanced to the rear room, where, among his other pets, was a huge Newfoundland, of great sagacity. “Rover, Rover, I want you.”

In an instant the whole pack were upon him, jumping and fawning, and licking the hands which had never dealt them aught save kindness. It was only Rover, however, who was this time needed, and leading him to the door, Hugh pointed toward the gate, and bade him see what was there. Snuffing slightly at the storm which was not over yet, Rover started down the walk, while Hugh stood waiting in the door. At first Rover’s steps were slow and uncertain, but as he advanced they increased in rapidity, until, with a sudden bound and a cry, such as dogs are wont to give when they have caught their destined prey, he sprang upon the mysterious ridge, and commenced digging it down with his paws.

“Easy, Rover—be careful,” Hugh called from the door, and instantly the half savage growl which the wind had brought to his ear was changed into a piteous cry, as if the faithful creature were answering back that other help than his was needed there.

Rover had found something in that pile of snow.

CHAPTER II.
WHAT ROVER FOUND.

Unmindful of the sleet beating upon his uncovered head, Hugh hastened to the spot, where the noble brute was licking a baby face, which he had ferreted out from beneath the shawl wrapped so carefully around it to shield it from the cold, for instead of one there were two in that drift of snow—a mother and her child! Dead the former seemed, for the white cheek which Hugh touched was cold as stone, and with a sickening feeling the young man leaned against the gate-post and tried to assure himself that what he saw was a mere fancy of the brain. But it was terribly real. That stiffened form lying there so still hugging that sleeping child so closely to its bosom, was no delusion, and his mother’s voice, calling to know what he was doing, brought Hugh back at last to a consciousness that he must act immediately.

“Mother,” he screamed, “send a servant here, quick, or let Ad come herself. There’s a woman dead, I fear. I can carry her well enough, but Ad must come for the child.”

“The what?” gasped Mrs. Worthington, who, terrified beyond measure at the mention of a dead woman, was doubly so at hearing of a child. “A child,” she repeated, “whose child?” while ’Lina, shrinking back from the keen blast, refused to obey, and so the mother, throwing her cloak around her, joined the group by the gate.

Carefully Hugh lifted the light figure in his arms and bore it to the house, where ’Lina, whose curiosity had overcome her selfishness, met him on the piazza and led the way to the sitting-room, asking innumerable questions as to how he found her and who she was.

Hugh made no reply save an order that the lounge should be brought near the fire and a pillow from his mother’s bed. “From mine, then,” he added, as he saw the anxious look in his mother’s face, and guessed that she shrank from having her own snowy pillow come in contact with the wet, limpid figure he was depositing upon the lounge. It was a slight, girlish form, and the long brown hair, loosened from its confinement, fell in rich profusion over the pillow which ’Lina brought half reluctantly, eyeing askance the insensible object before her, and daintily holding back her dress lest it should come in contact with the child her mother had deposited upon the floor, where it lay crying lustily, unnoticed save by Rover, who, quite as awkward as his master would have been in like circumstances, seemed trying to amuse and protect it, interposing his shaggy proportions between that and the fire when once it showed a disposition to creep that way.

“Do one of you do something,” Hugh said, as he saw how indisposed both his mother and sister were to help, the former being too much frightened and the latter too indignant to act.

The idea of a strange woman being thrust upon them in this way was highly displeasing to Miss ’Lina, who haughtily drew back from the little one when it stretched its arms out toward her, while its pretty lip quivered and the tears dropped over its rounded cheek. To her it was nothing but an intruder, a brat, and so she steeled her heart against its touching appeal, and turned her back upon it, leaving for Rover the kindly office of soothing the infant.

Meantime Hugh, with all a woman’s tenderness, had done for the now reviving stranger what he could, and as his mother began to collect her scattered senses and evince some interest in the matter, he withdrew to call the negroes, judging it prudent to remain away awhile, as his presence might be an intrusion. From the first he had felt sure that the individual thrown upon his charity was not a low, vulgar person, as his sister seemed to think. He had not yet seen her face distinctly, for it lay in the shadow, but the long, flowing hair, the delicate hands, the white neck, of which he had caught a glimpse as his mother unfastened the stiffened dress, all these had made an impression, and involuntarily repeating to himself, “Poor girl,” he strode a second time across the drifts which lay in his back yard and was soon pounding at old Chloe’s cabin door, bidding her and Hannah dress at once and come immediately to the house.

“They will need hot water most likely,” he thought and returning to the kitchen he built the fire himself and then sat down to wait until such time as it was proper for him to appear again in the sitting-room, where a strange scene was enacting.

The change of atmosphere and the restoratives applied had done their work, and Mrs. Worthington saw that the long eyelashes began to tremble, while a faint color stole into the hitherto colorless cheeks, and at last the large, brown eyes unclosed and looked into hers with an expression so mournful, that a thrill of yearning tenderness for the desolate young creature shot through her heart, and bending down she said, kindly, “Are you better now?”

“Yes, thank you. Where is Willie?” was the low response, the tone of the voice thrilling Mrs. Worthington with an undefinable emotion. Even ’Lina started, it was so low, so sweet, so musical, and coming near she answered “If it’s the baby you mean, he is here, playing with our dog, Rover.”

There was a look of gratitude in the brown eyes, while the white lips moved slowly, and Mrs. Worthington caught the whispered words of thanksgiving that baby Willie was safe.

“Where am I?” she said next, “and is he here? Is this his house?”

“Whose house?” Mrs. Worthington asked. “Whom are you looking for?”

The girl did not answer at once, and when she did her mind seemed wandering.

“I waited so long,” she said, “and watched from morning till dark, but he never came again, only the letter which broke my heart. Willie was a wee baby then, and I almost hated him for awhile, but he wasn’t to blame. I wasn’t to blame. Our Father in Heaven knew I wasn’t and after I went to him and told him all about it, and asked him to care for Adah, the first terrible pain was over and love for Willie came back with a hope that the letter might be false. I’m glad God gave me Willie now, even if he did take his father from me.”

Mrs. Worthington and her daughter exchanged curious glances of wonder, and the latter abruptly asked,

“Where is Willie’s father?”

“I don’t know,” came in a wailing sob from the depths of the pillow where the face for a moment hid itself from view.

“Where did you come from?” was the next question, put in a tone so cold and harsh that the young girl looked up in some alarm, and answered meekly,

“From New York, ma’am. It’s a great ways off, and I thought I’d never get here, but every body was so kind to me and Willie, and the driver said if ’twan’t so late, and he so many passengers, he’d drive across the fields. He pointed out the way and I came on alone. I saw the light off on the hill and tried to hurry, but the snow blinded me so bad and Willie was so heavy, that I fell down by the gate, and guess I went to sleep, for I remember dreaming that the angels were watching over me, and covering Willie with the snow to keep him warm.”

The color had faded now from Mrs. Worthington’s face, for a terrible suspicion of she scarcely knew what had darted across her mind, and very timidly she asked again,

“Whom did you hope to find?”

“Mr. Worthington. Does he live here?” was the frank reply; whereupon ’Lina, with crimsoning cheek, drew herself up haughtily, exclaiming,

“I knew it. I’ve thought so ever since Hugh came home from New York.”

In her joy at having, as she supposed, found something tangible against her provoking brother—some weapon with which to ward off his offensive attacks upon her own deceit and want of truth—’Lina forgot that she had never seen much of him until several months after his return from New York, at which time she had become, from necessity, a member of his household and dependent upon his bounty. ’Lina was unreasonable, and without stopping to consider the effect her remarks would have upon the young girl, she was about to commence a tirade of abuse, when the mother interposed, and with an air of greater authority than she generally assumed toward her imperious daughter, bade her keep silence while she questioned the stranger, gazing wonderingly from one to the other, as if uncertain what they meant.

Mrs. Worthington had no such feelings for the girl as ’Lina entertained. If she were anything to Hugh, and the circumstances thus far favored that belief, then she was something to Hugh’s mother, and the kind heart of the matron went out toward her even more strongly than it had done at first.

“It will be easier to talk with you,” she said leaning forward, “if I knew what to call you.”

“Adah,” was the response, and the brown eyes, swimming with tears, sought the face of the questioner with a wistful eagerness.

“Adah, you say. Well, then, Adah, why have you come to my son on such a night as this, and what is he to you?”

“Are you his mother?” and Adah started up. “I did not know he had one. Oh, I’m so glad. And you’ll be kind to me, who never had a mother?”

A person who never had a mother was an anomaly to Mrs. Worthington, whose powers of comprehension were not the clearest imaginable.

“Never had a mother!” she repeated. “How can that be?”

A smile flitted for a moment across Adah’s pale face, and then she answered,

“I never knew a mother’s care, I mean. There is some mystery which I could not fathom, only sometimes there comes up visions of a cottage with water near, and there’s a lady there with voice and eyes like yours, and somebody is teaching me to walk—somebody who calls me little sister, though I’ve never seen him since. Then there is confusion, a rolling of wheels, and a hum of some great city, and that’s all I know of mother.”

“But your father? What do you know of him?” said Mrs. Worthington, and instantly a shadow stole into the sweet young face, as Adah replied, “Nothing definite.”

“And Hugh? Where did you meet him? And what is he to you?”

“The only friend I’ve got in the wide world. May I see him, please?”

“First tell what he is to you and to this child,” ’Lina rejoined, her black eyes flashing with a gleam, before which the brown eyes for an instant quailed; then as if something of a like spirit were called to life in her bosom, Adah answered calmly,

“Your brother might not like me to tell. I must see him first—see him alone.”

“One thing more,” and ’Lina held back her mother who was starting in quest of Hugh, “are you a wife?”

“Don’t, ’Lina,” Mrs. Worthington whispered, as she saw the look of agony pass over Adah’s face. “Don’t worry her so; deal kindly by the fallen.”

“I am not fallen!” came passionately from the quivering lips. “I’m as true a woman as either of you—look!” and she pointed to the golden band encircling the third finger.

’Lina was satisfied, and needed no further explanations. To her, it was plain as daylight. Two years before Hugh had gone to New York on business connected with his late uncle’s affairs, and in an unguarded moment had married some poor girl, whose pretty face had pleased his fancy. Tiring of her, as of course he would, he had deserted her, keeping his marriage a secret, and she had followed him to Spring Bank. These were the facts as ’Lina read them, and though she despised her brother for it, she was more than half glad. Hugh could never taunt her again with double dealing, for wouldn’t she pay him back if he did, with his neglected, disowned wife and child? She knew they were his, and it was a resemblance to Hugh, which she had noticed from the first in Willie’s face. How glad ’Lina was to have this hold upon her brother, and how eagerly she went in quest of him, keeping back old Chloe and Hannah until she had witnessed his humiliation.

Somewhat impatient of the long delay, Hugh sat in the dingy kitchen, watching the tallow candle spluttering in its iron socket, and wondering who it was he had rescued from the snow, when ’Lina appeared, and with an air of injured dignity, bade him follow her.

“What’s up now that Ad looks so solemn like?” was Hugh’s mental comment as he took his way to the room where, in a half reclining position Adah lay, her large, bright eyes fixed eagerly upon the door through which he entered, and a bright flush upon her cheek called up by the suspicions to which she had been subjected.

Perhaps they might be true. She did not know. Nobody knew or could tell her unless it were Hugh, and she waited for him so anxiously, starting when she heard a manly step and knew that he was coming. For an instant she scanned his face curiously to assure herself that it was he, then with an imploring cry as if for him to save her from some dreaded evil she stretched her little hands toward him and sobbed, “Mr. Worthington, was it true? Was it a real thing, or only sheer mockery, as his letter said? George, George Hastings, you know,” and shedding back from her white face the wealth of flowing hair, Adah waited for the answer, which did not come at once. In utter amazement Hugh gazed upon the stranger, and then with an interjection of astonishment, exclaimed,

“Adah, Adah Hastings, why are you here?”

In the tone of his voice surprise was mingled with disapprobation, the latter of which Adah, detected at once, and as if it had crushed out the last lingering hope, she covered her face with her hands and sobbed piteously,

“Don’t you turn against me, or I’ll surely die, and I’ve come so far to find you.”

By this time Hugh was himself again. His rapid, quick-seeing mind had taken in both the past and the present, and turning to his mother and sister, he said,

“Leave us alone for a time. I will call you when you are needed and, Ad, remember, no listening by the door,” he continued, as he saw how disappointed ’Lina seemed.

Rather reluctantly Mrs. Worthington and her daughter left the room, and Hugh was alone with Adah, whose face was still hidden in her hands, and whose body shook with strong emotion. Deliberately turning the key in the lock, Hugh advanced to her side, and kneeling by the couch, said, kindly, “I am more pained to see you here than I can well express. Why did you come, and where is——?”

The name was lost to ’Lina, listening outside, in spite of her brother’s injunction. Neither could she understand the passionate, inaudible response. She only knew that sobs and tears were mingled with it, that there was a rustling of paper, which Adah bade Hugh read, asking if it were true. This was all ’Lina could hear, and muttering to herself, “It does not sound much like man and wife,” she rather unwillingly quitted her position, and Hugh was really alone with Adah.

Never was Hugh in so awkward a position before, or so uncertain how to act. The sight of that sobbing, trembling, wretched creature, had perfectly unmanned him, making him almost as much a woman as herself. Sitting down by her side, he laid her poor aching head upon his own broad bosom, and pushing back her long, bright hair, tried to soothe her into quiet, while he candidly confessed that he feared the letter was true. It had occurred to him at the time, he said, that all was not right, but he had no suspicion that it could be so bad as it now seemed or he would have felled to the floor every participant in the cruel farce, which had so darkened Adah’s life. It was a dastardly act, he said, pressing closer to him the light form quivering with anguish. He knew how innocent she was, and he held her in his arms as he would once have held the Golden Haired had she come to him with a tale of woe.

“Let me see that letter again,” he said, and taking the rumpled sheet, stained with Adah’s tears, he turned it to the light and read once more the cruel lines, in which there was still much of love and pity for the poor helpless thing, to whom they were addressed.

“You will surely find friends who will care for you, until the time when I may come to really make you mine.”

Hugh repeated these words twice, aloud, his lip curling with contempt for the man who could so coolly thrust upon others a charge which should have been so sacred; and his heart, throbbing with the noble resolve, that the confidence she had placed in him by coming there, should not be abused, for he would be true to the trust, and care for poor, little, half-crazed Adah, moaning so piteously beside him, and as he read the last line, saying eagerly,

“He speaks of coming back. Do you think he ever will? or could I find him if I should try? I thought of starting once, but it was so far; and there was Willie. Oh, if he could see Willie! Mr. Worthington, do you believe he loves me one bit?” and in the eyes there was a look as if the poor creature were famishing for the love whose existence she was questioning.

Hugh did not understand the nature of a love which could so deliberately abandon one like Adah. It was not such love as he had cherished for the Golden Haired, but men were not alike; and so he said, at last, that the letter contained many assurances of affection, and pleadings for forgiveness for the great wrong committed.

“It seems family pride has something to do with it. I wonder where his people live, or who they are? Did he never tell you?”

“No,” and Adah shook her head mournfully. “There was something strange about it. He never gave me the slightest clue. He only told how proud they were, and how they would spurn a poor girl like me; and said, we must keep it a secret until he had won them over. If I could only find them!”

“Would you go to them?” Hugh asked quickly; and Adah answered,

“Sometimes I’ve thought I would. I’d brave his proud mother—I’d lay Willie in her lap. I’d tell her whose he was, and then I’d go away and die. They could not harm my Willie!” and the young girl mother glanced proudly at her sleeping boy. Then, after a pause, she continued, “Once, Mr. Worthington, when my brain was all on fire, I went down to the river, and said I’d end my wretched life, but God, who was watching me, held me back. He cooled my scorching head—he eased the pain, and on the very spot where I meant to jump, I kneeled down and said, ‘Our Father.’ No other words would come, only these, ‘Lead us not into temptation.’ Wasn’t it kind in God to save me?”

There was a radiant expression in the sweet face as Adah said this, but it quickly passed away and was succeeded by one of deep concern, when Hugh abruptly asked,

“Do you believe in God?”

“Oh, Mr. Worthington. Don’t you? You do, you must, you will,” and Adah shrank away from him as from a monster.

The action reminded him of the Golden Haired, when on the deck of the St. Helena he had asked her a similar question, and anxious further to probe the opinion of the girl beside him, he continued,

“If, as you think, there is a God who knew and saw when you were about to drown yourself, why didn’t he prevent the cruel wrong to you? Why did he suffer it?”

“What He does we know not now, but we shall know hereafter,” Adah said, reverently, adding, “If George had feared God, he would not have left me so; but he didn’t, and perhaps he says there is no God—but you don’t, Mr. Worthington. Your face don’t look like it. Tell me you believe,” and in her eagerness Adah grasped his arm beseechingly.

“Yes, Adah, I believe,” Hugh answered, half jestingly, “but it’s such as you that make me believe, and as persons of your creed think every thing is ordered for good, so possibly you were permitted to suffer that you might come here and benefit me. I think I must keep you until he is found.”

“No, no,” and the tears flowed at once, “I cannot be a burthen to you. I have no claim.”

“Why then did you come at all?” Hugh asked, and Adah answered,

“For a time after I received the letter every thing was so dark that I didn’t realize, and couldn’t think of any thing. But when the landlady hinted those terrible things, and finally told me I must leave to give place to a respectable woman, that’s just what she said, a respectable woman, with a child who knew its own father, then I woke up and tried to think of something, but the more I tried, the more I couldn’t, till at last I prayed so hard one night, that God would tell me what to do, and suddenly I remembered you and your good, kind, honest face, just as it looked when you spoke to me after it was over, and called me by the new name. Oh, dear, oh, dear,” and gasping for breath, Adah leaned against Hugh’s arm, sobbing bitterly.

After a moment she grew calm again, and continued,

“I wrote down your name, and where you lived, though why I did not know, and I forgot where I put it, but as if God really were helping me I found it in my old portfolio, and something bade me come, for you perhaps would know if it was true. It was sometime before I could fully decide to come, and in that time I hardly know how I lived, or where. George left me money, and sent more, but it’s most gone now. But I must not stay. I can take care of myself.

“What can you do?” Hugh asked, and Adah replied, sadly,

“I don’t know, but God will find me something. I never worked much, but I can learn, and I can already sew neatly, too; besides that, a few days before I decided to come here, I advertised in the Herald for some place as governess or ladies’ waiting-maid. Perhaps I’ll hear from that.”

“It’s hardly possible. Such advertisements are thick as blackberries,” Hugh said, and then in a few brief words, he marked out Adah’s future course.

George Hastings might or might not return to claim her, and whether he did or didn’t, she must live meantime, and where so well as at Spring Bank.

“I do not like women much,” he said, “but something makes me like you, pity, I reckon, and I’m going to take care of you until that scoundrel turns up; then, if you say so, I’ll surrender you to his care, or better yet, I’ll shoot him and keep you to myself. Not as a sweetheart, or anything of that kind,” he hastened to add, as he saw the flush on Adah’s cheek. “Hugh Worthington has nothing to do with that species of the animal kingdom, but as my sister Adah!” and as Hugh repeated that name, there arose in his great heart an undefinable wish that the gentle girl beside him had been his sister instead of the high tempered Adaline, who never tried to conciliate or understand him, and whom Hugh could not love as brothers should love sisters.

He knew how impatiently she was waiting now to know the result of that interview, and just how much opposition he should meet when he announced his intention of keeping Adah. But Hugh was master of Spring Bank; his will was all powerful, and not an entire world could move him when once he was determined. Still contention was not agreeable, and he oftentimes yielded a point rather than dispute. But this time he was firm. Without any intention of wronging Adah, he still felt as if in some way he had been instrumental to her ruin, and now when she came to him for help, he would not cast her off, though the keeping her would subject him to a multitude of unpleasant remarks, surmises and suspicions from the people of Glen’s Creek, to say nothing of his mother’s and ’Lina’s displeasure. Added to this was another objection, a serious one, which most men would have weighed carefully before deciding to burden themselves with two additional individuals. Though the owner of Spring Bank, Hugh was far from being rich, and many were the shifts and self denials he was obliged to make to meet the increased expense entailed upon him by his mother and sister. John Stanley had been accounted wealthy, but at his death there was nothing left, save a few acres of nearly worn out land, the old dilapidated house, and a dozen or more negroes. With good management this was amply sufficient to supply Hugh’s limited wants, and he was looking forward to a life of careless ease, when his mother from New England wrote, asking for a home. Hugh did not know then as well as he did now what it would cost to keep a young lady of his sister’s habits. He only knew that his home was far different from the New England one he remembered so well, but such as it was he would share it with his mother and sister, and so he had bidden them welcome, concealing from them as far as possible the trouble he oftentimes had to meet the increased demand for money which their presence brought. This to a certain extent was the secret of his patched boots, his threadbare coat and coarse pants, with which ’Lina so often taunted him, saying he wore them just to be stingy and mortify her, when in fact necessity rather than choice was the cause of his shabby appearance. He had never told her so, however, never said that the unfashionable coat so offensive to her fastidious vision was worn that she might be the better clothed and fed. Yet such was the case, and now he was deliberately adding to his already heavy burden. But Hugh was capable of great self sacrifices. He could manage somehow, and Adah should stay. He would say that she was a friend whom he had known in New York; that her husband had deserted her, and in her distress she had come to him for aid; for the rest he trusted that time and her own appearance would wear away any unpleasant impressions which her presence might create.

All this he explained to Adah, who assented tacitly thinking within herself that she should not long remain at Spring Bank, a dependant upon one on whom she had no claim. She was too weak now, however, to oppose him, and merely nodding to his suggestions laid her head upon the arm of the lounge with a low cry that she was sick and warm. Stepping to the door Hugh turned the key and summoning the group waiting anxiously in the adjoining room, bade them come at once, as Mrs. Hastings appeared to be fainting. Great emphasis he laid upon the Mrs. and catching it up at once ’Lina repeated, “Mrs. Hastings! So am I just as much.”

“Ad,” and the eyes which shone so softly on poor Adah flashed with gleams of fire as Hugh said to his sister, “not another word against that girl if you wish to remain here longer. She has been unfortunate.”

“I guessed as much,” sneeringly interrupted ’Lina.

“Silence!” and Hugh’s foot came down as it sometimes did when chiding a refractory negro. “She is as true, yes, truer than you. He who should have protected her has basely deserted her. And I shall care for her. See that a fire is kindled in the west chamber, and go up yourself when it is made and see that all is comfortable. Do you understand?” and he gazed sternly at ’Lina, who was too much astonished to answer, even if she had been so disposed.

That Hugh should take in a beggar from the streets was bad enough, but to keep her, and worse yet to put her in the best chamber, where ex-Governor Russ had slept; and where was nailed down the carpet, brought from New England—was preposterous, and Hugh was certainly crazy. But never was man more sane than Hugh; and seeing her apparently incapable of carrying out his orders he himself sent Hannah to build the fire, bidding her, with all a woman’s forethought, be careful that the bed was aired, and clothes enough put on. “Take a blanket from my bed, if necessary,” he added, as Hannah, bewildered with the “carryin’s on,” disappeared up the staircase, a long line of smoke streaming behind her.

When all was ready, Hugh went for Adah, and taking her in his arms carried her to the upper chamber, where, the fire was burning brightly, casting cheerful shadows upon the wall, and making Adah smile gratefully, as she looked up in his face, and murmured,

“God bless you, Mr. Worthington! Adah will pray for you to-night, when she is alone. It’s all that she can do.”

They laid her upon the bed. Hugh himself arranging her pillows, which no one else appeared inclined to touch.

Family opinion was against her, innocent and beautiful as she looked lying there—so helpless, so still, with her long-fringed lashes shading her colorless cheek, and her little hands folded upon her bosom, as if already she were breathing the promised prayer for Hugh. Only in Mrs. Worthington’s heart was there a chord of sympathy. She couldn’t help feeling for the desolate stranger; and when, at her own request, Hannah placed Willie in her lap, ere laying him by his mother, she gave him an involuntary hug, and touched her lips to his fat, round cheek. It was the first kiss given him at Spring Bank, and it was meet that it should come from her.

“He looks as you did, Hugh, when you were a baby,” she said, while Chloe rejoined,

“De very spawn of Mar’s Hugh, now. I ’tected it de fust minit. Can’t cheat dis chile,” and, with a chuckle which she meant to be very expressive, the fat old woman waddled from the room, followed by Hannah, who was to sleep there that night, and who must first return to her cabin to make the necessary preparations for her vigils.

Hugh and his mother were alone, and turning to her son, Mrs. Worthington said, gently,

“This is sad business, Hugh; worse than you imagine. Do you know how folks will talk?”

“Let them talk,” Hugh growled. “It cannot be much worse than it is now. Nobody cares for Hugh Worthington; and why should they, when his own mother and sister are against him, in actions if not in words?—one sighing when his name is mentioned, as if he really were the most provoking son that ever was born, and the other openly berating him as a monster, a clown, a savage, a scarecrow, and all that. I tell you, mother, there is but little to encourage me in the kind of life I’m leading. Neither you nor Ad have tried to make anything of me or have done me any good; but somehow, I feel as if she would,” and he pointed to the now sleeping Adah. “At all events, I know it’s right to keep her, and I want you to help me, will you? That is, will you be kind to her; and when folks speak against her, as they may, will you stand for her as for your own daughter? She’s more like you than Ad,” and Hugh gazed wonderingly from one to the other, struck, for the first time, with a resemblance, fancied or real, between the two.

Mrs. Worthington did not heed this last, so intent was she on the first of Hugh’s remarks. Choking with tears she said,

“You wrong me, Hugh; I do try to make something of you. You are a dear child to me, dearer than the other; but I’m a weak woman, and ’Lina sways me at will.”

A kind word unmanned Hugh at once, and kneeling by his mother, he put his arms around her, and begging forgiveness for his harsh words, asked again a mother’s care for Adah.

“Hugh,” and Mrs. Worthington looked him steadily in the face, “is Adah your wife, or Willie your child?”

“Great guns, mother!” and Hugh started to his feet as quick as if a bombshell had exploded at his side. “No by all that’s sacred, no! Upon my word; you look sorry instead of glad! Are you sorry, mother, to find me better than you imagined it possible for a bad boy like me to be?”

“No, Hugh, not sorry. I was only thinking that I’ve sometimes fancied that, as a married man, you might be happier; and when this woman came so strangely, and you seemed so interested, I didn’t know, I rather thought——”

“I know,” and Hugh interrupted her. “You thought maybe, I raised Ned when I was in New York; and, as a proof of said resurrection, Mrs. Ned and Ned junior, had come with their baggage. But it is not so, she does not belong to me,” and going up to his mother he told her all he knew of Adah, adding, “Now will you be kind to her for my sake? and when Ad rides her highest horse, as she is sure to do, will you smooth her down? Tell her Adah has as good right here as she, if I choose to keep her.”

There was a faint remonstrance on Mrs. Worthington’s part, her argument being based upon what folks would say, and Hugh’s inability to take care of many more.

Hugh did not care a picayune for folks, and as for Adah, if his mother did not wish her there, and he presumed she did not, he’d get her boarded for the present with Aunt Eunice, who, like himself, was invincible to public opinion, she needed just such a companion. She’d be a mother to Adah, and Adah a daughter to her, so they needn’t spend further time in talking, for he was getting tired.

Mrs. Worthington was much more easily won over to Hugh’s opinion than ’Lina, who, when told of the arrangement, raised a perfect hurricane of expostulations and tears. They’d be a county talk, she said; nobody would come near them, and she might as well enter a nunnery at once; besides, hadn’t Hugh enough on his hands already without taking more?

“If my considerate sister really thinks so, hadn’t she better try and help herself a little?” retorted Hugh in a blaze of anger. “I’ve only paid two hundred and fifty dollars for her since she came here, to say nothing of that bill at Harney’s due in January.”

’Lina began to cry, and Hugh, repenting of his harsh speech as soon as it was uttered, but far too proud to take it back, strode up and down the room, chafing like a young lion.

“Come, children, it’s after midnight, let us adjourn until to-morrow,” Mrs. Worthington said, by way of ending the painful interview, at the same time handing a candle to Hugh, who took it silently and withdrew, banging the door behind him with a force which made ’Lina start and burst into a fresh flood of tears.

“I’m a brute, a savage,” was Hugh’s not very self complimentary soliloquy, as he went up the stairs. “What did I want to twit Ad for? What good did it do, only to make her mad and bother mother? I wish I could do better, but I can’t. Confound my badness!” and having by this time reached his own door, Hugh entered his room, and drawing a chair to the fire always kindled for him at night, sat down to think.

CHAPTER III.
HUGH’S SOLILOQUY.

“One, two, three, yes, as good as four women and a child,” he began, “to say nothing of the negroes, who all must eat and drink. A goodly number for one whose income is hardly as much as some young men spend every year upon themselves; and the hardest of all is the having people call me stingy and mean, the seeing young girls lift their eyebrows and wink when young Hunks, as Ad says they call me, appears, and the knowing that this opinion of me is encouraged and kept alive by the remarks and insinuations of my own sister, for whom I’ve denied myself more than one new coat that she might have the dress she coveted,” and in the red gleam of the firelight the bearded chin quivered for a moment as Hugh thought how unjust ’Lina was to him, and how hard was the lot imposed upon him.

Soon recovering his composure he continued, “There’s that bill at Harney’s, how in the world I’m to pay it when it comes due is more than I know. These duds,” and he glanced ruefully at his coarse clothes, “will look a heap worse than they do now,” and shifting the position of his feet, which had hitherto rested upon the hearth, to a more comfortable and suggestive one upon the mantel, Hugh tried to find a spot in which he could economize.

“I needn’t have a fire in my room nights,” he said, as a coal fell into the pan and thus reminded him of its existence, “and I won’t, either. It’s nonsense for a great hot-blooded clown like me to be babied with a fire. I’ve no tags to braid, no false switches to comb out and hide, only a few buttons to undo, a shake or so, and I’m all right. So there’s one thing, the fire—quite an item, too, at the rate coal is selling. Then there’s coffee. I can do without that, I suppose, though it will be perfect torment to smell it, and Hannah makes such splendid coffee, too; but will is everything. Fire, coffee—I’m getting on famously. What else?”

“Tobacco,” something whispered, but Hugh answered promptly, “No, sir, I shan’t! I’ll sell my shirts, before I’ll give up my best friend. It’s all the comfort I have when I get a fit of the blues. Oh, you needn’t try to come it!” and Hugh shook his head defiantly at his unseen interlocutor, urging that ’twas a filthy practice at best, and productive of no good. “You needn’t try for I won’t,” and Hugh deliberately lighted a cigar and resumed his soliloquy, while he complacently watched the little blue rings curling so gracefully above his head. “Blamed if I can think of any thing else, but maybe I shall. I might sell something, I suppose. There’s Harney wants to buy Bet, but Ad never rides any other horse, and she does ride uncommonly well, if she is Ad. There’s the negroes, more than I need,” but from this suggestion Hugh turned away quite as decidedly as from the one touching his tobacco. “He didn’t believe much in negroes any way, surely not in selling them; besides that, nobody’d want them after they’d been spoiled as he had spoiled them,” and he laughed aloud as he fancied a new master trying to break in old Chloe, who had ruled at Spring Bank so long that she almost fancied she owned it. No, Hugh wouldn’t sell his servants, and the negroes sleeping so soundly in their cabins had nothing to fear from him.

Horses were suggested again. “You have other horses than Bet,” and Hugh was conscious of a pang which wrung from him a groan, for his horses were his idols, and parting with them would be like severing a right hand. It was too terrible to think about, and Hugh dismissed it as an alternative which might have to be considered another time. Then hope made her voice heard above the little blue imps tormenting him so sadly.

He should get along somehow. Something would turn up. Ad might marry and go away. He knew it was wrong, and yet he could not help thinking it would be nice to come home some day and not find her there, with her fault-finding, and her sarcastic remarks. What made her so different from his mother—so different from the little sister he always remembered with a throb of delight? He had loved her, and he thought of her now as she used to look in her dainty white frocks, with the strings of coral he had bought with nuts picked on the New England hills.

He used to kiss her chubby arms—kiss the rosy cheeks, and the soft brown hair. But that hair had changed sadly since the days when its owner had first lisped his name, and called him “Ugh,” for the bands and braids coiled around ’Lina’s head were black as midnight. Not less changed than ’Lina’s tresses was ’Lina herself, and Hugh had often felt like crying for the little baby sister, so lost and dead to him in her young womanhood. What had changed Ad so? To be sure he did not care much for females any way, but if Ad were half way decent, and would let him, he should love her, he presumed. Other young men loved their sisters. There was Bob Reynolds seemed to idolize his, crippled though she was, and he had mourned so bitterly, when she died, bending over her coffin, and kissing her white face. Would Hugh do so to Ad? He thought it very doubtful! though, he supposed, he should feel sorry and mourn some, but he’d bet he wouldn’t wear a very wide band of crape around his hat; he couldn’t afford it! Still he should remember all the harsh things he had said to her, and be so sorry.

There was many a tender spot in Hugh Worthington’s heart, and shadow after shadow flitted across his face as he thought how cheerless was his life, and how little there was in his surroundings to make him happy. Poor Hugh! It was a dreary picture he drew as he sat alone that night, brooding over his troubles, and listening to the moan of the wintry wind—the only sound he heard, except the rattling of the shutters and the creaking of the timbers, as the old house rocked in the December gale.

Suddenly there crept into his mind Adah’s words, “I shall pray for you to-night.” Would she? Had she prayed for him, and did prayers do any good? Was any one bettered by them? Golden Hair had thought so, and he was sure she had talked with God of him, but since the waters closed over her dear head, no one had remembered Hugh Worthington in that way, he was sure. But Adah would, and Hugh’s heart grew stronger as he thought of Adah praying for him. What would she say? How would she word it? He wished he knew, but prayer was strange to Hugh. He never prayed, and the Bible given by Golden Hair had not been opened this many a day, but he would do so now, and unlocking the trunk where it was hidden, he took it from its concealment and opened it reverently, half wondering what he should read first and if it would have any reference to his present position.

“Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these ye did it unto me.”

That was what Hugh read in the dim twilight, that, the passage on which the lock of hair lay, and the Bible dropped from his hands as he whispered,

“Golden Hair, are you here? Did you point that out to me? Does it mean Adah? Is the God you loved on earth pleased that I should care for her?”

To these queries, there came no answer, save the mournful wailing of the night wind roaring down the chimney and past the sleet-covered window, but Hugh was a happier man for reading that, and had there before existed a doubt as to his duty toward Adah, this would have swept it away. Bending closer to the fire, Hugh read the chapter through, wondering why he should feel so much better, and why the world looked brighter than it had an hour before. If it made folks feel so nice to read a little bit in the Bible, how would they feel to read it through? He meant to try and see, beginning at Genesis the very next night, and hiding his treasure away, Hugh sought his pillow just as the first greyish streak of daylight was beginning to show in the east.

CHAPTER IV
TERRACE HILL.

The storm which visited Kentucky so wrathfully was far milder among the New England hills, and in the vicinity of Snowdon, whither our story now tends, was scarcely noticed, save as an ordinary winter’s storm. There were no drifts against the fences, no driving sleet, no sheets of ice covering the valleys, nothing save a dark, sour, dreary day, when the grey December clouds seemed wading in the piles of snow, which, as the sun went down, began to fall in those small misty flakes, which betoken a storm of some duration. As yet it had been comparatively warmer in New England than in Kentucky; and Miss Anna Richards, confirmed invalid though she was, had decided not to take her usual trip to the South, so comfortable was she at home, in her accustomed chair, with her pretty crimson shawl wrapped around her. Besides that, they were expecting her brother John from Paris, where he had been for the last eighteen months, pursuing his medical profession, and she must be there to welcome him.

Anna was proud of her young, handsome brother, for on him and his success in life, all their future hopes were pending.

All were proud of John, and all had petted and spoiled him, from his precise lady mother, down to invalid Anna, who, more than any one else, was anxious for his return, and who had entered, with a good deal of interest into the preparations which, for a week or more, had kept Terrace Hill Mansion in a state of bustle and excitement, for John was so refined and fastidious in his tastes, that he was sure to notice if aught were amiss or out of place. Consequently great pains was taken with his room, while Anna, who had a private purse of her own, went into the extravagance of furnishing a new carpet of more modern style than the heavy, old-fashioned Brussels, which for years, had covered the floor.

John had never been very happy at home—and hence the efforts they were putting forth to make it attractive to him after his long absence. He could not help liking it now, the ladies said to each other, as, a few days before his arrival, they rode from the village, up the winding terraced hill, admiring the huge stone building embosomed in evergreens, and standing out so distinctly against the wintry sky. And Terrace Hill Mansion was a very handsome place, exciting the envy and admiration of the villagers, who could remember a time when it had looked better even than it did now—when the house was oftener full of city company, when high-born ladies rode up and down in carriages, or dashed on horseback through the park and off into leafy woods—when sounds of festivity were heard in the halls from year’s end to year’s end, and the lights in the parlors were rarely extinguished, or the fires on the hearth put out. This was during the lifetime of its former owner, whose covering had been the tall green grass of Snowdon cemetery for several years. With his death there had come a change to the inhabitants of Terrace Hill, a curtailing of expenses, a gradual dropping of the swarms of friends who had literally fed upon them during the summer and autumn months. In short it was whispered now that the ladies of Terrace Hill were restricted in their means, that there was less display of dress and style, fewer fires, and lights, and servants, and an apparent desire to be left to themselves.

This was what the village people whispered, and none knew the truth of the whisperings better than the ladies in question, or shrank more from having their affairs canvassed by those whom they looked down upon, even if the glory of their house was departed. Mrs. Richards and her elder daughters, Miss Asenath and Eudora, were very proud, very exclusive, and but for the existence of Anna, few of the villagers would ever have crossed their threshold. Anna was a favorite in the village, and when confined to her room for weeks, as she sometimes was, there were more anxious enquiries concerning her than would have been bestowed on Asenath and Eudora had they both been dying. And yet in her early girlhood she too had been cold and haughty, but since the morning when she had knelt at her father’s feet, and begged him to revoke his cruel decision, and say she might be the bride of a poor missionary, Anna had greatly changed, and the father had sometimes questioned the propriety of separating the hearts which clung so tenaciously together. But it was then too late to remedy the mistake. The young missionary had married another, and neither the parents nor the sisters ever forgot the look of anguish which stole into Anna’s face, when she heard the news. She had told him to do so, it is true, for she knew a missionary to be strictly useful must have a wife. She had thought herself prepared, but the news was just as crushing when it came, accompanied though it was with a few last lines from him, such as a husband might write to the woman he had loved so much, and only given up because he must. Anna kept this letter yet, reading it often to herself, and wondering, if through all the changes which fourteen years had wrought, the missionary remembered her yet, and if they would ever meet again. This was the secret of the numerous missionary papers and magazines scattered so profusely through the rooms at Terrace Hill. Anna was interested in everything pertaining to the work, though, it must be confessed, that her mind wandered oftenest to the city of mosques and minarets, where he was laboring; and once, when she heard of a little grave made with the Moslem dead, the grave of darling Anna, named for her, she wept bitterly, feeling as if she, too, had been bereaved as well as the parents, across the Eastern waters. This was sweet Anna Richards, who, on the day of her brother’s expected arrival from Paris, dressed herself with unusual care and joined her mother and elder sisters in the parlor below. It was a raw, chilly evening, and a coal fire had been kindled in the grate, the bright blaze falling on Anna’s cheek, and lighting it up with something like the youthful bloom for which she had once been celebrated. The harsh expression of Miss Asenath’s face was softened down, while the mother and Eudora looked anxiously expectant, and Anna was the happiest of them all. Taken as a whole it was a very pleasant family group, which sat there waiting for the foreign lion, and for the whistle of the engine which was to herald his approach.

“I wonder if he has changed,” said the mother, glancing at the opposite mirror and arranging the puffs of glossy false hair which shaded her aristocratic forehead.

“Of course he has,” returned Miss Asenath. “Nearly two years of Paris society must have imparted to him that air distingue so desirable in a young man who has travelled.”

“He’ll hardly fail of making a good match now,” Miss Eudora remarked. “I think we must manage to visit Saratoga or some of those places next summer. Mr. Gardner found his wife at Newport, and they say she’s worth half a million.”

“But horridly ugly,” and Anna looked up from the reverie in which she had been indulging. “Lottie says she has tow hair and a face like a fish. John would never be happy with such a wife.”

“Possibly you think he had better have married that sewing girl about whom he wrote us just before going to Europe,” Miss Eudora suggested.

“No, I don’t,” Anna answered, mildly. “I am almost as anxious as yourselves for him to marry rich, for I know you need money sadly, and my income is not so large as for your sakes I wish it was, but poverty and love are better than riches and hatred, and I have always felt a strange interest in that young girl, whom I know John loved, or he would never have written to see how we would bear his taking a portionless bride.”

“I told him plainly how I would bear it. She should never cross my threshold,” and the face of Mrs. Richards, the mother, was highly indicative of the feeling she entertained for the young, penniless girl, whom it would seem John Richards M. D., had thought to marry.

“I trust he is over that fancy,” she continued, “and ready to thank me for the strong letter I wrote him.”

“Yes, but the girl,” and Anna leaned her white cheek in her whiter hand. “None of us know the harm his leaving her may have done. Don’t you remember he wrote how much she loved him—how gentle and confiding her nature was, how to leave her then might prove her ruin?”

“Our little Anna is growing very eloquent upon the subject of sewing girls,” Miss Asenath said, rather scornfully, and Anna rejoined,

“I am not sure she was a sewing girl. He spoke of her as a school girl.”

“But it is most likely he did that to mislead us,” said the mother. “The only boarding school he knows anything about is the one where Lottie was. He often visited her, but I’ve questioned her closely, and she cannot think of a single young lady whom he fancied more than another. All were in love with him, she said, herself included. If he were not her uncle by marriage I should not object to Lottie as a daughter,” was the next remark, whereupon there ensued a conversation touching the merits and demerits of a certain Lottie Gardner, whose father had taken for a second wife Miss Laura Richards.

During this discussion of Lottie, Anna had sat listlessly looking up and down the columns of an old Herald which Dick, Eudora’s pet dog, had ferreted out from the table and deposited at her feet. She evidently was not thinking of Lottie, nor yet of the advertisements, until one struck her notice as being very singular from the fact that a name was appended to it, a thing she had never seen before. Holding it a little more to the light and bending forward she said, “Possibly this is the very person I want—one who will be either a companion or a waiting-maid, only the child might be an objection, though I do love the little things. Just listen,” and Anna read as follows:

“Wanted—by an unfortunate young married woman, with a child a few months old, a situation in a private family either as governess, seamstress, or lady’s maid. Country preferred. Address ——”

Anna was about to say whom, when a violent ringing of the bell and a heavy stamping of feet on the steps with out announced an arrival, and the next moment a tall, handsome young man, exceedingly Frenchified in his appearance, entered the room, and was soon in the arms of his mother, who, kissing his bearded cheek, welcomed him as her son.

John, or Dr. Richards, did not care particularly to be caressed by ladies unless he could choose them, and releasing himself as soon as practicable from his lady mother’s embrace, he submitted himself a moment to his two elder sisters, and then, hastening to where Anna sat, wound his arms around her light figure, and lifting her as he would have lifted a little child, kissed her white lips and looked into her face with an expression which told that, however indifferent he might be to others, he was not so to Anna.

“You have not changed for the worse,” he said, replacing her in her chair and sitting down beside her.

“And you are vastly improved,” was Anna’s answer, as she smoothed playfully the Parisian mustache, her brother’s special pride.

Then commenced from mother and sisters a volley of questions. Had he been well? Did he like Paris? Was he glad to be home again? And why had he gone off without coming out to say good-bye?

This last was put by his mother, who continued, “I thought, perhaps, you were offended at my plain letter concerning that girl, and resented it by not coming, but of course you are glad now, and see that mother was right. What could you have done with a wife in Paris?”

“I should not have gone,” John answered, moodily, a shadow stealing over his face.

It was not good taste for Mrs. Richards thus early to introduce a topic on which John was really so sore, and for a moment an awkward silence ensued, broken at last by the mother again, who, feeling that all was not right, and anxious to know if there was yet aught to fear from a poor, unknown daughter-in-law, asked, hesitatingly,

“Have you seen her since your return?”

She is dead was the reply, and then anxious to change the conversation, the Doctor began talking to Anna until the supper bell rang, and his mother led the way to the dining room where a most inviting supper was prepared in honor of the Doctor’s return. How handsome he looked in his father’s place at the head of the table. How gracefully he did the honors, and how proud all were of him as he repeated little incidents of Parisian life, speaking of the Emperor and Eugenie as if they had been every day sights to him. In figure and form the fair Empress reminded him of Anna, he said, except that Anna was the prettier of the two—a compliment which Anna acknowledged with a blush and a trembling of her long eyelashes. It was a very pleasant family reunion, for John did his best to be agreeable, and by the time they returned to the parlor his mother had quite forgiven him the flagrant act of loving an unknown girl.

“Oh, John, please be careful where you tear that paper. There’s an advertisement I want to save,” Anna exclaimed, as she saw her brother tearing a strip from the Herald with which to light his cigar, but as she spoke, the smoke and flame curled around the narrow strip, and Dr. Richards had lighted his cigar with the name and address appended to the advertisement which had so interested Anna.

How disturbed she was when she found that nought was left save the simple wants of the young girl who, with a breaking heart had penned the lines, and who now lay so still beneath a Kentucky rift of snow!

“Let’s see,” and taking the mutilated sheet, Dr. Richards read the “Wanted, by a young unfortunate married woman.”

“That unfortunate may mean a great deal more than you imagine,” he said, in order to quiet his sister, who quickly rejoined,

“Yes, but she distinctly says married. Don’t you see, and I had really some idea of writing to her, or at least I think I had, now that ’tis too late.”

“I’m sorry I was so careless, but there are a thousand unfortunate women who would gladly be your maid, little sister. I’ll send you out a score, if you say so, either with or without babies,” and John laughed, as with the utmost nonchalance he smoked the cigar lighted with the name of Adah Hastings!

“Has any thing of importance occurred in this slow old town?” he inquired, after Anna had become reconciled to her loss. “Has there been any desirable addition to Snowdon society?”

“Yes,” returned Anna. “A Mrs. Johnson, who is every way cultivated and refined, while Alice is the sweetest girl I ever knew. You have a rare pleasure in store in forming their acquaintance.

“Whose, the old or the young lady’s?” John asked, carelessly knocking the ashes from the end of his cigar.

“Both,” was Anna’s reply. “The mother is very youthful in her appearance. Why, she scarcely looks older than I do, and I, you know, am thirty-two.”

As if fearful lest her own age should come next under consideration, Miss Eudora hastened to say,

“Yes, Mrs. Johnson does look very young, and Alice seems like a child, though I heard her say she was almost twenty. Such beautiful hair as she has. It used to be a bright yellow, or golden, so the old nurse says, but now it has a darker, richer shade, midway between golden and chestnut, while her eyes are the softest, handsomest blue.”

Alice Johnson was evidently a favorite at Terrace Hill, and as this stamped her somebody John began to ask who the Johnsons were, and where they came from.

Mrs. Richard seemed disposed to answer these questions, which she did as follows:

“Mrs. Johnson used to live in Boston, and her husband was grandson of old Governor Johnson, one of the best families in that State.”

“Ah, yes,” and John began to laugh. “I see now what gives Miss Alice’s hair that peculiar shade, and her eyes that heavenly blue, over which my staid sister Dora waxed so eloquent. Miss Alice is an ex-Governor’s great grand daughter—but go on, mother, only come to Alice herself and give her figure as soon as may be.”

“What do you mean?” asked Anna, who took things literally. “I should suppose you’d care more for her face than her form.”

John smiled mischievously, while his mother continued.

“I fancy that Mrs. Johnson’s family met with a reverse of fortune before her marriage, but know nothing certainly except that she was greatly beloved in Boston. Her husband has been dead some years, and recently she has bought and fitted up that pretty cottage down by the river. I do not see her as often as I would like to, for I am greatly pleased with her, although she has some habits of which I cannot approve, such as associating with the poor of the town to the extent she does. Why, I hear that Alice had a party the other day consisting wholly of ragged urchins.”

“They were her Sunday school scholars,” interposed Anna. “Alice has picked up a large class of children, who before her coming, used to run the streets on Sundays breaking up birds’ nests and pilfering gardens. I am sure we ought to be much obliged to her, for our fruit and flowers are now comparatively safe.”

“I vote that Anna goes on with Alice’s history. She gives it best,” said John, and so Anna continued,

“There is but little to tell. Mrs. Johnson and her daughter are both nice ladies, and I am sure you will like them—every body does; and rumor has already given Alice to our young clergyman, Mr. Howard.”

“And she is worth fifty thousand dollars, too,” rejoined Asenath, as if that were a powerful reason why a poor clergyman should not aspire to her hand.

“I have her figure at last,” said John, winking slily at Anna, who only looked bewildered. And, the $50,000 did seem to make an impression on the young man, who made numerous inquiries concerning the heiress, asking how often she came to Terrace Hill, and where he would be most likely to see her.

“At church,” was Anna’s reply. “She is always there and their pew joins ours.”

Dr. Richards did not much like going to church, unless it were where the music was grand and operatic. Still he had intended honoring the benighted Snowdonites with a sight of himself for one half day, though he knew he should be terribly bored; but now the case was different, for besides being, to a certain extent, a kind of lion, he should see Miss Alice, and he reflected with considerable satisfaction that as this was Friday night, only one day intervened ere his curiosity and that of the villagers would be gratified. He was glad there was something new and interesting in Snowdon in the shape of a pretty girl, for he did not care to return at once to New York, where he had intended practising his profession. There were too many sad memories clustering about that city to make it altogether desirable, but Dr. Richards was not yet a hardened wretch, and thoughts of another than Alice Johnson, crowded upon his mind as on that first evening of his return, he sat answering questions and asking others of his own.

It was late ere the family group broke up, and the storm beating so furiously upon Spring Bank, was just making its voice heard round Terrace Hill Mansion, when the doctor took the lamp the servant brought, and bidding his mother and sisters good night, ascended the stairs whither Anna, who kept early hours, had gone before him. She was not, however, in bed, and when she heard his step passing her door she called softly to him,

“John, brother John, come in a moment, please.”

CHAPTER V.
ANNA AND JOHN.

He found her in a tasteful dressing gown, its heavy tassels almost sweeping the floor, while her long glossy hair loosened from its confinement of ribbon and comb, covered her neck and shoulders as she sat before the fire always kindled in her room.

“How picturesque you look,” he said gaily, bending his knees in mock homage before her. Then seating himself upon the sofa at her side, he wound his arm around her and waited for her to speak.

“John,” and Anna’s voice was soft and pleading, “tell me more of that young girl. Did you love her very much?”

“Love her! yes,” and John spoke excitedly while the flush deepened on his cheek when Anna continued, “why didn’t you marry her then?”

“Why didn’t I? yes, why didn’t I?” and John started to his feet; then resuming his seat again he continued, “why didn’t you marry that Missionary who used to be here so much? Anna, I tell you there’s a heap of wrong for somebody to answer for, but it is not you, and it is not me—it’s—it’s mother!” and John whispered the word, as if fearful lest the proud, overbearing woman should hear.

“You are mistaken,” Anna replied, “for as far as Charlie was concerned father had more to do with it than mother. He objected to Charlie because he was poor—because he was a missionary—because he was not an Episcopalian, and because he loved me. He turned Charlie from the house—he locked me in my room, lest I should get out to meet him, and from that window I watched him going from my sight. I’ve never seen him since, though I wrote to him once or twice, bidding him forget me and marry some one else. He did marry another, but I’ve never quite believed that he forgot me. I know, though, that as Hattie’s husband he would do right and be true to her, for he was good, and when I was with him I was better; but I’ve forgotten most all he taught me, and the way he pointed out so clearly seems dark and hard to find, but I shall find it—yes, Charlie, I shall find it out at last, so we may meet in Heaven.”

Anna was talking more to herself than to John, and Charlie, could he have seen her, would have said she was not far from the narrow way which leadeth unto life. To John her white face, irradiated with gleams of the soft firelight, was as the face of an angel, and for a time he kept silence before her, then suddenly exclaimed.

“Anna, you are good, and so was she, and that made it hard to leave her, to give her up. Anna do you know what my mother wrote me? Listen, while I tell, then see if she is not to blame. She cruelly reminded me that by my father’s will all of us, save you, were wholly dependent upon her, and said the moment I threw myself away upon a low, vulgar, penniless girl, that moment she cast me off, and I might earn my bread and hers as best I could. She said, too, my sisters, Anna and all, sanctioned what she wrote, and your opinion had more weight than all the rest.”

“Oh, John, mother could not have so misconstrued my words. I said I thought it would be best for you not to marry her, unless you were too far committed; at least you might wait awhile, and when you started for Europe so abruptly, I thought you had concluded to wait and see how absence would affect you. Surely my note explained—I sent one in mother’s letter.”

“It never reached me,” John said bitterly, while Anna sighed at this proof of her mother’s treachery.

Always conciliatory, however, she soon remarked,

“You are sole male heir to the Richards name. Mother’s heart and pride are bound up in you. She wishes you to make a brilliant match, such as she is sure you can, and if she has erred, it was from her love to you and her wish for your success. A poor, unknown girl would only add to our expenses, and not help you in the least, so it’s for the best that you left her, though I’m sorry for the girl. Did she suffer much? What was her name? I’ve never heard.”

John hesitated a moment and then answered, “I called her Lily, she was so fair and pure.”

Anna was never in the least suspicious, or on the watch for quibbles, but took all things for granted, so now she thought within herself, “Lillian, most likely. What a sweet name it is.” Then she said aloud. “You were not engaged to her outright, were you?”

John started forward and gazed into his sister’s face with an expression as if he wished she would question him more closely, for confession to such as she might ease his burdened conscience, but Anna never dreamed of a secret, and seeing him hesitate, she said,

“You need not tell me unless you like. I only thought maybe, you and Lilly were not engaged.”

“We were;” and rising to his feet John leaned his forehead upon the marble mantel, which cooled its feverish throbbings. “Anna, I’m a wretch—a miserable wretch, and have scarcely known an hour’s peace since I left her.”

“Was there a scene?” Anna asked; and John replied,

“Worse than that. Worse for her. She did not know I was going till I was gone. I wrote to her from Paris, for I could not meet her face and tell her how mean I was. I’ve thought of her so much, and when I landed in New York I went at once to find her, or at least to inquire, hoping she’d forgotten me. The beldame who kept the place was not the same with whom I had left Lily, but she knew about her, and told me she died with cholera last September. She and—oh, Lily, Lily——” and hiding his face in Anna’s lap, John Richards sobbed like a little child.

Had Anna been possessed of ordinary penetration, she would have guessed that behind all this there was something yet untold, but she had literally no penetration at all. In her nature there was no deceit, and she never suspected it in others, until it became too palpable not to be seen. Very caressingly her white hand smoothed the daintily perfumed hair resting on her dress, and her own tears mingled with her wayward brother’s as she thought, “His burden is greater than mine. I will help him bear it if I can.”

“John,” she said at last, when the sobbing had ceased, “I do not think you so much to blame as others, and you must not reproach yourself so bitterly. You say Lily was good. Do you mean she was a Christian, like Charlie?”

“Yes, if there ever was one. Why, she used to make a villain like me kneel with her every night, and say the Lord’s Prayer.”

For an instant, a puzzling thought crossed Anna’s brain as to the circumstances which could have brought her brother every night to Lily’s side, but it passed away immediately as she rejoined,

“Then she is safe in Heaven, and there are no tears there; no broken hearts, or weary hours of watching. We’ll try to meet her some day. You did right to seek her out. You could not help her dying. She might have died had she been your wife, so, I’d try to think it happened for the best, and you’ll soon get to believing it did. That’s my experience. You are young yet, only twenty-six, and life has much in store for you. You’ll find some one to fill Lily’s place; some one whom we shall all think worthy of you, and we’ll be so happy together.”

The Doctor did not reply to this but sat as if lost in painful thought, until he heard the clock strike the hour of midnight.

“I did not think it was so late,” he exclaimed. “I must really leave you now.”

Anna would not keep him longer, and with a kiss she sent him away, herself holding the door a little ajar to see what effect the new carpet would have upon him. It did not have any at first, so much was he absorbed in thinking of Lily, but he noticed it at last, admiring its pattern and having a pleasant consciousness that every thing in his room was in keeping, from the handsome drapery which shaded the windows to the marble hearth on which a fire was blazing. He could afford to have a fire, and he sat enjoying it, thinking far different thoughts from Hugh Worthington, who, in his scantily furnished room, sat, with a curl of golden hair upon the stand beside him, and a well worn Bible in his hand. Dr. Richards had no Bible of his own; he did not read it now—had never read it much, but somehow his talk with Anna had carried him back to the time when just to please his Lily he had said with her the Lord’s Prayer, kneeling at her side with his arm around her girlish form. He had not said it since, and he never would again, he thought. It was sheer nonsense, asking not to be led into temptation, as if God delighted to lead us there. It was just fit for weak women to believe, though now that Lily was dead and gone he was glad that she had believed it, and he felt that she was better off for having said those prayers and acted up to what she said. “Poor Lily,” he kept repeating to himself, while in his dreams that night there were visions of a lonely grave in a secluded part of Greenwood, and he heard again the startling words,

“Dead, both she and the child.”

He did not know there was a child, and he staggered in his sleep, just as he staggered down the creaking stairs, repeating to himself,

“Lily’s child—Lily’s child! May Lily’s God forgive me!”

CHAPTER VI.
ALICE JOHNSON.

The Sunday anticipated by Dr. Richards as the one which was to bless him with a sight of Snowdon’s belle, dawned at last, a clear, cold, winter morning, when the air was full of frost, and the crispy snow creaked beneath the tread, and glittered like diamonds in the sunshine. The Doctor had not yet made his appearance in the village, for a hoarseness, to which he was subject, had confined him at home, and Saturday had been spent by him in rehearsing to his sisters and the servants the things he had seen abroad, and in wondering if Alice Johnson would meet his expectations. He did not believe her face would at all compare with the one which continually haunted his dreams, and over which the coffin-lid was shut weary months ago, but $50,000 had invested Miss Alice with that peculiar charm which will sometimes make an ugly face beautiful. The Doctor was beginning to feel the need of funds, and now that Lily was dead, the thought had more than once crossed his mind that to set himself to the task of finding a wealthy wife was a duty he owed himself and his family. Had poor, deserted Lily lived, he could not tell what he might have done, for the memory of her love was the one restraining influence which kept him from much sin. He never could forget her; never love another as he had once loved her, but she was dead and he was free to do his mother’s will. Similar to these were the Doctor’s cogitations, as, on that Sunday morning, he made his toilet for church, anticipating not a little satisfaction from the sensation he was sure to create among some of the worshippers at St. Paul’s, for he remembered that the Terrace Hill gentry had always been people of much importance to a certain class of Snowdonites.

Anna was not with the party which at the usual hour entered the family carriage with Bibles and prayer-books in hand. She seldom went out except on warm, pleasant days; but she stood in the deep bay window watching the carriage as it wound down the hill and thinking, how handsome and stylish her young brother looked with his Parisian cloak and cap, which he wore so gracefully. Others than Anna thought so too; and at the church door there was quite a little stir, as he gallantly handed out first his mother and then his sisters, and followed them into the church.

Dr. Richards had never enjoyed a reputation for being very devotional, and the interval between his entrance and the commencement of the service was passed by him in a rather scornful survey of the timeworn house, which had not improved during his absence. With a sneer in his heart, he mentally compared the old-fashioned pulpit, with its steep flight of steps and faded trimmings, with the lofty cathedral he had been in the habit of attending in Paris, and a feeling of disgust and contempt for people who could be satisfied with a town like Snowdon, and a church like St. Paul’s, was creeping over him, when a soft rustling of silk and a consciousness of a delicate perfume, which he at once recognized as aristocratic, warned him that somebody was coming; somebody entirely different from the score of females who had distributed themselves within range of his vision, their countrified bonnets, as he termed them, trimmed outside and in without the least regard to taste, or combination of color. But the little lady, moving so quietly up the aisle, her full skirt of dark blue silk trailing as she came, her handsome cloth cloak, falling so gracefully from the sloping shoulders, which the fur of Russian sable fitted so well, her plain, but fashionable hat tied beneath her chin, with broad, rich ribbon, the color of her dress, her dainty little muff, and, more than all, the tiny glove, fitting, without a wrinkle, the little hand which tried the pew door twice ere it yielded to her touch; she was different. She was worthy of respect, and the Paris beau felt an inclination to rise at once and acknowledge her superior presence.

Wholly unconscious of the interest she was exciting, the lady deposited her muff upon the cushions, and then kneeling reverently upon the well worn stool, covered her face with the hands which had so won the doctor’s admiration. What a little creature she was, and how gloriously beautiful were the curls of indescribable hue, falling in such profusion from beneath the jaunty hat. All this Dr. Richards noted, marvelling that she knelt so long, and wondering what she could be saying. His mother and sisters did the same, it is true, but he always imagined it was merely to be fashionable; but in the attitude of this kneeler at his side there was something which precluded mockery. Was she sincere? Was there one hearing what she said—an ear which marked the faintest sigh and caught the weakest tone? He wished he knew; and a pang, keen as the cut of a dissector’s knife, shot through his heart, as he remembered another maiden, almost as fair as this one, kneeling at her prayers. Lily had believed in Alice Johnson’s God, and he was glad that she had so believed, for without God, poor Lily’s short, sad life had been worse than vain!

Alice’s devotions ended at last, and the view so coveted was obtained; for in adjusting her dress Alice turned toward him, or rather toward his mother, and the doctor drew a sudden breath as he met the brilliant flashing of those laughing sunny blue eyes, and caught the radiant expression of that face, slightly dimpled with a smile. Beautiful, wondrously beautiful was Alice Johnson, and yet the features were not wholly regular, for the piquant nose had a slight turn up, and the forehead was not very high; but for all this, the glossy hair, the dancing blue eyes, the apple-blossom complexion, and the rose-bud mouth made ample amend; and Dr. Richards saw no fault in that witching face, flashing its blue eyes for an instant upon him, and then modestly turning to the service just commencing. But few of the sacred words, we fear, took deep root in the doctor’s heart that morning. He could scarcely have told the day, certainly not the text, and when the benediction was pronounced he was astonished that what he had dreaded as prosy and long had proved to be so short.

As if divining his wishes in the matter, his mother, after waiting a moment, till Alice arose from her knees, offered her hand to the young girl, inquired kindly for Mrs. Johnson, expressed extreme concern when told of a heavy cold, suggested one or two remedies, commented upon the weather, spoke of Mr. Howard’s sermon, and then, as if all the while this had not been the chief object in stopping, she turned to the eagerly expectant doctor, whom she introduced as “My son, Dr. Richards.”

With a smile which he felt even to his finger tips, Alice offered him her hand, welcoming him home, and making some trivial remark touching the contrast between their quiet town and the cities he had left.

“But you will help make it pleasanter for us this winter, I am sure,” she continued, and the sweet blue eyes sought his for an answer as to whether he would desert Snowdon immediately.

“No,” he replied, he should probably remain at home some time, he always found it pleasant at Snowdon though as a boy he had often chafed at its dullness; but it could not now be dull, with the acquisition it had received since he was there before; and he bowed toward the young lady, who acknowledged the compliment with a faint blush and then turned toward the group of noisy “ill-bred children,” as Dr. Richards thought, who came thronging about her, one offering a penny lest it should be forgotten, a second whispering that Tommie couldn’t come because he had no shoes, while a third climbed upon the seat for the kiss, which was promptly given, the giver all unconscious of the disgust felt by the foreign gentleman, who had a strong desire to take the kissed by the neck and thrust him out into the snow! What affinity was there between that sparkling, beautiful girl, and that pack of vulgar young ones, he’d like to know? What was she to them, or they to her, that they should cling to her so confidingly?

“My Sunday School scholars; I have a large class, you see,” Alice said, as if in answer to these mental queries. “Ah, here comes my youngest—” and Alice stooped to caress a little rosy cheeked boy, with bright brown eyes and patches on both coat sleeves.

The doctor saw the patches, and with a gesture of impatience, turned to go, just as his ear caught another kiss, and he knew the patched boy received what he would have given much to have.

“Hanged if I don’t half wish I was one of those ragged urchins,” he said, after handing his mother and sisters to their carriage, and seating himself at their side. “But does not Miss Johnson display strange taste. Surely some other one less refined might be found to look after those brats, if they must be looked after, which I greatly doubt. Better leave them as you find them; can’t elevate them if you try. It’s trouble thrown away,” and John Richards wrapped his Parisian cloak closer around him, and leaning back in his corner, wondered if Alice Johnson really was happy in her teaching, or did she do it for effect.

“It is like what Lily would have done,” he thought, “had she possessed the power and means. Alice and Lily must be alike,” and with a mental wish that Alice’s fate might prove a happier one than poor Lily’s had been, John relapsed into a silent mood, such as usually came over him when Lily was in his mind.

That afternoon, while his mother and elder sisters were taking their usual Sunday nap, and Anna was nodding in her chair, the Doctor sat watching the blazing fire and trying to decide upon his future course.

Should he return to New York, accept the offer of an old friend of his father’s, an experienced practitioner, and earn his own bread honorably; or, should he remain at Snowdon and cultivate Alice Johnson? John wanted money sadly; the whole family wanted money, as every hour of his stay among them proved. They were growing poor so fast; and it showed plainly, in spite of their attempts to conceal it. John would almost as soon be dead as be poor. He never had denied himself; he never could, he said, though well he knew the time was coming when he must, unless, to use Micawber’s expression, “something should turn up.” And hadn’t it turned up in the shape of a beautiful heiress? What was to hinder him from entering the lists and carrying off the prize? He had never yet failed when he chose to exert himself, and though he might, for a time, be compelled to adopt a different code of morality from that which he at present acknowledged, he would do it for once. He could be interested in those ragged children; he could encourage Sunday schools; he could attend church as regularly as Alice herself and, better yet, he could doctor the poor for nothing, as that was sure to tell, and he would do it, too, if necessary. This was the finale which he reached at last by a series of arguments pro and con, and when it was reached, he was anxious to commence the task at once. He presumed he could love Alice Johnson; she was so pretty, but even if he didn’t, he would only be doing what thousands had done before him. He should be very proud of her, and would certainly try to make her happy. One long, almost sobbing sigh to the memory of poor Lily, who had loved so much and been so cruelly betrayed, one faint struggle with conscience, which said that Alice Johnson was too pure a gem for him to trifle with, and then the past, with its sad memories, was buried. Lily’s sweet pleading face, asking that no other one should be wronged as she had been, was thrust aside, and Dr. Richards stood ready for his new career.

CHAPTER VII
RIVERSIDE COTTAGE.

Mrs. Johnson did not like Dr. Richards when she came to know him, and yet he was an almost daily visitor at Riverside Cottage, where one face at least grew brighter when he came, and one pair of eyes beamed on him a welcome. His new code of morality worked admirably, and as weeks passed away he showed no signs of weariness in the course he had adopted. Mr. Howard himself was not more regular at church, or Alice more devout, than Dr. Richards. The children, whom he had denominated “ragged brats,” were no longer spurned with contempt, but fed instead with pea-nuts and molasses candy, the doctor going frequently into the by-lanes where they lived, and where they began to expect him almost as much as Alice. He was popular with the children, but the parents, clearer sighted, treated him most shabbily at his back, accusing him of caring only for Miss Alice’s good opinion, and of being at heart a most consummate knave!

This was what the poor said, and what many others thought. It could not be that John Richards, whom they had known from boyhood as proud, selfish, and overbearing, could so suddenly change his entire nature, becoming at once so amiable, so familiar, so generous, so much, in short, like Alice herself. As well might the leopard change its spots, and many were the insinuations thrown darkly at Alice, who smiled at them all and thought how little Dr. Richards was understood.

As the winter passed away and spring advanced, he showed no intentions of leaving Snowdon, but on the contrary opened an office in the village, greatly to the surprise of the inhabitants, and greatly to the dismay of old Dr. Rogers, who for years had blistered and bled the good people without a fear of rivalry.

“Does Dr. Richards intend locating permanently in Snowdon?” Mrs. Johnson asked of her daughter as they sat alone one evening.

“His sign would indicate as much,” was Alice’s reply.

There was a faint sigh in the direction of the sofa, on which Mrs. Johnson, who for several days had been suffering from a severe pain in her head, was lying, and the sigh smote painfully on Alice’s ear, for well she guessed its import.

“Mother,” she said gently, as leaving her chair she came and knelt by her mother’s side, “you look pale and worried, as if something ailed you more than your head. You have looked so for some time past. What is it, mother? Are you very sick, or——” and Alice hesitated, “are you troubled about me?”

“Is there any reason why I should be troubled about my darling?” asked the mother, smoothing fondly the bright curls almost touching her face.

Alice never had any secrets from her mother, and she answered frankly, “I don’t know, unless—unless—mother, why don’t you like Dr. Richards?”

The ice was fairly broken now, and very briefly but candidly Mrs. Johnson told why she did not like him. He was handsome, refined, educated and agreeable, she admitted, but there was something lacking. The mask he was wearing had not deceived her, and she would have liked him far better without it. This she said to Alice, adding gently, “He may be all he seems, but I doubt it. I distrust him greatly. I think he fancies you and loves your money.”

“Oh, mother, you do him injustice, and he has been so kind to us, while Snowdon is so much pleasanter since he came.”

“Are you engaged to him?” was Mrs. Johnson’s next question.

“No,” and Alice looked up wonderingly. “I do not like him well enough for that.”

Alice Johnson was wholly ingenuous and would not for the world have concealed a thing from her mother, and very frankly she continued,

“I like Dr. Richards better than any gentleman I have ever met, and it seems to me that people here do him injustice, but I may be mistaken. I know he is unpopular, and that first made me sorry for him. I am sure he is pleased with me, but he has never asked me to be his wife. I should have told you, mother,” and the beautiful eyes which had so charmed the doctor, looked up confidingly at the pale face bending over them.

“God bless my darling, and keep her as innocent as now,” Mrs. Johnson murmured, bowing her head upon her daughter’s, and kissing the rosy cheek. “I am glad there is no engagement. Will you promise there shall not be for one year at least?”

It was a hard thing to ask, for more than she guessed, till then, did Alice’s heart incline toward Dr. Richards. Slily, adroitly, he had insinuated himself into her affections, boasting that he could sway her at will, only let him attend the Lenten services, week days and all, drop something in the plate every Sabbath, speak to all the ragamuffins he met, take old Mrs. Snyder out for an airing every week, and he was all right with Alice Johnson. And this was the man from whom Mrs. Johnson would save her daughter, asking again for the promise.

“Yes, I will, I do,” Alice said at last.

A second “God bless my darling,” came from the mother’s lips, and drawing her treasure nearer to her, she continued, “You have made me very happy, and by and by you’ll be so glad. You may leave me now, for I am tired and faint.”

It was long ere Alice forgot the expression of her mother’s face or the sound of her voice, as she bade her good night on that last evening they ever spent together alone. The indisposition of which Mrs. Johnson had been complaining for several days, proved to be no light matter, and when next morning Dr. Rogers was summoned to her bedside, he decided it to be a fever which was then prevailing to some extent in the neighboring towns.

That afternoon it was told at Terrace Hill that Mrs. Johnson was very sick, and half an hour later the Richards carriage, containing the doctor and his sister Anna, wound down the hill, and passing through the park, turned in the direction of the cottage, where they found Mrs. Johnson worse than they had anticipated. The sight of distress roused Anna at once, and forgetting her own feebleness she kindly offered to stay until night if she could be of any service. Mrs. Johnson was fond of Anna, and she expressed her pleasure so eagerly that Anna decided to remain, and went with Alice to remove her wrappings.

“Oh, I forgot!” she exclaimed, as a sudden thought seemed to strike her. “I don’t know as I can stay after all, though I might write it here, I suppose, as well as at home; and as John is going to New York to-night he will take it along.”

“What is it?” Alice asked; and Anna replied,

“You’ll think me very foolish, no doubt; they all do, especially John, and have tried to laugh me out of it, but I have thought about it, and dreamed about it, until it is impressed upon me that I must do it, and I had decided to attend to it this very day, when we heard of your mother’s illness, and John persuaded me to come here with him, as he wished to say good-bye to you.”

“I’ll get you writing materials if you like,” Alice said, “or you can go at once to the library. Your brother will wait, I am sure.”

“Yes; but I want to know if you too think me foolish. I’m so dependent on others’ opinions;” and, in a low tone, Anna told how long she had been wanting some nice young person to be constantly with her as companion or waiting-maid, and of the advertisement seen early last winter, how queerly it was expressed, and how careless John had been in tearing off the name and address, with which to light his cigar. “It seems to me,” she continued, “that ‘unfortunate married woman’ is the very one I want. I cannot account for the interest I feel in her, and in spite of all my family can say, I’ve concluded to write, and let John take it to the Herald.”

“Yes; but how will you find her? I understand that the address was burned,” Alice rejoined quickly, feeling herself that Anna was hardly sane in her calculations.

“Oh, I’ve fixed that in the wording,” Anna answered. “I do not know as it will ever reach her, it’s been so long, but if it does, she’ll be sure to know I mean her, or somebody like her.”

It was not at all clear to Alice, but she made no objections, and taking her silence as a tacit approval of her project, Anna followed her to the library.

“I dislike writing very much,” she said, as she saw the array of materials, “and I write so illegibly too. Please do it for me, that’s a dear, good girl,” and she gave the pen to Alice, who wrote the first word, “Wanted,” and then waited for Anna to dictate.

“Wanted.—By an invalid lady, whose home is in the country, a young woman, who will be both useful and agreeable, either as a companion or waiting-maid. No objection will be raised if the woman is married, and unfortunate, or has a child a few months old.

“Address,

“A. E. R., Snowdon, Hampden Co., Mass”

“That is what will assure her, should she ever see it,” Anna said, pointing to the lines,——

“No objection raised if the young woman is married and unfortunate, or has a child a few months old.”

Alice thought it the queerest advertisement she had ever seen, but Anna was privileged to do queer things, and folding the paper, she went out into the hall, where the doctor sat waiting for her. Handing him the note, she was about to explain its import, when Anna joined her, and explained herself, charging him to attend to it the very first thing.

John’s mustached lip curled a little scornfully as he read it.

“Why, puss, that girl or woman is in Georgia by this time, and as the result of this, Terrace Hill will be thronged with unfortunate women and children, desiring situations. They’ll stand three deep from the park gate to the house. Better let me burn this, as I did the other, and not be foolish. She will never see it,” and John made a gesture as if he would put it in the stove, but Anna caught his hand, saying imploringly, “Please humor me this once. She may see it, and I’m so interested.”

Anna was always humored, and so the doctor placed in his memorandum book the note, then turning to Alice he addressed her in so low a tone that Anna readily took the hint and left them together. Dr. Richards was not intending to be gone long, he said, though the time would seem a little eternity, so much was his heart now bound up in Snowdon.

Afraid lest he might say something more of the same nature, Alice hastened to ask if he had seen her mother and what he thought of her.

“I stepped in for a moment while you were in the library,” he replied. “She seemed to have a high fever, and I fancied it increased while I stood by her. I am sorry to leave while she is so sick, but remember that if anything happens you will be dearer to me than ever,” and the doctor pressed the little hand which he took in his to say good-bye, for now he must really go.

With a swelling heart Alice watched him as he left the house, and then running to her own room locked the door and throwing herself upon the bed sobbed bitterly. What did his words, “if anything happens” imply? Did he think her mother so very sick? Was she going to die? “Oh, mother, mother! I will not let her go!” was the cry of a heart which at first rebelled against the threatened blow, refusing to receive it. Anon, however, better, calmer thoughts succeeded, and though Alice could not yet say “Thy will be done,” she was not so rebellious, and a pleading prayer went up, “Spare, oh, spare my mother,” while hope whispered that this terrible calamity would not happen to her.

As the day and night wore on Mrs. Johnson grew worse so rapidly that at her request a telegram was forwarded to Mr. Liston, who had charge of her moneyed affairs, and who came at once, for the kind old man was deeply interested in the widow and her lovely daughter. As Mrs. Johnson could bear it, they talked alone together until he perfectly understood what her wishes were with regard to Alice, and how to deal with Dr. Richards. Then promising to return again in case the worst should happen, he took his leave, while Mrs. Johnson, now that a weight was lifted from her mind, seemed to rally, and the physician pronounced her better. But with that strange foreknowledge, which sometimes comes to people whose days are nearly numbered, she felt that she would die, and that in mercy this interval of rest and freedom from pain was granted her, in which she might talk with Alice concerning the arrangements for the future.

“Alice, darling,” she said, when they were alone, “come sit by me here on the bed and listen to what I say.”

Alice obeyed, and taking her mother’s hot hand in hers she waited for what was to come.

“Alice, darling, are you willing to be left alone for a little while? It won’t be long, and our Father in Heaven knows best what is for our good.”

“Oh, mother, don’t; you will not die,” and Alice sobbed convulsively. “Last night, when I thought you were in danger, I prayed so hard to be willing, but I couldn’t, oh, I couldn’t, and God seemed a great ways off—seemed as if he did not hear. In all the wide world I can never find another mother, and I shall be so desolate.”

Mrs. Johnson knew just how desolate her dying would leave her child, for she had felt the same, and for a few moments she strove to comfort the weeping girl, who hid her face in the pillows, by telling her of One who will surely care for the orphan; for he has said he would, and his word never fails.

“You have learned to trust him in prosperity, and He will be a thousand fold nearer to you in adversity. You’ll miss me, I know, and be very lonely without me, but you are young, and life has many charms for you, besides God will never forget or forsake his covenant children.”

Gradually as she talked the sobbing ceased, and when the white face lifted itself from its hiding place there was a look upon it as if the needed strength had been sought and to some extent imparted.

“My will was made some time ago,” Mrs. Johnson continued, “and that with a few exceptions, such as legacies to your nurse Densie Densmore, and some charitable institutions, you are my sole heir. Mr. Liston is to be your guardian, and will look after your interests until you are of age, or longer if you choose. You know that as both your father and myself were only children, you have no near relatives on either side to whom you can look for protection. There is a kind of second cousin, it is true, the old gentleman who visited us just before we came here. But his family are gay, fashionable people, and I’d rather you should not go there, even if he were willing. Mr. Liston would give you a home with him, but I do not think that best and there is but one other alternative.

“You will remember having heard me speak occasionally of a friend now living in Kentucky, a Mrs. Worthington whose husband was a distant relative of ours. Ralph Worthington and your father were school boys together, and afterward college companions. They were more like brothers than friends; indeed, they were often likened to David and Jonathan, so strongly were they attached to each other.

“I was but sixteen when I became a bride, and, as you know, several years elapsed ere God blessed me with a living child. Your father was consumptive, and the chances were that I should early be left a widow. This it was, I think, which led to the agreement made by the two friends to the effect that if either died the living one should care for the widow and fatherless as for a brother’s family. To see the two as they pledged themselves to keep this solemn compact, you would not have guessed that the tall, athletic, broad chested Ralph, would be the first to go, yet so it was. He died ere you were born.”

“Then he is dead? Oh, I’m so sorry,” Alice exclaimed.

“Yes, he’s dead; and, as far as possible, your father fulfilled his promise to Ralph’s widow and her child—a little boy, five years old, of whom Mrs. Worthington herself was appointed guardian. I never knew what spirit of evil possessed Eliza who had been my schoolmate and to whom I was greatly attached; but in less than a year after her husband’s death, she made a second and most unfortunate marriage. We both opposed it, for we distrusted the man. As the result of our opposition, a coolness sprang up between us, and we saw but little of each other after that. Mr. Murdoch proved a greater scoundrel that we supposed, and when their little girl was nearly two years old, we heard of a divorce. Mr. Johnson’s health was failing fast, and we were about to make the tour of Europe, in hopes a change would benefit him. Just before we sailed we visited poor Eliza, whom we found doubly heart-broken, for, in addition to the other outrages heaped upon her, the brutal wretch had managed to steal her beautiful daughter, and carried it no one knew whither. I never shall forget the distress of the brother. I’ve often thought of him since, and wondered what he had grown to be. We comforted Eliza as best we could, and left money to be used for her in case she needed it. Then we embarked with you and Densie for Europe. You know how for a while, your father seemed to regain his strength, how he at last grew worse and hastened home to die. In the sorrow and excitement which followed, it is not strange that Eliza was for a time forgotten, and when I remembered and enquired for her again, I heard that Hugh had been adopted by some relation in Kentucky, that the stolen child had been mysteriously returned, and was living with its mother in Elmswood—a quiet, out-of-the-way town, which I never visited until that summer when you went West with the Gilmores.

“At first Eliza appeared a little cool, but this soon wore off, and was mostly owing, I fancy, to the mortification she felt at my finding her in circumstances so changed from what they used to be, for, though managing to keep up a genteel exterior, she was really very poor. She did not talk much of Hugh. Indeed, she knew but little of him, as his letters were far apart, and only contained praises of his horses, his dogs, and the rare sport he had in hunting with his eccentric uncle, whose name I have forgotten. Neither did she say much of Adaline, who was then away at school. Still my visit was a sadly satisfactory one, as we recalled old times when we were girls together weeping over our great loss when our husbands were laid to rest. Then we spoke of their friendship, and lastly of the contract.

“‘It sounds preposterous in me, I know,’ Mrs. Worthington said, when we parted, ‘you are so rich and I so poor, but if ever Alice should want a mother’s care, I will gladly give it to her.’

“This was nearly eight years ago. And, as I failed to write her for a long, long time, while she was long in answering, the correspondence ceased till just before her removal to Kentucky, when she apprised me of the change. You have now the history of Mrs. Worthington, the only person who comes to mind as one to whose care I can entrust you.”

“But, mother, I may not be wanted there,” and Alice’s lip quivered painfully. “Adaline is a young lady now, and Hugh, what of him, mother? What is he?”

Mrs. Johnson could not tell; neither did she know if her darling would be welcome, but money, she knew, had a charm, and she replied to Alice’s queries,

“You will not go empty handed, nor be a burden to them. They are poor, and money will not come amiss. We can but try at all events, and if they object, Mr. Liston will do the best he can for you. For some weeks, it has been impressed upon me that my time was short, and fancying it could do no harm, I have written to Mrs. Worthington a letter which you will send when I am gone. I have asked her to receive you, to care for you as her own. I said that Mr. Liston would attend to all pecuniary matters, paying your allowance quarterly; and I am sure you will not object when I tell you that I think it right to leave Adaline the sum of one thousand dollars. It will not materially lessen your inheritance, and it will do her a world of good. Mr. Liston will arrange it for you. You will remain here until you hear from Mrs. Worthington, and then abide by her arrangements. She is a gentle, affectionate woman, and will be kind to you. I do not know that she is a Christian, but your influence may do her good, and make her bless the day when you were sent to her. Will you go, my daughter—go cheerfully?”

“Yes, mother, I’ll go,” came gaspingly from Alice’s lips, “I’ll go but, mother, oh, mother,” and Alice’s cry ended as it always did, “you will not, you must not die!”

But neither tears, nor prayers could avail to keep the mother longer. Her work on earth was done, and after this conversation she grew worse so rapidly that hope died out of Alice’s heart, and she knew that soon she would be motherless. There were days and nights of pain and delirium in which the sick woman recognized none of those around her save Alice, whom she continually blessed as her darling, praying that God, too, would bless and keep his covenant child. At last there came a change, and one lovely Sunday morning, when the sunlight lay upon the springing grass and sparkled on the river, when the air was laden with the early flowers’ perfume, and birds were singing by the door, the delirium passed away, and in the room so long kept dark and still, were heard whispered words of joy, of peace, of perfect rest, such as the dying Christian only feels. It was early morning then and ere the bell from St. Paul’s tower sent forth its summons to the house of God, there rang from its belfry a solemn toll, and the villagers listening to it, said, as they counted forty-four, that Mrs. Johnson was dead.

CHAPTER VIII.
MR. LISTON AND THE DOCTOR.

Among Snowdon’s poor that day, as well as among the wealthier class, there was many an aching heart, and many a prayer was breathed for the stricken Alice, not less beloved than the mother had been. At Terrace Hill Mansion, much sorrow was expressed, and among the older sisters a considerable anxiety felt as to whether this sudden death would postpone indefinitely the marriage they had looked upon as sure to take place between their brother and the youthful heiress. They hoped not, for money was greatly needed at Terrace Hill. In the familiar intercourse which latterly had existed between themselves and Alice they had seen enough to know how generous and free she was. Once their sister, and Terrace Hill would blossom again as the rose. On the whole it was very unfortunate that Mrs. Johnson should have died so unexpectedly, and they did wish John was there to comfort the young girl who, they heard, refused to see any one except the clergyman and Mr. Liston.

“Suppose we telegraph for John,” Eudora said, and in less than two hours thereafter, Dr. Richards in New York read that Alice was an orphan.

There was a pang as he thought of her distress, a wish that he were with her, and then the thought arose, “What if she does not prove as wealthy as I have supposed. Will that make any difference?”

He knew it would, for though more interested in Alice than he supposed he could be in any one after poor Lily died, he was far too mercenary to let his affections run away with his judgment, and could the stricken Alice have looked into his heart and seen what his cogitations were that morning, when at the St. Nicholas he sat thinking, how her mother’s loss might possibly affect him, she would have shrunk from him in horror. He had best go home at once, he said, and on the day appointed for the funeral he reached the station adjoining Snowdon, where he alighted, as the Express train did not stop in the next town. It was not more than two miles to Terrace Hill across the fields, and as he preferred walking to riding, he sauntered slowly on, thinking of Alice and wishing he did know just the amount left her by her mother.

“I must do something,” he soliloquized, “or how can I ever pay those debts in New York, of which mother knows nothing? I wish that widow——”

He did not finish his wishes, for a turn in the path brought him suddenly face to face with Mr. Liston, whom he had seen at a distance, and whom he recognized at once.

“I’ll quiz the old codger,” he thought. “He don’t, of course, know me, and will never suspect my object.”

Mistaken doctor! The old codger was fully prepared. He did know Dr. Richards by sight, and was rather glad than otherwise when the elegant dandy, taking a seat upon the gnarled roots of the tree under which he was sitting, made some trivial remark about the weather, which was very propitious for the crowd who were sure to attend Mrs. Johnson’s funeral.

Yes, Mr. Liston presumed there would be a crowd. It was very natural there should be, particularly as the deceased was greatly beloved and was also reputed wealthy. “It beats all what a difference it makes, even after death, whether one is supposed to be rich or poor,” and the codger worked away industriously at the pine stick he was whittling.

“But in this case the supposition of riches must be correct, though I know people are oftener over valued than otherwise,” and with his gold-headed cane the doctor thrust at a dandelion growing near.

“Nothing truer than that,” returned the whittler, brushing the litter from his lap. “Now I’ve no doubt that prig of a doctor, who they say is shining up to Alice, will be disappointed when he finds just how much she’s worth. Let me see. What is his name? Lives up there,” and with his jack-knife Mr. Liston pointed toward Terrace Hill.

Smothering his desire to throttle and then pitch into the river the old man, calling him a a prig of a doctor, so coolly and deliberately marring his golden visions, the doctor answered, naturally,

“The Richards family live there, sir. You mean their son, I presume.”

“Yes, the chap that has travelled and come home so changed. They do say he’s actually taken to visiting all the rheumatic old women in town, applying sticking plasters to their backs and administering squills to their children, all free gratis. Don’t ask a red—does it for charity’s sake: but I know he expects to get his pay out of Alice’s purse, as he does it to please her and nothing else. He ought to be rewarded for all his philanthropy with a rich wife, that’s a fact. It’s too bad to have him so disappointed, and if he comes out to the funeral I believe I’ll tell him as a friend that my advice is, not to marry for money—it won’t pay,” and from beneath the slouched hat drawn so closely over the comical face, the keen gray eyes looked curiously.

Poor doctor! How he fidgeted, moving so often that his tormenter demurely asked him if he were sitting on a thistle!

“Does Miss Johnson remain here?” the doctor asked at last, and Mr. Liston replied by telling what he knew of the arrangements.

At the mention of Worthington the doctor, looked up quickly. Whom had he known by that name, or where had he heard it before? “Mrs. Worthington, Mrs. Worthington,” he repeated, unpleasant memories of something, he knew not what, rising to his mind. “Is she living in this vicinity?”

“In Kentucky. It’s a widow and her daughter,” Mr. Liston answered, wisely resolving to say nothing of a young man, lest the doctor should feel anxious.

“A widow and her daughter! I must be mistaken in thinking I ever knew any one by that name, though it seems familiar,” said the doctor, and as by this time he had heard all he wished to hear, he arose, and bidding Mr. Liston good morning walked away in no enviable frame of mind.

“I didn’t tell him a lie. He will be disappointed when he finds just how much she is worth, and my advice to him, or any other man, is not to marry for money,” Mr. Liston chucklingly soliloquized as he watched the crestfallen doctor disappearing from view, muttering to himself, “The wretch! to talk so to my face! I wish I’d knocked him down. Rheumatic woman and squills, indeed! But it’s all true, every word, and that’s the worst of it. I have turned fool just to get a pretty girl, or rather to get her money. But I won’t stay here to be laughed at. I’ll go back this very day. I am glad no one has seen me except that old rat, who never guessed I was the chap he complimented so highly, the rascal!”

Looking at his watch the doctor found that it lacked several hours ere the express from Boston was due. But this did not discourage him. He would stay in the fields or anywhere, and turning backward he followed the course of the river winding under the hill until he reached the friendly woods which shielded him from observation. How he hated himself hiding there among the trees, and how he longed for the downward train, which came at last, and when the village bell tolled out its summons to the house of mourning, he sat in a corner of the car returning to New York even faster than he had come.

Gradually the Riverside cottage filled with people assembling to pay the last tribute of respect to the deceased, who during her short stay among them had endeared herself to many hearts.

Slowly, sadly, they bore her to the grave. Reverently they laid her down to rest, and from the carriage window Alice’s white face looked wistfully out as “earth to earth, ashes to ashes,” broke the solemn stillness. Oh, how she longed to lay there too, beside her mother! How the sunshine, flecking the bright June grass with gleams of gold, seemed to mock her misery as the gravelly earth rattled heavily down upon the coffin lid, and she knew they were covering up her mother. “If I too could die!” she murmured, sinking back in the carriage corner and covering her face with her veil. But not so easily could life be shaken off by her, the young and strong. She must live yet longer. She had a work to do—a work whose import she knew not; and the mother’s death, for which she then could see no reason, though she knew well that one existed, was the entrance to that work. She must live and she must listen while Mr. Liston talked to her that night on business, arranging about the letter, which was forwarded immediately to Kentucky, and advising her what to do until an answer was received.

Not a word did he say of his interview with the doctor, nor did Alice know he had been there. She would not have cared if she had, so crushed and desolate was her young heart, and after Mr. Liston was gone and the house had become quiet again, a species of apathy settled upon her as with a feeling akin to despair she sat down to wait for the news from Kentucky, which was to decide her future course.

CHAPTER IX.
MATTERS IN KENTUCKY.

Backward now with our reader we turn, and take up the broken thread of our story at the point where we left Adah Hastings, sleeping, in that best chamber at Spring Bank; while around the timeworn building the winter wind howled dismally, and drove the sleet in gusts against the windows. There were piles of snow next morning upon the steps, huge drifts against the doors, and banks against the fences, while the bent-up negroes shivered and drew back from the cutting blast, so foreign to their temperaments.

It was a bitter morning in which to face the fierce north wind, and plow one’s way to the Derby cornfield, where in a small, dilapidated building, Aunt Eunice Reynolds, widowed sister of John Stanley, had lived for many years, first as a pensioner upon her brothers bounty, and next as Hugh’s incumbent. At the time of her brother’s death Aunt Eunice had intended removing to Spring Bank, but when Hugh’s mother wrote, asking for a home, she abandoned the plan, and for two seasons more lived alone, watching from her lonely door the tasselled corn ripening in the August sun. It was strange that a house should have been built there in the center of that cornfield, with woods enclosing it on every side save one, and stranger still, that Aunt Eunice should care to stay there, year after year, as she did. But she preferred it, she said “to having a paltry, lazy nigger under foot,” and so her brother suffered her to have her way, while the neighbors marvelled at and admired the untiring energy and careful neatness which made the cottage in the corn field so cozy-like and cheerful. Hugh was Aunt Eunice’s idol, the object which kept her old heart warm and young with human love. For him she would endure any want or encounter any difficulty, and in his dilemma regarding Adah Hastings, he intuitively turned to her, as the one who would lend a helping hand. He had not been to see her in two days, and when the grey December morning broke and he looked out upon the deep, untrodden snow, he frowned impatiently, as he thought how bad the path must be between Spring Bank and the cornfield, whither he intended going, as he would be the first to tell what had occurred. ’Lina’s fierce opposition to, and his mother’s apparent shrinking from Adah, had convinced him how hopeless was the idea that she could stay at Spring Bank with any degree of comfort to herself or quiet to him. Aunt Eunice’s house was the only refuge for Adah, and there she would be comparatively safe from censorious remarks.

“Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these ye did it unto me,” kept ringing in Hugh’s ears, as he hastily dressed himself, striking his benumbed fingers together, and trying hard to keep his teeth from chattering, for Hugh was beginning his work of economy, and when at daylight Claib came as usual to build his master’s fire, he had sent him back, saying he did not need one, and bidding him go, instead, to Mrs. Hastings’ chamber.

It took more than a shake or two that morning ere Hugh’s toilet was completed, for the stiff, heavy boots refused at first to go on, but with a kick and a jerk, and what would have been an oath if he had not thought of Golden Hair in time to prevent its utterance, Hugh prevailed at last and the refractory boots came to their proper place. Bounding down the stairs he hurried out to the kitchen, where only a few of his negroes were stirring.

“Ho, Claib!” he called, “saddle Rocket quick and bring him to the door. I’m going to the corn field.”

“Lor’ bless you, mas’r, it’s done snow higher than Rocket’s head. He’ll never stand it nohow.”

“Do as I bid you,” was Hugh’s reply, and indolent Claib went shivering to the stable where Hugh’s best horses were kept.

A whinnying sound of welcome greeted him as he entered, but was soon succeeded by a spirited snort as he attempted to lead out a most beautiful dapple gray, Hugh’s favorite steed, his pet of pets, and the horse most admired and coveted in all the country.

“None of yer ars,” Claib said coaxingly, as the animal threw up his neck defiantly, “You’ve got to get along ’case Mas’r Hugh say so. You know Mas’r Hugh.”

As if he really knew and understood, the proud head came down at once, and Rocket suffered himself to be led from the stall, but when the keen north wind struck full upon his face, the gleaming eyes flashed with stubborn fire, and planting his feet firmly in the snow, Rocket resisted all Claib’s efforts to get him any further. Scolding did no good, coax him he could not, strike him he dared not, and alternately changing the halter from hand to hand poor Claib blew his stiffened fingers and called lustily for help.

“What is it?” Hugh asked, coming out upon the stoop, and comprehending the trouble at a glance. “Rocket Rocket,” he cried, “Easy, my boy,” and in an instant Rocket’s defiant attitude changed to one of perfect obedience.

He knew and loved the voice calling so cheerily to him, and with a sudden plunge, which wrenched his halter from Claib’s grasp and sent the poor negro headlong into the snow, he bounded to his master’s side. Rubbing his head against Hugh’s shoulder, he suffered himself to be caressed for a moment, and then, playful as a kitten, gambolled around him in circles, sometimes making a feint of coming near to him, and again leaping backward with the peculiarly graceful motion for which he was so famous. How Hugh loved that noble animal, and how Rocket loved him, licking his hands whenever he entered the stable, and crying piteously after him when he left. Five hundred dollars had been offered him for that horse, but though wanting money sadly, he had promptly refused the offer, determined that Rocket should know no master save himself.

“There, my beauty,” he said, as the animal continued to prance around him. “There, you’ve showed off enough. Come, now, I’ve work for you to do.”

Docile as a lamb when Hugh commanded, he stood quietly while Claib equipped him for his morning’s task.

“Tell mother I shan’t be back to breakfast,” Hugh said, as he sprang into the saddle, and giving loose rein to Rocket went galloping through the snow.

Under ordinary circumstances that early ride would have been vastly exhilarating to Hugh, who enjoyed the bracing air, but there was too much now upon his mind to admit of his enjoying any thing. Thoughts of Adah, and the increased expense her presence would necessarily bring, flitted across his mind, while Harney’s bill, put over once, and due again ere long, sat like a nightmare on him, for he saw no way in which to meet it. No way save one, and Rocket surely must have felt the throbbing of Hugh’s heart as that one way flashed upon him, for he gave a kind of coaxing whine, and dashed on over the billowy drifts faster than before.

“No, Rocket, no,” and Hugh patted his neck. He’d never part with Rocket, He’d sell Spring Bank first with all its incumbrances.

The cornfield was reached by this time, and with a single bound Rocket cleared the gate at the entrance. A six-rail fence was nothing for him to leap, and like a deer he sped across the field, and ere long stood before Aunt Eunice’s door. It was now three days since Hugh had gladdened Aunt Eunice’s cottage with the sunshine of his presence, and when she awoke that morning, and saw how high the snow was piled around her door, she said to herself, “The boy’ll be here directly to know if I’m alive,” and this accounted for the round deal table drawn before the blazing fire, and looking so inviting with its two plates and cups, one a fanciful china affair, sacredly kept for Hugh, whose coffee always tasted better when sipped from its gilded side. The lightest of egg bread was steaming on the hearth, the tenderest of steak was broiling on the griddle, while the odor of the coffee boiling on the coals came tantalizingly to Hugh’s olfactories as Aunt Eunice opened the door, saying pleasantly,

“I told ’em so. I felt it in my bones, and the breakfast is all but ready. Put Rocket up directly, and come in to the fire.”

Fastening Rocket in his accustomed place in the outer shed, Hugh stamped the snow from his heavy boots, and then went in to Aunt Eunice’s kitchen-parlor, as she called it, where the tempting breakfast stood upon the table. Nimble as a girl Aunt Eunice brought his chair, and placing it in the warmest part of the room, the one next to the wall and farthest from the door where the wind and snow crept in. But Hugh was not selfish enough to keep it, and he made Aunt Eunice change, for he knew the blood moved more slowly through her veins than his.

“No coffee! What new freak is that?” and Aunt Eunice gazed at him in astonishment as he declined the cup she had prepared with so much care, dropping in the whitest lumps of sugar, and stirring in the thickest cream.

It cost Hugh a terrible struggle to refuse that cup of coffee, but if he would retrench, he must begin at once and determining to meet it unflinchingly he replied that “he had concluded to drink water for a while, and see what that would do; much was said nowadays about coffee’s being injurious, and he presumed it was.”

In great distress the good old lady asked if “his dyspeptic was out of order,” still insisting that he should take the cup, whose delicious odor well nigh overcame resolution. But Hugh was firm as a granite rock when once his mind was settled, and assuring Aunt Eunice that his “dyspeptic” was right, he betook himself to the gourd, standing in the pail of water within his reach. Poor Aunt Eunice did not half enjoy her breakfast, and she would not have enjoyed it at all had she known that Hugh was abstaining from what he loved so much only that she and others might be fed and warmed.

“There’s something on your mind,” she said, observing his abstraction. “Have you had another dunning letter, or what?”

Aunt Eunice had made a commencement, and in his usual impulsive way Hugh told the story of Adah and then asked if she would take her.

“But, Hugh,” and Aunt Eunice spoke earnestly, “you cannot afford the expense. Think twice before you commit yourself.”

“I have thought twice, the last time just as I did the first. Adah shall stay. You need some one these winter nights. There’s the room you call mine. Give her that. Will you, Aunt Eunice?” and Hugh wound his arm around Aunt Eunice’s ample waist, while he pleaded for Adah Hastings.

Aunt Eunice was soon won over as Hugh knew she would be, and it was settled that she should come that very day if possible.

“Look, the sky is clearing,” and he pointed to the sunshine streaming through the window.

“We’ll have her room fixed before I go,” and with his own hands Hugh split and prepared the wood which was to kindle Adah’s fire, then with Aunt Eunice’s help sundry changes were made in the arrangement of the rather meagre furniture, which never seemed so meagre to Hugh as when he looked at it with Adah’s eyes and wondered how she’d like it.

“Oh, I wish I were rich,” he sighed mentally, and taking out his well worn purse he carefully counted its contents.

Twenty-five dollars. That was all, and this he had been so long in saving for the new coat he meant to buy. Hugh would like to dress better if he could, and was even anticipating his sister’s surprise when he should appear before her some day habited in a coat of the latest style. To do this Adah’s room must go unfurnished yet awhile and with another sigh the purse was returned to his pocket, just as Aunt Eunice, who had stepped out for a moment, reappeared, bringing a counterpane and towel, one of which was spread upon the bed, while the other covered the old pine stand, marred and stained with ink and tallow, the result of Hugh’s own carelessness.

“What a heap of difference that table cloth and pocket-handkerchief do make,” was Hugh’s man-like remark, his face brightening with the improved appearance of things and his big heart growing warm with the thought that he might keep his twenty-five dollars and Adah be comfortable still.

With a merry laugh Aunt Eunice explained that the table cloth was a bed-spread, and the handkerchief a towel. It was all the same to Hugh so long as they improved the room, and glancing at his watch, he said it was time to be gone.

“Ad may pick Adah’s eyes out before I get home,” was his laughing remark as he vaulted into his saddle and dashed off across the fields, where, beneath the warm Kentucky sun, the snow was already beginning to soften.

Breakfast had been late at Spring Bank that morning, for the strangers had required some care, and Miss ’Lina was sipping her coffee rather ill-naturedly when a note was handed her, and instantly her mood was changed.

“Splendid, mother!” she exclaimed, glancing at the tiny, three-cornered thing; “an invitation to Ellen Tiffton’s party. I was afraid she would leave me out after Hugh’s refusal to attend the Ladies’ fair, or buy a ticket for her lottery. It was only ten dollars either, and Mr. Harney spent all of forty, I’m sure, in the course of the evening.”

“Hugh had no ten dollars to spare,” Mrs. Worthington said, apologetically, “though, of course, he might have been more civil than to tell Ellen it was a regular swindle, and the getters-up ought to be indicted. I almost wonder at her inviting him, as she said she’d never speak to him again.”

“Invited him! Who said she had? It’s only one card for me,” and with a most satisfied expression ’Lina presented the note to her mother, whose face flushed at the insult offered her son—an insult which even ’Lina felt, but would not acknowledge, lest it should interfere with her going. “There may be some mistake,” she suggested. “Lulu may have dropped his,” and ringing the bell she summoned to their presence a bright, handsome mulatto girl, who answered frankly that

“Only one invite was given her, and, and that for Miss ’Lina. I asked Jake,” she said, “where was Master Hugh’s, and he said, ‘Oh. Miss Ellen’s ravin’ at him; called him no gentleman; and wouldn’t invite him any way.’ I think it’s right mean in her, for Master Hugh is enough sight better gentleman than Bob Harney, that she’s after. I told Jake to tell her so,” and having thus vindicated her master’s cause, Lulu tripped back to the kitchen, leaving her mistress and ’Lina to finish their party discussion.

“You won’t go, of course,” Mrs. Worthington said, quietly. “You’ll resent her slighting Hugh.”

“Indeed I shan’t,” the young lady retorted. “I hardly think it fair in Ellen, but I shall accept, and I must go to town to-day to see about having my pink silk fixed. I think I’ll have some black lace festooned round the skirt. How I wish I could have a new one. Do you suppose Hugh has any money?”

“None for new dresses or lace flounces either,” Mrs. Worthington replied. “I fancy he begins to look old and worn with this perpetual call for money from us. We must economize.”

“Never mind, when I get Bob Harney I’ll pay off old scores,” ’Lina said, laughingly, as she arose from the table and went to look over her wardrobe, having first investigated the weather, and ascertained, from a consultation with Cæsar, that the roads would undoubtedly be passable by noon.

Meantime Hugh had returned, meeting in the kitchen with Lulu, who worshipping her young master with a species of adoration, resented any insults offered him far more keenly than his own sister did.

“Well, Lu, what is it? What’s happened?” Hugh asked, as he saw she was full of some important matter.

In an instant the impetuous Lulu told him of the party to which he was not invited, together with the reason why, and the word she had sent back.

“I’ll give ’em a piece of my mind!” she said, as she saw Hugh change color. “She may have old Harney. He’s jes good enough for her! The hateful! His man John, told Claib how his master said he meant to get me and Rocket, too, some day; me for her waiting-maid, I reckon. You won’t sell me, Master Hugh, will you?” and Lulu’s eyes looked pleadingly up to Hugh.

“Never!” and Hugh’s riding whip came down upon the table with a force which made Lulu start.

Satisfied that she was safe from Ellen Tiffton’s whims, Lulu darted away, while Hugh entered the sitting-room, where ’Lina sat, surrounded by her party finery, and prepared to do the amiable to the utmost.

“That really is a handsome little boy upstairs,” she said, as if she supposed it were her mother who came in; then an affected start she added, “Oh, it’s you! I thought ’twas mother. Don’t you think, Ellen has not invited you. Mean, isn’t it?”

“Ellen can do as she likes,” Hugh replied, adding, as he guessed the meaning of all that finery, “You surely are not going?”

“Why not?” and ’Lina’s black eyes flashed full upon him.

“I thought perhaps you would decline for my sake,” he replied.

An angry retort trembled on ’Lina’s lip, but she had an object to attain, so she restrained herself and answered that “she had thought of it, but such a course would do no good, and she wanted to go so much, the Tifftons were so exclusive and aristocratic.”

Hugh whistled contemptuously, but ’Lina kept her temper, and continued, coaxingly,

“Everybody is to be there, and you’d like to have your sister look decent, I know; and really, Hugh, I can’t unless you give me a little money. Do, Hugh, be good for once.”

“Ad, I can’t,” and Hugh spoke sorrowfully, for a kind word from ’Lina always touched his weaker side. “I would if I could, but honestly I’ve only twenty-five dollars in the world, and I’ve thought of a new coat. I don’t like to look so shabby. It hurts me worse than it does you,” and Hugh’s voice trembled as he spoke.

Any but a heart of stone would have yielded, but, ’Lina was too supremely selfish. Hugh had twenty-five dollars. He might give her half, or even ten. She’d be satisfied with ten. He could soon make that up. The negro hire came due ere long. He must have forgotten that.

No, he had not; but with the negro hire came debts, thoughts of which gave him the old worn look his mother had observed. Only ten dollars! It did seem hard to refuse, and if ’Lina went, Hugh wished her to look well, for underneath his apparent harshness lurked a kind of pride in his sister, whose beauty was of the bold, dashing style.

“Take them,” he said at last counting out the ten with regretful sigh. “Make them go as far as you can, and Ad, remember don’t get into debt.”

“I won’t,” and with a civil “Thank you,” ’Lina rolled up her bills, while Hugh repaired to Adah’s room telling her of Aunt Eunice, and his plan of taking her there.

With a burst of tears, Adah listened to him, and then insisted upon going away, as she had done the previous night. She had no claim on him, and she could not be a burden.

“You, madam, think it best, I’m sure,” she said, appealing to Mrs. Worthington, who was present and who answered promptly,

“I do not. I am willing you should remain until your friends are found.”

Adah offered no further remonstrance, but turning to Hugh, said hesitatingly,

“I may hear from my advertisement. Do you take the Herald?”

“Yes, though I can’t say I think much of it,” Hugh replied, and Adah continued,

“Then if you ever find anything for me, you’ll tell me, and I can go away,” I said, “Direct to Adah Hastings. Somebody will be sure to see it. Maybe George, and then he’ll know of Willie.”

With a muttered invective against the “villain,” Hugh left the room to see that the carriage was ready, while his mother, following him into the hall, offered to go herself with Adah if he liked. Glad to be relieved, as he had business that afternoon in Versailles, and was anxious to set off as soon as possible, Hugh accepted at once, and half an hour later, the Spring Bank carriage, containing Mrs. Worthington, Adah and Willie, drove slowly from the door, ’Lina calling after her mother to send Cæsar back immediately, as she was going to Frankfort after dinner, and wanted the carriage herself.

CHAPTER X.
’LINA’S PURCHASE AND HUGH’S

There were piles of handsome dress goods upon the counter at Harney’s that afternoon, and Harney was anxious to sell. It was not often that he favored a customer with his own personal services, and ’Lina felt proportionably flattered when he came forward and asked what he could show her. “Of course, a dress for the party—he had sold at least a dozen that day, but fortunately he still had the most, elegant pattern of all, and he knew it would exactly suit her complexion and style. There would be nothing like it at the party, unless she wore it, as he hoped she would, for he knew how admirably she would become it, and he’d had her in his mind all the time.” ’Lina was easily flattered, while the silk was beautiful, and as she thought how well the soft tinted rose with its single white velvety leaf, standing out so full and rich, would become her dark hair and eyes, an intense desire came over her to possess it. But ten dollars was all she had, and turning away from the tempting silk she answered faintly, that “it was superb, but she could not afford it, besides, she had not the money to-day.”

“Not the slightest consequence,” was Harney’s quick rejoinder, as he thought of Hugh’s already heavy bill, and alas, thought of Rocket too! “Not the slightest consequence. Your brother’s credit is good, and I’m sure he’ll be proud to see you in it. I should, were I your brother.”

’Lina blushed, while the wish to possess the silk grew every moment stronger.

“If it were only fifty dollars, it would not seem so bad,” she thought. Hugh could manage it some way, and Mr. Harney was so good natured; he could wait a year, she knew. But the making would cost ten dollars more, for that was the price Miss Allis charged, to say nothing of the trimmings. “No, I can’t,” she said, quite decidedly at last, asking for the lace with which she at first intended renovating her old pink silk. “She must see Miss Allis first to know how much she wanted,” and she tripped over to Frankfort’s fashionable dressmaker, whom she found surrounded with dresses for the party.

Such an array and such elegance too; the old pink faded into nothing. She should be quite in the shade, and feeling much like crying, ’Lina sat watching the nimble fingers around her, and waiting for Miss Allis’ advice, when a new idea crossed her mind. She heard Adah say that morning when she was in her room, that she could sew neatly, that she always made her own dresses, and if hers, why not ’Lina’s! She certainly looked as if she might have good taste, and she ought to do something by way of remuneration; besides that, if Adah made it, she could, from her mother’s budgets pick up enough for linings, whereas nothing but new entire would answer the purpose of a fashionable artiste, like Miss Diana Allis. ’Lina was fast persuading herself to buy the coveted silk, and as some time would elapse ere Miss Allis could attend to her she went back to Harney’s just for one more look at the lovely fabric. It was, if possible, more beautiful than before, and Harney was more polite, while the result of the whole was that, when ’Lina at four o’clock that afternoon entered her carriage to go home, the despised pink silk, still unpaid on Harney’s books, was thrown down any where, while in her hands she carefully held the bundle Harney brought himself, complimenting her upon the sensation she was sure to create, and inviting her to dance the first set with him. Then with a smiling bow he closed the door upon her, and returning to his books wrote down Hugh Worthington his debtor to fifty dollars more.

“That makes three hundred and fifty,” he said to himself. “I know he can’t raise that amount of ready money, and as he is too infernal proud to be sued, I’m sure of Rocket or Lulu, it matters but little which,” and with a look upon his face which made it positively hideous, the scheming Harney closed his books, and sat down to calculate the best means of managing the rather unmanageable Hugh!

It was dark when ’Lina reached home, but the silk looked well by firelight, and ’Lina would have been quite happy but for her mother’s reproaches and an occasional twinge as she thought of Hugh who had not yet returned, and whose purchase that afternoon was widely different from her own.

It was the day when a number of negroes, whose master had failed to a large amount, were to be sold in the Court House, and Hugh, as he reined up a moment before it, saw them grouped together upon the steps. He had no fancy for such scenes, but the eager, wistful glances the wretched creatures cast upon the passers by awoke his sympathy, and after finishing his business he returned to the Court House just as the auctioneer was detailing the many virtues of the bright-looking lad first upon the block. There was no trouble in disposing of them all, save a white-haired old man, whom they called Uncle Sam, and who was rather famous for having been stolen from his late master and sold into Virginia. With tottering steps the old man took his place, while his dim eyes wandered over the faces congregated around him as if seeking for their owner. But none was found who cared for Uncle Sam. He was too old—his work was done, and like a worn out horse he must be turned off to die.

“Won’t nobody bid for Sam? I fotched a thousand dollars onct,” and the feeble voice trembled as it asked this question.

“What will become of him if he is not sold?” Hugh asked of a bystander, who replied, “Go back to the old place to be kicked and cuffed by the minions of the new proprietor, Harney. You know Harney, of Frankfort?”

Yes, Hugh did know Harney as one who was constantly adding to his already large possessions houses and lands and negroes without limit, caring little that they came to him laden with the widow’s curse and the orphan’s tears. The law was on his side. He did nothing illegally, and so there was no redress. This was Harney, and Hugh always felt exasperated when he thought of him. Advancing a step or two he came nearer to the negro, who took comfort at once from the expression of his face, and stretching out his shaking hand he said beseechingly,

“You, mas’r, you buy old Sam ’case it ’ill be lonesome and cold in de cabin at home when they all is gone. Please mas’r,” and the tone was so pleading, that Hugh felt a great throb of pity for the desolate, forsaken negro.

“How old are you?” he asked, taking the quivering hand still extended toward him.

“Bless you, mas’r, longer than I can ’member. They was allus puttin’ me back and back to make me young, till I couldn’t go backuds no more, so I spec’s I’s mighty nigh a thousan’,” was the negro’s reply, whereupon cheers for Uncle Sam resounded long and loud among the amused spectators.

“What can you do?” was Hugh’s next query, to which the truthful negro answered,

“Nothin’ much, or, yes,” and an expression of reverence and awe stole over the wrinkled face, as in a low tone he added, “I can pray for young mas’r, and I will, only buy me, please.”

Hugh had not much faith in praying negroes, but something in old Sam struck him as sincere. His prayers might do good, and he needed somebody’s, sadly. But what should he offer, when fifteen dollars was all he had in the world, and was it his duty to encumber himself with a piece of useless property? Visions of the Golden Haired and Adah both rose up before him. They would say it was right. They would tell him to buy old Sam, and that settled the point.

“Five dollars,” he called out, and Sam’s “God bless you,” was sounding in his ears, when a voice from another part of the building doubled the bid, and with a moan Uncle Sam turned imploringly toward Hugh.

“A leetle more, mas’r, an’ you fotches ’em; a leetle more,” he whispered, coaxingly, and Hugh faltered out “Twelve.”

“Thirteen,” came from the corner, and Hugh caught sight of the bidder, a sour-grained fellow, whose wife had ten young children, and so could find use for Sam.

“Thirteen and a half,” cried Hugh.

“Fourteen,” responded his opponent.

“Leetle more, mas’r, berry leetle,” whispered Uncle Sam.

“Fourteen and a quarter,” said Hugh, the perspiration starting out about his lips, as he thought how fast his pile was diminishing, and that he could not go beyond it.

“Fourteen and a half,” from the corner.

“Leetle more, mas’r,” from Uncle Sam.

“Fourteen, seventy-five,” from Hugh.

“Fifteen,” from the man in the corner, and Hugh groaned aloud,

“That’s every dime I’ve got.”

Quick as thought an acquaintance beside him slipped a bill into his hand, whispering as he did so,

“It’s a V. I’ll double it if necessary. I’m sorry for the darky.”

It was very exciting now, each bidder raising a quarter each time, while Sam’s “a leetle more, mas’r,” and the vociferous cheers of the croud, whenever Hugh’s voice was heard, showed him to be the popular party.

“Nineteen, seventy-five,” from the corner, and Hugh felt his courage giving way as he faintly called out,

“Twenty.”

Only an instant did the auctioneer wait, and then his decisive, “Gone!” made Hugh the owner of Uncle Sam, who crouching down before him, blessed him with tears and prayers.

“I knows you’re good,” he said; “I knows it by yer face; and mebby, when the rheumatics gits out of my ole legs I kin work for mas’r a heap. Does you live fur from here?”

“Three miles or more,” Hugh replied, bidding the negro follow him.

The snow was melting, but out upon the turnpike it was still so deep that Hugh had many misgivings as to the old man’s ability to walk, but Sam, intent on proving that he was smarter than he seemed, declared himself perfectly competent to go with “Mars’r” to the world’s end, if necessary.

“It’s mighty cold, though,” he said, as he emerged into the open air, and the chilly wind penetrated the thin rags which covered him. “It’s mighty cold, and my knees is all a shakin’, but I’ll git over it bimeby.”

It was not in Hugh’s nature to see the old man shiver so, and taking off his own thick shawl he wrapped it round the negro’s shoulders, saying to the bystanders,

“My blood is warmer than his.”

Another cheer from the crowd, another, “God bless you, mas’r,” and the strange pair started on their homeward tour, Hugh riding very slowly, and accommodating Rocket’s steps to the hobbling old man, who wheezed and puffed, and sweat with the wondrous efforts he made, and at last when only a mile was gone, gave out entirely, and pitched headlong into the snow.

“It’s my dumb knees. They allus was crooked and shaky,” he gasped, becoming more and more entangled in the shawl, which he was not accustomed to wearing.

“Look here, Sam,” and Hugh laughed heartily at the negro’s forlorn appearance, as, regaining his feet, he assumed a most deprecating attitude, asking pardon for tumbling down, and charging it all to his shaky knees. “Look here, there’s no other way, except for you to ride and me to walk. Rocket won’t carry double,” and ere Sam could remonstrate, Hugh had dismounted and placed him in the saddle.

Rocket did not fancy the exchange, as was manifest by an indignant snort, and an attempt to shake Sam off, but a word from Hugh quieted him, and the latter offered the reins to Sam, who was never a skillful horseman, and felt a mortal terror of the high-mettled steed beneath him. With a most frightened expression upon his face, he grasped the saddle pommel with both hands, and bending nearly double, gasped out,

“Sam ain’t much use’t to gemman’s horses. Kind of hold me on, mas’r, till I gits de hang of de critter. He hists me round mightily.”

So, leading Rocket with one hand, and steadying Sam with the other, Hugh got on but slowly, and ’Lina had looked for him many times ere she spied him from the window as he came up the lawn.

“In the name of wonder, what is that on Rocket!” she exclaimed, as she caught sight of Sam, whose rags were fluttering in the wind. “An old white-headed nigger, as I live!” and she hastened to the door, where the servants were assembling, all curious like herself to see the new arrival.

Very carefully Hugh assisted him to dismount, but Sam’s knees, cramped up so long on Rocket, refused to straighten at once, and Lulu was not far out of the way when she likened him to a toad, while her mischievous brother Jim called out,

“How d’ye, old bow legs?”

“Jest tol’able, thankee,” was Sam’s meek reply, then spying ’Lina he lifted his hat politely, bowing so low that his knees gave out again, and he would have fallen had not Hugh held him up.

“Who is he, and what did you get him for?” Mrs. Worthington asked, as Hugh led him into the dining room.

Briefly Hugh explained to her why he had bought the negro.

“It was foolish, I suppose, but I’m not sorry yet,” he added, glancing toward the corner, where the poor old man was sitting, warming his shriveled hands by the cheerful fire, and muttering to himself blessings on “young mas’r.”

Supper had been delayed for Hugh, and as he took his seat at the table, he inquired after Adah.

“Pretty well when I left,” said his mother, adding that Lulu had been there since, and reported her as looking pale and worn, while Aunt Eunice seemed worried with Willie, who was inclined to be fretful.

“They need some one,” Hugh said. “Can’t you spare Lulu?”

Mrs. Worthington did not know, but ’Lina, to whom Lulu was a kind of waiting-maid, took the matter up, and said,

“Indeed they couldn’t. There was no one at Spring Bank more useful, and it was preposterous for Hugh to think of giving their best servant to Adah Hastings. Let her take care of her baby herself. She guessed it wouldn’t hurt her. Any way, they couldn’t afford to keep a servant for her.”

With a long drawn sigh, Hugh finished his supper, and was about lighting his cigar when he felt some one touching him, and turning round he saw that Sam had grasped his coat. The negro had heard the conversation, and drawn correct conclusions. His new master was not rich. He could not afford to buy him, and having bought him could not afford to keep him. There was a sigh in the old man’s heart, as he thought how useless he was, but when he heard about the baby, his spirits rose at once. In all the world there was nothing so precious to Sam as a little white child, with waxen hands to pat his old black face, and his work was found.

“Mas’r,” he whispered, “Sam kin take keer that baby. He knows how, and the little childrens in Georgy, whar I comed from, used to be mighty fond of Sam. I’ll tend to the young lady too. May I, Mas’r?”

Sam did not look much like Hugh’s ideas of a child’s nurse or a ladie’s waiting-maid, but necessity knows no choice, and thinking the old man might answer for Willie until something better offered, he replied,

“Perhaps you may. I will see to-morrow.”

Then, stepping to the door he called Claib, and bidding him show Sam where he was to sleep, repaired himself to his own cold chamber which seemed doubly comfortless and dreary from its contrast with the warm pleasant sitting-room where the selfish ’Lina, delighted at his absence, was again admiring the handsome silk, which Adah was to make.

CHAPTER XI.
SAM AND ADAH.

With heavy eyes and aching head Adah worked day after day upon the dress, which ’Lina had coaxed her to make, saying both to her and Aunt Eunice that, as she wished to surprise Hugh with a sight of herself in full array, they were not to tell him that the dress was new, but suffer him to think it the old pink silk which she was fixing.

“I hardly suppose he’d know the difference,” she said, “but if you can arrange it not to work when he is here, I wish you would.”

’Lina could be very gracious when she chose, and as she saw a way by which Adah might be useful to her, she chose to be so now, and treated the unsuspecting girl so kindly, that Adah promised to undertake the task, which proved a harder one than she had anticipated. Anxious to gratify ’Lina, and keep what she was doing a secret from Hugh, who came to the cottage often, she was obliged to work early and late, bending over the dress by the dim candle light, until her head seemed bursting with pain, and rings of fire danced before her eyes. She never would have succeeded but for Uncle Sam, who proved a most efficient member of the household, fitting in every niche and corner, until Aunt Eunice wondered how she had ever lived without him. Particularly did he attach himself to Willie, relieving Adah from all care, and thus enabling her to devote every spare moment to the party dress.

“You’s workin’ yourself to death,” he said to her, as late on Saturday night she sat bending to the tallow candle, her hair brushed back from her forehead and a purplish glow upon her cheek.

“I know I’m working too hard,” Adah replied, and leaning back in her chair she closed her eyes wearily, while Sam, gazing admiringly at her continued, “You ’minds me some of de young lady in Virginny. Has I ever tole you ’bout her?”

“No, who was she?” Adah said, and Sam replied,

“She’s what teached me the way to God. She took my dried-up-hand in dem little soft ones of hern, white as cotton bats, and lead me up to de narrow gap. She push me in and say, ‘Go on now, Sam. You’ve got in de right track, that leads to glory hallelujah.’ Didn’t word it just dem words, be sure, but that’s the heft of the meaning. I tell you Sam was mighty nigh as shipwrecked as dat Pollo somebody what Miss Ellis read about in the good book.”

“Miss who?” Adah asked, and Sam replied,

“Miss Ellis. I done forget de other name. Ellis they call her way down thar whar Sam was sold, when dat man with the big splot on his forerd steal me away and sell me in Virginny. Miss ever hearn tell o’ dat?”

“Big what?” Adah asked, and Sam replied, “Big scar or mark kinder purple, on his forrid, right clus to the har.”

Adah shuddered, for the one she knew as her guardian was marked in that way, and she asked Sam to tell her more of the man with the splot.

Delighted to tell the story which he never tired of telling, Sam, in his own peculiar dialect, related how four years before, a man calling himself Sullivan had appeared in the neighborhood of his former master’s plantation ingratiating himself into the good graces of the negroes and secretly offering to conduct any to the land of freedom who would put themselves under his protection.

“I had an idee,” Sam said, “that freedom was sweet as bumble bees’ honey and I hankered to get a taste, so me and two more fools steal away from the old cabin one rainy night, and go with Mas’r Sullivan, who strut round mighty big, with his three niggers, tellin’ us not to say one word ef we not want to be cotched. We thinks he’s takin’ a bee line for Canada, when fust we knows we’s in ole Virginny, and de villain not freein’ us at all. He sells us. Me he most give away, ’case I was old, and the mas’r who buy some like Mas’r Hugh, he sorry for ole shaky nigger. Sam tell him on his knees how he comed from Kaintuck, but Mas’r Sullivan say he bought ’em far, and that the right mas’r sell ’em sneakin like to save raisin a furse, and he show a bill of sale. They believe him spite of dis chile, and so Sam ’long to anodder mas’r.

“Mas’r Fitzhugh live on big plantation—and one day she comed, with great trunk, a visitin’. She’d been to school with Miss Mabel, Mas’r Fitzhugh’s daughter.

“They all think heap of Miss Ellis, and I hear de blacks tellin’ how she berry rich, and comed from way off thar whar white niggers live—Masser-something.”

“Massachusetts,” suggested Adah.

“Yes; that’s the very mas’r. I’se got mizzable memory, and I disremembers her last name. The folks call her Ellis, and the blacks Miss Ellis.”

“A queer name for a first one,” Adah thought, while Sam continued,

“She jest like a bright angel, in her white gownds and dem long curls, and Sam like her so much. She talk to Sam, too, and her voice so sweet, just like falling water when the moon is shining on it. Sam very sick, want to go home so much, and lie all day in his little cabin, when she come in, holdin’ up her skirts so dainty like, and set right down with me. Ki, wasn’t her little hand soft though when she put it on my head and said, ‘Poor Sam, Ellis is sorry.’ Sam cry berry much then; cry so loud Miss Mabel hear, and come in, tellin’ Miss Ellis, ‘Pooh he’s only homesick; says he was stole from Kentucky but papa don’t believe him. Do come out of this hole,’ but Miss Ellis not go. She say, ‘Then he needs comforting,’ and she do that very thing. She talk so good, she ax Sam all ’bout it, and Sam feel she b’lieve him. She promise to write to Mas’r Brown and tell him whar I is. I didn’t cry loud then—heart too full. I cry whimperin’ like, and she cry too. Then she tell me about God, and Sam listen, oh, listen so much, for that’s what he want to hear so long. Miss Nancy, in Kentuck, be one of them that reads her pra’rs o’ Sundays, and ole mas’r one that hollers ’em. Sam liked that way best, seemed like gettin’ along and make de Lord hear, but it don’t show Sam the way, and when the ministers come in, he listen, but them that reads and them that hollers only talk about High and Low—Jack and the Game, or something, Sam misremembers so bad; got mizzable memory. He only knows he not find the way, till Miss Ellis tell him of Jesus, once a man and always God. It’s very queer, but Sam believe it and then she sing, ‘Come unto me.’

“Oh, so fine, the very rafters hold their breff, and Sam find the way. Sam feel the hand she say was stretched out for him. He grasp it tight. He never let it go, never cease thankin’ God that ‘Come unto me’ mean just such an ole nigger as Sam, or that Miss Ellis was sent to him. She teach me ‘Our Father,’ and I say it every day, and I ’members her, too, and now I puts her and Mas’r Hugh in de same words. Seems ef they make good span, only Mas’r Hugh not so fixed up as she, but he’s good.”

“Where is Miss Ellis now?” Adah asked, and Sam replied,

“Gone home. Gone to Masser—what you say once—but not till letter come to her from Mas’r Brown, sayin’ Sam was stealed, and ’fore long Mas’r Brown come on hisself after me and the others. Miss Ellis so glad, and Mas’r Fitzhugh, too. Sam not much ’count, he say, and let me go easy, that’s the way I come home. Miss Ellis gived me five dollars and then ask what else. I look at her and say, ‘Sam wants a spear or two of yer shinin’ har’, and Miss Mabel takes shears and cut a little curl. I’se got ’em now. I never spend the money,” and from an old leathern wallet Sam drew a bill and a soft silken curl which he laid across Adah’s hand.

“And where is Sullivan?” asked Adah, a chill creeping over her as she remembered how about four years ago the man she called her guardian was absent for some time, and came back to her with colored hair and whiskers.

“Oh, he gone long before, nobody know whar. Sam b’lieves, though, he hear they cotch him, but misremembers, got such mizzable memory.”

“You said he had a mark?” Adah continued. And Sam replied, “Yes, queer mark,—must of been thar when he was borned, showd better when he’s cussin mad. You ever seen him?”

“I do not know,” and Adah half groaned aloud at the sad memories which Sam’s story had awakened within her.

She could scarcely doubt that Sullivan the negro-stealer, and Redfield, her guardian, were the same, but where was he now, and why had he treated her so treacherously, when he had always seemed so kind? Why did everybody desert her? What had she done to deserve so sad a fate? All the old bitter anguish was welling up again, and desirous of being alone, she bade Sam leave her as it was growing late.

“Miss Adah prays,” the old man answered, “Won’t she say Our Father with Sam?”

Adah could not refuse, and falling on her knees she joined her voice with that of Sam’s in that most beautiful of all prayers—the one our Saviour taught. Sam did not know it correctly, but God heard him all the same; heard too, the strangely-worded petition that “He would bless Mas’r Hugh, Miss Ellis, and Miss Adah, and fotch ’em all right some time.”

Surely Hugh’s sleep was sweeter that night for the prayer breathed by the lowly negro, and even the wild tumult in Adah’s heart was hushed by Sam’s simple childlike faith that God would bring all right at last.

Early on Monday afternoon ’Lina, taking advantage of Hugh’s absence, came over for her dress, finding much fault, and requiring some of the work to be done twice ere it suited her. Without a murmur Adah obeyed, but when the last stitch was taken and the party dress was gone, her overtaxed frame gave way, and Sam himself helped her to her bed, where she lay moaning, with the blinding pain in her head, which increased so fast that she scarcely saw the tempting little supper which Aunt Eunice brought, asking her to eat. Of one thing, however, she was conscious, and that of the dark form bending over her pillow and whispering soothingly the passage which had once brought Heaven to him, “Come unto me, and I will give you rest.”

Dear old Sam! there was a world of kindness in his breast, and if he could he would gladly have taken Adah’s suffering upon himself.

The night had closed in dark and stormy, and the wintry rain beat against the windows; but for this he did not hesitate a moment when at midnight Aunt Eunice, alarmed at Adah’s rapidly increasing fever, asked if he could find his way to Spring Bank, and in a few moments the old, shriveled form was out in the darkness, groping its way over the fences, and through the pitfalls, stumbling often, and losing his hat past recovery, so that the snowy hair was dripping wet when Spring Bank was reached and he stood upon the porch.

In much alarm Hugh dressed himself and hastened to the cottage. But Adah did not know him and only talked of dresses and parties, and George, whom she begged to come back and restore her good name. The dresses and the party were enigmas to Hugh, and as Aunt Eunice kept silent for fear of his wrath, he gathered nothing from Sam’s muttered jumble about, “working herself blind for Miss ’Lina over dar.” He knew she must have medical advice, and giving a few directions to Aunt Eunice he went himself for the family physician and then returned to Spring Bank in quest of his mother, who, he was sure, would not hesitate to brave the storm for Adah’s sake.

CHAPTER XII.
WHAT FOLLOWED.

There was a bright light in the sitting-room, and through the half-closed shutters Hugh caught glimpses of a blazing fire. ’Lina had come home, and half wishing she had staid a little longer, Hugh entered the room, starting with an exclamation of surprise at the sight which met his view. Divested of her gorgeous apparel, her ample dimensions considerably reduced, and her face indicative of her feelings, ’Lina stood upon the hearth, wringing her long black hair, which hung loosely about her shoulders, while her mother bent with deep concern over the mud-bespattered, ruined dress, which had cost so much.

Poor ’Lina! The party had proved a most unsatisfactory affair. She had not made the sensation she expected to make. Harney had scarcely noticed her at all, having neither eyes nor ears for any one save Ellen Tiffton, who surely must have told that Hugh was not invited, for, in no other way could ’Lina account for the remark she heard touching her want of heart in failing to resent a brother’s insult. Added to this, it was very annoying to be quizzed, as she was, concerning Adah, of whom everybody seemed resolved to talk. In the most unenviable of moods, ’Lina left at an early hour, and though Harney did accompany her to the carriage, saying something about being sorry that she should go so soon when he meant to see more of her, it did not atone for his past neglect or for his holding the umbrella so that the little greenish streams of water dripped directly down her back, making her fidget with terror lest her rose-colored dress should be soiled. Coolly bidding him good night, she bade Cæsar drive carefully, as it was very dark, and the rain was almost blinding, so rapidly it fell.

“Ye-es, Mis-s, Cæs—he—he done been to party ’fore now. Git ’long dar, Sorrel,” hiccoughed the negro, who, in Colonel Tiffton’s kitchen had indulged rather too freely to insure the safety of his mistress.

Still the horses knew the road, and kept it until they left the main highway and turned into the fields. Even then they would probably have made their way in safety, had not their drunken driver persisted in turning them into a road which led directly through the deepest part of the creek, swollen now by the melted snow and the vast amount of rain which had fallen since the sun-setting. Not knowing they were wrong, ’Lina did not dream of danger until she heard Cæsar’s cry of “Who’a dar, Sorrel. Git up, Henry. Dat’s nothin’ but de creek,” while a violent lurch of the carriage sent her to the opposite side from where she had been sitting.

“What is the matter, Cæsar? Where are we?” she screamed, as she heard the waters splashing almost against the windows.

“Lor’, Miss, I do’ know whar we is, ’cept we’re in the river. I never seen no creek so high as this,” was the frightened negro’s answer as he tried to extricate the noble brutes floundering in the stream and struggling to reach the opposite bank.

A few mad plunges, another wrench, which pitched ’Lina headlong against the window, and the steep, shelving bank was reached, but in endeavoring to climb it the carriage was upset, and ’Lina found herself in pitchy darkness, her mouth and nostrils filled with the soft mud, which, at first, prevented her screaming, and herself wet to her neck with the rushing water. Perfectly sobered now, Cæsar extricated her as soon as possible, and carrying her up the bank placed her upon her feet beneath a tree, whose leafless branches but poorly shielded her from the rain. The carriage was broken—one wheel was off entirely, he said, and thus there was no alternative save for ’Lina to walk the remaining distance home. It was not far, for the scene of the disaster was within sight of Spring Bank, but to ’Lina, bedraggled with mud and wet to the skin, it seemed an interminable distance, and her strength was giving out just as she reached the piazza, and called on her mother for help, sobbing hysterically as she repeated her story, but dwelling most upon her ruined dress.

“What will Hugh say? It was not paid for either. Oh dear, I most wish I was dead!” she moaned, as her mother removed one by one the saturated garments.

The sight of Hugh called forth her grief afresh, and forgetful of her dishabille, she staggered toward him, and impulsively winding her arms around his neck sobbed out,

“Oh, Hugh, I’ve had such a doleful time. I’ve been in the creek, the carriage is broken, the horses are lamed, Cæsar is drunk, and—and—oh, Hugh, I’ve spoiled my dress!”

The last came gaspingly, as if this were the straw too many, the crowning climax of the whole, the loss which ’Lina most deplored. Surely here was a list of disasters for which Hugh, with his other trouble, was not prepared. But amid it all there was a glimmer of light, and Hugh’s great, warm heart seized it eagerly. ’Lina’s arms were round his neck, ’Lina’s tears were on his cheek, ’Lina herself had turned to him for comfort, and he would not withhold it. Laughing merrily he held her off at a little distance, likening her to a mermaid fresh from the sea, and succeeding at last in quieting her until she could give a more concise account of the catastrophe.

“Never mind the dress,” he said, good humoredly, as she kept recurring to that. “It isn’t as if it were new. An old thing is never so valuable.”

“Yes; but, Hugh—you don’t know—oh, dear, dear,” and ’Lina, who had meant to tell the whole, broke down again, while Hugh rejoined,

“Of course I don’t know—just how a girl feels to spoil a pretty dress, but I wouldn’t cry so hard. You shall have another some time,” and in his generous heart the thought arose, that the first money he got should be appropriated to the purchase of a new dress in place of the one whose loss ’Lina so loudly bewailed.

It was impossible now for Mrs. Worthington to accompany Hugh to the cottage, so he returned alone, while ’Lina, with aching head and shivering limbs, crept into bed, crying herself to sleep, and waking in the morning with a burning fever, scarcely less severe than that raging in Adah Hastings’ veins.

During the gloomy weeks which followed, Hugh’s heart and hands were full, inclination tempting him to stay by Adah, and stern duty, bidding him keep with ’Lina, who, strange to say, was always more quiet when he was near taking readily from him the medicine refused when offered by her mother. Day after day, week after week, Hugh watched alternately at their bedsides, and those who came to offer help felt their hearts glow with admiration for the worn, haggard man, whose character they had so mistaken, never dreaming what depths of patient, all-enduring tenderness were hidden beneath his rough exterior. Even Ellen Tiffton was softened, and forgetting the Ladies Fair, rode daily over to Spring Bank, ostensibly to inquire after ’Lina, but really to speak a kindly word to Hugh, to whom she felt she had done a wrong. How long these fevers ran, and Hugh began to fear that ’Lina’s never would abate, sorrowing much for the harsh words which passed between them, wishing they had been unsaid, for he would rather than none but pleasant memories should be left to him of his only sister. But ’Lina did not die, and as her disease had from the first assumed a far more violent form than Adah’s, so it was the first to yield, and February found her convalescent. With Adah it was different, and the neighbors grew tired of asking how she was and receiving always the same doubtful answer. But there came a change, a morning when she awoke from the deathlike stupor which had clouded her faculties so long, and the attending physician said to Hugh that his services would be needed but a little longer. There was joy at the cottage then, old Uncle Sam stealing away to his accustomed place of prayer down by the Willow Spring, where he so oft had asked that Miss Adah might be spared, and where now he knelt to thank the God who had restored her. Joy at Spring Bank, too, when Mrs. Worthington wept tears almost as joyful as any she had shed when told that ’Lina would live. Joy, too, unobtrusive joy in Hugh’s heart, a joy which would not be clouded by thoughts of the heavy bills which he must meet ere long. Physicians’ bills, together with that of Harney’s yet unpaid, for Harney, villain though he was, would not present it when Hugh was full of trouble; but the hour was coming when it must be settled, and Hugh at last received a note, couched in courteous terms, but urging immediate payment.

“I’ll see him to-day. I’ll know the worst at once,” he said, and mounting Rocket, he dashed down the Frankfort turnpike, and was soon closeted with Harney.

CHAPTER XIII.
HOW HUGH PAID HIS DEBTS.

The perspiration was standing in great drops about Hugh’s quivering lips, and his face was white as ashes, as, near the close of that interview, he hoarsely asked,

“Do I understand you, sir, that Rocket will cancel this debt and leave you my debtor for one hundred dollars?”

“Yes, that was my offer, and a most generous one, too, considering how little horses are bringing,” and Harney smiled villainously as he thought within himself, “Easier to manage than I supposed. I believe my soul I offered too much. I should have made it an even thing.”

He did not know Hugh Worthington, or dream of the volcano pent up beneath that calm exterior. Hugh had demurred to the fifty-dollar silk as a mistake, and when convinced that it was not, his wrath had known no bounds. Forgetting Golden Hair he had sworn so roundly that even Harney cowered before the storm; but that was over now, and ashamed of his passion, Hugh was making a strong effort to meet his fate like a man. Step by step as he knew so well how to do, Harney had reached the point of which for more than a year he had never lost sight.

“If Mr. Worthington had not the ready money, and, in these hard times, it was natural to suppose he had not, why then he would, as an accommodation, take Rocket, paying one hundred dollars extra, and Hugh’s debt would be cancelled.”

Hugh knew how long this plan had been premeditated, and his blood boiled madly when he heard it suggested, as if that moment had given it birth. Still he restrained himself, and asked the question we have recorded, adding after Harney’s reply,

“And suppose I do not care to part with Rocket?”

Harney winced a little, but answered carelessly,

“Money, of course, is just as good. You know how long I’ve waited. Few would have done as well.”

Yes, Hugh knew that, but Rocket was as dear to him as his right eye, and he would almost as soon have plucked out the one as sold the other.

“I have not the money,” he said frankly, “and I cannot part with Rocket. Is there nothing else? I’ll give a mortgage on Spring Bank.”

Harney did not care for a mortgage, but there was something else, and the rascally face brightened, as, stepping back, while he made the proposition, he faintly suggested “Lulu.” He would give a thousand dollars for her, and Hugh could keep his horse. For a moment the two young men regarded each other intently, Hugh’s eyes flashing gleams of fire, and his whole face expressive of the contempt he felt for the wretch who cowed at last beneath the look, and turned away muttering that “he saw nothing so very heinous in wishing to purchase a nigger wench.”

Then, changing his tone to one of defiance, he added,

“You’ll be obliged to part with her yet, Hugh Worthington. I know how you are straitened and how much you think of her. You may not have another so good a chance to provide her with a kind master. Surely, you should be satisfied with that fair-haired New York damsel, and let me have the nigger.”

Harney tried to smile, but the laugh died on his lips, as, springing to his feet, Hugh, with one blow, felled him to the floor, exclaiming,

“Thus do I resent the insult offered to Adah Hastings, as pure and true a woman as your own sister. Villain!” and he shook fiercely his prostrate foe struggling to rise.

Some men are decidedly better for being knocked down, and Harney was one of them. Feminine in figure and cowardly in disposition, he knew he was no match for the broad, athletic Hugh, and shaking down his pants when permitted to stand upright, he muttered something about “hearing from him again.” Then, as the sight of the unpaid bill brought back to his mind the cause of his present unpleasant predicament he returned to the attack, by saying,

“Since you are not inclined to part with either of your pets, you’ll oblige me with the money, and before to-morrow night. You understand me, I presume?”

“I do,” and bowing haughtily, Hugh passed through the open door.

In a kind of desperation he mounted Rocket, and dashed out of town at a speed which made more than one look after him, wondering what cause there was for his headlong haste. A few miles from the city he slacked his speed, and dismounting by a running brook, sat down to think. The price offered for Lulu would set him free from every pressing debt, and leave a large surplus, but not for a moment did he hesitate.

“I’d lead her out and shoot her through the heart, before I’d do that,” he said.

Then turning to the noble animal cropping the grass beside him, he wound his arms around his neck, and tried to imagine how it would seem to know the stall at home was empty, and Rocket gone. He could not sell him, he said, as he looked into the creature’s eyes, meeting there an expression almost human, as Rocket rubbed his nose against his sleeve, and uttered a peculiar sound.

“If I could pawn him,” he thought, just as the sound of wheels was heard, and he saw old Colonel Tiffton driving down the turnpike.

Stopping suddenly as he caught sight of Hugh, the colonel called out cheerily, “How d’ye, young man? What are you doing there by the brook? Huggin’ your horse, as I live! Well, I don’t wonder. That’s a fine nag of yours. My Nell is nigh about crazy for me to buy him. What’ll you take?”

Hugh knew he could trust the colonel, and after a moment’s hesitation told of his embarrassments, and asked the loan of five hundred dollars, offering Rocket as security, with the privilege of redeeming him in a year. Hugh’s chin quivered, and the arm thrown across Rocket’s neck pressed more tightly as he made this offer. Every change in the expression of his face was noted by the colonel, and interpreted with considerable accuracy. He had always liked Hugh. There was something in his straight-forward manner which pleased him, and when he learned why he was not at his daughter’s birth-day party, he had raised a most uncomfortable breeze about the capricious Nellie’s ears, declaring she should apologize, but forgetting to insist upon it as he at first meant to do.

“You ask a steep sum,” he said, crossing one fat limb over the other and snapping his whip at Rocket, who eyed him askance. “Pretty steep sum, but I take it, you are in a tight spot and don’t know what else to do. Got too many hangers on. There’s Aunt Eunice—you can’t help her, to be sure, nor your mother, nor your sister, though I’d break her neck before I’d let her run me into debt. Your bill at Harney’s, I know, is most all of her contracting, though you don’t tell me so, and I respect you for it. She’s your sister—blood kin. But that girl in the snow bank—I’ll be hanged if that was ever made quite clear to me.”

“It is to me, and that is sufficient,” Hugh answered haughtily, while the old colonel laughingly replied,

“Good grit, Hugh. I like you for that. In short, I like you for every thing, and that’s why I was sorry about that New York lady. You see, it may stand in the way of your getting a wife by and by, that’s all.”

“I shall never marry,” Hugh answered, moodily, kicking at a decaying stump, and involuntarily thinking of the Golden Haired.

“No?” the colonel replied, interrogatively. “Well there ain’t many good enough for you, that’s a fact; there ain’t many girls good for any body. I never saw but one except my Nell, that was worth a picayune, and that was Alice Johnson.”

“Who? Who did you say?” And Hugh grew white as marble, while a strange light gleamed in the dark eyes fastened so eagerly upon the colonel’s face.

Fortunately for him the colonel was too much absorbed in dislodging a fly from the back of his horse to notice his agitation; but he heard the question and replied, “I said Alice Johnson, twentieth cousin of mine—blast that fly!—lives in Massachusetts; splendid girl—hang it all, can’t I hit him?—I was there two years ago. Never saw a girl that made my mouth water as she did. Most too pious, though, to suit me. Wouldn’t read a newspaper Sunday, when that’s the very day I take to read ’em—there, I’ve killed him.” And well satisfied with the achievement, the old colonel put up his whip, never dreaming of the effect that name had produced on Hugh, whose heart gave one great throb of hope, and then grew heavy and sad as he thought how impossible it was that the Alice Johnson the colonel knew, could be the Golden Haired.

“There are fifty by that name, no doubt,” he said, “and if there were not, she is dead. But oh, if it could be that she were living, that somewhere I could find her.”

There was a mist before Hugh’s vision, and the arm encircling Rocket’s neck clung there now for support, so weak and faint he grew. He dared not question the colonel farther, and was only too glad when the latter came back to their starting point and said, “If I understand you, I can have Rocket for five hundred dollars, provided I let you redeem him within a year. Now that’s equivalent to my lending you five hundred dollars out and out. I see, but seeing it’s you, I reckon I’ll have to do it. As luck will have it, I was going down to Frankfort this very day to put some money in the bank, and if you say so, we’ll clinch the bargain at once;” and taking out his leathern wallet, the colonel began to count the required amount.

Alice Johnson was forgotten in that moment of painful indecision, when Hugh felt as if his very life was dying out.

“Oh, I can’t let Rocket go,” he thought, bowing his face upon the animal’s graceful neck. Then chiding himself as weak, he lifted up his head and said: “I’ll take the money. Rocket is yours.”

The last words were like a smothered sob; and the generous old man hesitated a moment. But Hugh was in earnest. His debts must be paid, and five hundred dollars would do it.

“I’ll bring him round to-morrow. Will that be time enough?” he asked, as he rolled up the bills.

“Yes,” the colonel replied, while Hugh continued entreatingly, “and, colonel, you’ll be kind to Rocket. He’s never been struck a blow since he was broken to the saddle. He wouldn’t know what it meant.”

“Oh, yes, I see—Rarey’s method. Now I never could make that work. Have to lick ’em sometimes, but I’ll remember Rocket. Good day,” and gathering up his reins Col. Tiffton rode slowly away, leaving Hugh in a maze of bewilderment.

That name still rang in his ears, and he repeated it again and again, each time assuring himself how impossible it was that it should be she—the only she to him in all the world. And supposing it were, what did it matter? What good could her existence do him? She would despise him now—no position, no name, no money, no Rocket, and here he paused, for above all thoughts of the Golden Haired towered the terrible one that Rocket was his no longer—that the evil he most dreaded had come upon him. “But I’ll meet it like a man,” he said, and springing into his saddle he rode back to Frankfort and dismounted at Harney’s door.

In dogged silence Harney received the money, gave his receipt, and then, without a word, watched Hugh as he rode again from town, muttering to himself, “I shall remember that he knocked me down, and some time I’ll repay it.”

It was dark when Hugh reach home, his lowering brow and flashing eyes indicating the fierce storm which was gathering, and which burst the moment he entered the room where ’Lina was sitting. In tones which made even her tremble he accused her of her treachery, pouring forth such a torrent of wrath that his mother urged him to stop, for her sake if no other. She could always quiet Hugh, and he calmed down at once, hurling but one more missile at his sister, and that in the shape of Rocket, who, he said, was sold for her extravagance.

’Lina was proud of Rocket, and the knowledge that he was sold touched her far more than all Hugh’s angry words. But her tears were of no avail; the deed was done, and on the morrow Hugh, with an unflinching hand, led his idol from the stable and rode rapidly across the fields, leading another horse which was to bring him home.

Gloomily the next morning broke, and at rather a late hour for him, Hugh, with a heavy sigh, had raised himself upon his elbow, wondering if it were a dream, or if during the night he had really heard Rocket’s familiar tramp upon the lawn, when Lulu came running up the stairs; exclaiming, joyfully,

“He’s done come home, Rocket has. He’s at the kitchen door.”

It was as Lulu said, for the homesick brute, suspecting something wrong, had broken from his fastenings, and bursting the stable door had come back to Spring Bank, his halter dangling about his neck, and himself looking very defiant, as if he were not again to be coaxed away. At sight of Hugh he uttered a sound of joy, and bounding forward planted both feet within the door ere Hugh had time to reach it.

“Thar’s the old colonel now,” whispered Claib, just as the colonel appeared to claim his runaway.

But Rocket kept them all at bay, snapping, striking, and kicking at every one who ventured to approach him. With compressed lip and moody face Hugh watched the proceeding for a time, now laughing at the frightened negroes hiding behind the lye leach to escape the range of Rocket’s heels, and again groaning mentally as he met the half human look of Rocket’s eyes turned to him as if for aid. At last rising from the spot where he had been sitting he gave the whistle which Rocket always obeyed, and in an instant the sagacious animal was at his side, trying to lick the hands which would not suffer the caress lest his courage should give way.

“I’ll take him home myself,” he said to the old colonel, emerging from his hiding place behind the leach, and bidding Claib follow with another horse, Hugh went a second time to Colonel Tiffton’s farm.

Leading Rocket into the stable he fastened him to the stall, and then with his arms around his neck talked to him as if he had been a refractory, disobedient child. We do not say he was understood, but after one long, despairing cry, which rang in Hugh’s ears for many a day and night, Rocket submitted to his fate, and staid quietly with the colonel, who petted him if possible more than Hugh had done, without, however, receiving from him the slightest token of affection in return.

CHAPTER XIV.
MRS. JOHNSON’S LETTER.

The spring had passed away, and the warm June sun was shining over Spring Bank, whose mistress and servants were very lonely, for Hugh was absent, and with him the light of the house had departed. Business of his late uncle’s had taken him to New Orleans, where he might possibly remain all summer. ’Lina was glad, for since the fatal dress affair there had been but little harmony between herself and her brother. The tenderness awakened by her long illness seemed to have been forgotten, and Hugh’s manner toward her was cold and irritating to the last degree, so that the young lady rejoiced to be freed from his presence.

“I do hope he’ll stay,” she said one morning, when speaking of him to her mother. “I think it’s a heap nicer without him, though dull enough at the best. I wish we could go to some watering place. There’s the Tifftons just returned from New York, and I don’t much believe they can afford it more than we, for I heard their place was mortgaged to Harney. Oh, bother, to be so poor,” and the young lady gave a little angry jerk at the hair she was braiding.

“Whar’s ole miss?” asked Claib, who had just returned from Versailles. “Thar’s a letter for her,” and depositing it upon the bureau, he left the room.

“Whose writing is that?” ’Lina said, catching it up and examining the postmark. “Ho, mother! here’s a letter in a strange handwriting. Shall I open it?” she called, and ere her mother could reply, she had broken the seal, and held in her hand the draft which made her the heiress of one thousand dollars.

Had the fabled godmother of Cinderilla appeared to her suddenly, she would scarcely have been more bewildered.

“Mother,” she screamed again, reading aloud the ‘Pay to the order of Adaline Worthington,’ etc. “What does it mean, and who could have sent it? Isn’t it splendid! Who is Alice Johnson? Oh, I know, that old friend of yours, who came to see you once when I was gone. What does she say? ‘My dear Eliza, feeling that I have not long to live—’ What—dead? Well, I’m sorry for that, but, I must say, she did a very sensible thing sending me a thousand dollars. We’ll go somewhere now, won’t we?” and clutching fast the draft, the heartless girl yielded the letter to her mother, who with blanched cheek and quivering lip read the last message of her friend; then burying her face in her hands she sobbed as the past came back to her, when the Alice now forever at rest and herself were girls together.

’Lina stood a moment, wishing her mother had not cried, as it made it very awkward—then, for want of something better to do took up the letter her mother had dropped and read it through, commenting as she read. “Wants you to take her daughter Alice. Is the woman crazy? And her nurse, Densie Densmore. Say, mother, you’ve cried enough, let’s talk the matter over. Shall you let Alice come? Ten dollars a week, they’ll pay. Five hundred and twenty dollars a year. Whew! We are rich as Jews. It won’t cost half that sum to keep them. Our ship is really coming in.”

By this time Mrs. Worthington was able to talk of a matter which had apparently so delighted ’Lina. Her first remark, however, was not very pleasing to the young lady.

“As far as I am concerned I would willingly give Alice a home, but it’s not for me to say. Hugh alone can decide it. We must write to him.”

“You know he’ll refuse,” was ’Lina’s angry reply. “He hates young ladies. So if it hangs on his decision, you may as well save your postage stamp to New Orleans, and write at once to Miss Johnson that she cannot come, on account of a boorish clown.”

“’Lina,” feebly interposed Mrs. Worthington, feeling how inefficient she was to cope with ’Lina’s stronger will. “Lina, we must write to Hugh.”

“Mother, you shall not,” and ’Lina spoke determinedly. “I’ll send an answer to this letter myself, this very day. I will not suffer the chance to be thrown away. Hugh may swear a little at first, but he’ll get over it.”

“Hugh never swears,” and Mrs. Worthington spoke up at once.

“He don’t, hey? Maybe you’ve forgotten when he came home from Frankfort, that time he heard about my dress. As old Sam says, ‘I’ve got a mizzable memory, but I have a very distinct recollection that oaths were thick as hail stones. Didn’t his eyes blaze though!’”

“I know he swore then; but he never has since, I’m sure, and I think he is better, gentler, more refined than he used to be, since—since—Adah came.”

A contemptuous “pshaw!” came from ’Lina’s lips, and then she proceeded to speak of Alice Johnson, asking for her family. Were they the F. F. V.’s of Boston? and so forth.

To this Mrs. Worthington gave a decided affirmative; repeating to her daughter many things which Mrs. Johnson had herself told Alice in that sad interview when she lay on her sick bed with Alice sobbing near.

So far as she was concerned, Alice Johnson was welcome to Spring Bank; but justice demanded that Hugh should be consulted ere an answer were returned. ’Lina, however, overruled her arguments as she always did, and with a sigh she yielded the point, hoping there would be some way by which Hugh might be appeased.

“Now let us talk a little about the thousand dollars,” ’Lina said, for already the money was beginning to burn in her hands.

“I’m going to Saratoga, and you are going, too. We’ll have heaps of dresses. We’ll take Lu, for a waiting-maid. That will be sure to make a sensation at the North. ‘Mrs. Worthington, daughter, and colored servant, Spring Bank, Kentucky.’ I can almost see that on the clerk’s books. Then I can manage to let it be known that I’m an heiress, as I am. We needn’t tell that it’s only a thousand dollars, most of which I have on my back, and maybe I’ll come home Adaline somebody else. There are always splendid matches at Saratoga. We’ll go north the middle of July, just three weeks from now.”

’Lina had talked so fist that Mrs. Worthington had been unable to put in a word; but it did not matter. ’Lina was invulnerable to all she could say. She’d go to town that very day and make her purchases. Miss Allis, of course, must be consulted for some of her dresses, while Adah could make the rest. With regard to Miss Alice, they would write to her at once, telling her she was welcome to Spring Bank, and also informing her of their intentions to come north immediately. She could join them at Saratoga, or, if she preferred, could remain at Snowdon until they returned home in the autumn.

’Lina’s decision with regard to their future movements had been made so rapidly and so determinedly, that Mrs. Worthington had scarcely ventured to expostulate, and the few remonstrances she did advance produced no impression. ’Lina wrote to Alice Johnson that morning, went to Frankfort that afternoon, to Versailles and Lexington the next day, and on the morning of the third, after the receipt of Mrs. Johnson’s letter, Spring Bank presented the appearance of one vast show-room, so full of silks, and muslins, and tissues, and flowers, and ribbons, and laces, while amidst it all, in a maze of perplexity as to what was required of her, or where first to commence, sat Adah, who had come at ’Lina’s bidding.

Womanlike, the sight of ’Lina’s dresses awoke in Adah a thrill of delight, and she entered heartily into the matter without a single feeling of envy.

“I’s goin’, too. Did you know that?” Lulu said to her, as she sat bending over a cloud of lace and soft blue silk.

“You? For what?” and Adah lifted her brown eyes inquiringly.

“Oh, goin’ to wait on ’em. It’s grand to have a nigger and Miss ’Lina keeps trainin’ me how to act and what to say. I ain’t to tell how mean Spring Bank is furnished, nor how poor master Hugh is. Nothin’ of the kind. We’re to be fust cut. Oh, so nice, Miss ’Lina an, Airey, and when we get home, if I does well, I’m to hev that gownd, all mud, what Miss ’Lina wared to the Tiffton party, whew!” and in the mischievous glance of Lulu’s saucy eyes, Adah read that the quick-witted negro was not in the least deceived with regard to the “Airey,” as she called Miss ’Lina.

Half amused at Lulu’s remarks and half sorry that she had listened to them, Adah resumed her work, just as ’Lina appeared, saying to her, “Here is Miss Tiffton’s square-necked bertha. She’s just got home from New York, and says they are all the fashion. You are to cut me a pattern. There’s a paper, the Louisville Journal, I guess, but nobody reads it, now Hugh is gone,” and with a few more general directions, ’Lina hurried away, having first tossed into Adah’s lap the paper containing Anna Richards’ advertisement.

In spite of the doctor’s predictions and consignment of that girl to Georgia, or some warmer place, it had reached her at last. The compositor had wondered at its wording, a few casual readers had wondered at it, too—a western editor, laughing jocosely at its “married or unfortunate woman with a child a few months old,” had copied it into his columns, thus attracting the attention of his more south-western neighbor, who had thought it too good to lose and so given it to his readers with sundry remarks of his own. But through all its many changes, Adah’s God had watched it, and brought it around to her. She did not see it at first, but just as her scissors were raised to cut the pattern, her eyes fell on the spot headed, “A curious advertisement,” and suspending her operations for a moment, she read it through, a feeling rising in her heart that it was surely an answer to her own advertisement sent forth months ago, with tearful prayers that it might be successful. She did not know that “A. E. R.” meant it for her, and no one else. She only felt that at Terrace Hall there was a place for her, a home where she would no longer be dependent on Hugh, whose straits she understood perfectly well, knowing why Rocket was sold, and how it hurt his master to sell him. Oh, if she only could redeem him, no toil, no weariness would be too great; but she never could, even if “A. E. R.” should take her—the pay would be so small that Rocket would be old and worthless ere she could earn five hundred dollars; but she could do something toward it, and her heart grew light and happy as she thought how surprised Hugh would be to receive a letter containing money earned by the feeble Adah, to whom he had been so kind.

Adah was a famous castle-builder, and she went on rearing castle after castle, until ’Lina came back again and taking a seat beside her, began to talk so familiarly and pleasantly that Adah felt emboldened to tell her of the advertisement and her intention to answer it. Averse as ’Lina had at first been to Adah’s remaining at Spring Bank, she now saw a channel through which she could be made very useful, and would far rather that she should remain. So she opposed the plan, urging so many arguments against it that Adah began to think the idea a foolish one, and with a sigh dismissed it from her mind until another time, when she might give it more consideration.

That afternoon Ellen Tiffton rode over to see ’Lina, who told her of Alice Johnson, whom they were expecting.

“Alice Johnson,” Ellen repeated; “why, that’s the girl father says so much about. Fortieth or fiftieth cousin. He was at their house in Boston a few years ago, and when he came home he annoyed me terribly by quoting Alice continually, and comparing me with her. Of course I fell in the scale, for there was nothing like Alice, Alice—so beautiful, so refined, so sweet, so amiable, so religious.”

“Religious!” and ’Lina laughed scornfully. “Adah pretends to be religious, too, and so does Sam, while Alice will make three. Pleasant prospects ahead. I wonder if she’s the blue kind—thinks dancing wicked, and all that.”

Ellen could not tell. She only knew what her father said; but she did not fancy Miss Alice to be more morose or gloomy—at all events she would gladly have her for a companion, and she thought it queer that Mrs. Johnson should send her to a stranger, as it were, when they would have been so glad to receive her. “Pa won’t like it a bit, I know, and I quite envy you,” she said, as she took her leave, her remarks raising Alice largely in ’Lina’s estimation, and making her not a little proud that Spring Bank had been selected as Miss Johnson’s home.

One week later, and there came a letter from Alice herself saying that at present she was stopping in Boston with her guardian, Mr. Liston, who had rented the cottage in Snowdon, but that she would meet Mrs. Worthington and daughter at Saratoga. Of course she did not now feel like mingling in gay society, and should consequently go to the Columbian, where she could be comparatively quiet but this need not interfere with their arrangements, as they could see each other often.

The same day also brought a letter from Hugh, making many kind inquiries after them all, saying his business was turning out better than he expected, and enclosing forty dollars, fifteen of which, he said, was for Adah, and the rest for Ad, as a peace offering for the harsh things he had said to her. Hugh’s conscience when away was always troubling him with regard to ’Lina, and knowing that money with her would atone for a score of sins, he had felt so happy in sending it, giving her the most because he had sinned against her the most. Once the thought suggested itself that possibly she might keep the whole, but he repudiated it at once as a base slander upon ’Lina.

Alas, he little suspected the treachery of which she was capable. As a taste of blood makes wild beasts thirst for more, so Mrs. Johnson’s legacy had made ’Lina greedy for gold, and the sight of the smooth paper bills sent to her by Hugh, awoke her avaricious passions. Forty dollars was just the price of a superb pearl bracelet in Lexington, and if Hugh had only sent it all to her instead of a part to Adah! What did Adah want of money, any way, living there in the cornfield, and seeing nobody? Besides that, hadn’t she just paid her three dollars, and a muslin dress, and was that not enough for a girl in her circumstances? Nobody would be the wiser if she kept the whole, for her mother was not present when Claib brought the letter. She’d never know they’d heard from Hugh; and on the whole she believed she’d keep it, and so she went to Lexington next day in quest of the bracelet, which was pronounced beautiful by the unsuspecting Adah, who never dreamed that her money had helped to pay for it. Truly ’Lina was heaping up against herself a dark catalogue of sin to be avenged some day, but the time was not yet.

Thus far every thing went swimmingly. The dresses fitted admirably, and nothing could exceed the care with which they had been packed. Her mother no longer annoyed her about Hugh. Lulu was quite well posted with regard to her duty. Ellen Tiffton had lent her quizzing-glass and several ornaments, while Irving Stanley, grand-nephew like Hugh, to Uncle John, was to be at Saratoga, so ’Lina incidentally heard, and as there was a kind of relationship between them, he would of course notice her more or less, and from all accounts, to be noticed by him was a thing to be desired.

Thus it was in the best of humors that ’Lina tripped from Spring Bank door one pleasant July morning, and was driven with her mother and Lulu to Lexington, where they intended taking the evening train for Cincinnati.

CHAPTER XV.
SARATOGA.

“Mrs. Worthington, daughter, and, colored servant. Spring Bank, Ky.”

“Dr. John Richards and mother, New York City.”

“Irving Stanley, Esq., Baltimore.”

These were the last entries made by the clerk at Union Hall, which was so crowded, that for the new comers no rooms were found except the small, uncomfortable ones far up in the fourth story of the Ainsworth block, and thither, in not the most amiable mood, ’Lina followed her trunks, and was followed in turn by her mother and Lulu, the crowd whom they passed deciphering the name upon the trunks and whispering to each other, “From Spring Bank, Kentucky. Haughty looking girl, wasn’t she?”

From his little twelve by ten apartment, where the summer sun was pouring in a perfect blaze of heat, Dr. Richards saw them pass, and after wondering who they were, gave them no farther thought, but sat jamming his pen-knife into the old worm-eaten table, and thinking savage thoughts against that capricious lady, Fortune, who had compelled him to come to Saratoga, where rich wives were supposed to be had for the asking. Too late he had discovered the ruse imposed on him by Mr. Liston—had discovered that Alice was the heiress of more than $50,000, and following the discovery came the mortifying knowledge that not one dime of it would probably ever be used for defraying his personal expenses. Alice had learned how purely sordid and selfish was the man whom she had thought so misunderstood by the Snowdonites, and in Dr. Richard’s vest pocket there lay at this very moment a note, the meaning of which was that Alice Johnson declined the honor of becoming his wife. They would still be friends, she said; would meet as if nothing had occurred, but she could not be his wife. This it was which had brought him to Saratoga, indignant, mortified and desperate. There were other heiresses beside Alice Johnson—others less fastidious; and he could find them, too. Love was out of the question, as that had died with poor Lily, so that now he was ready for the first chance that offered, provided that chance possessed a certain style, and was tolerably good-looking. He did not see ’Lina at all, for she had passed the door before he looked up, so he only saw the mother, with Lulu trudging obediently behind, and hearing them enter the room, returned to his cogitations.

From his pleasanter, airier apartment, on the other side of the narrow hall, Irving Stanley looked through his golden glasses, pitying the poor ladies condemned to that slow roast, thinking how, if he knew them, he would surely offer to exchange, as it did not matter so much where a man was stowed away, he was so seldom in his room, while ladies must necessarily spend half their time there at least in dressing; and with a sigh for unfortunate ladies in general, the kind-hearted Irving Stanley closed his door and proceeded to make his own toilet for dinner, then only an hour in the future.

How hot, and dusty, and cross ’Lina was, and what a look of dismay she cast around the room, with its two bedsteads, its bureaus, its table, its washstand, and its dozen pegs for her two dozen dresses, to say nothing of her mother’s. She’d like to know if this was Saratoga, and these its accommodations. It was not fit to put the pigs in, and she wondered what the proprietor was thinking of when he sent her up there.

“I s’pects he didn’t know how you was an Airey,” Lulu said, demurely, her eyes brimming with mischief.

’Lina turned to box her ears, but the black face was so grave and solemn in its expression that she changed her mind, thinking she had been mistaken in Lulu’s ironical tone.

How tired and faint poor Mrs. Worthington was, and how she wished she had staid at home, like a sensible woman, instead of coming here to be made so uncomfortable in this hot room. But it could not now be helped, ’Lina said; they must do the best they could; and with a forlorn glance at the luxuriant patch of weeds, the most prominent view from the window, ’Lina opened one of her trunks, and spreading a part of the contents upon the bed, began to dress for dinner, changing her mind three times, driving her mother and Lulu nearly distracted, and finally deciding upon a rich green silk, which, with its crimson trimmings, was very becoming to her dark style, but excessively hot-looking on that sultry day. But ’Lina meant to make a good first impression. Everything depended upon that, and as the green was the heaviest, richest thing she had, so she would first appear in it. Besides that, the two young men who had looked at her from the door had not escaped her observation. She had seen them both, deciding that Dr. Richards was the most distingue of the two, though Irving Stanley was very elegant, very refined, and very intellectual looking in those glasses, which gave him so scholarly an appearance. ’Lina never dreamed that this was Irving Stanley, or she would have occupied far more time in brushing her hair and coiling among its braids the bandeau of pearls borrowed of Ellen Tiffton. As it was, the dinner bell had long since ceased ringing, and the tread of feet ceased in the halls below ere she descended to the deserted parlor, followed by her mother, nervous and frightened at the prospect of this, her first appearance at Saratoga.

“Pray, rouse yourself,” ’Lina whispered, as she saw how white she was, when she learned that their seats were at the extreme end of the dining room—that in order to reach it, nearly one thousand pair of eyes must be encountered, and one thousand glances braved. “Rouse yourself, do; and not let them guess you were never at a watering place before,” and ’Lina thoughtfully smoothed her mother’s cap by way of reassuring her.

But even ’Lina herself quailed when she reached the door and caught a glimpse of the busy life within, the terrible ordeal she must pass.

“Oh, for a pair of pantaloons to walk beside one, even if Hugh were in them,” she thought, as her own and her mother’s lonely condition rose before her.

But Hugh was watching a flat boat on the Mississippi that summer afternoon, and as there was no other person on whom she had a claim, she must meet her fate alone.

“Courage, mother,” she whispered again, and then advanced into the room, growing bolder at every step, for with one rapid glance she had swept the hall, and felt that amid that bevy of beauty and fashion there were few more showy than ’Lina Worthington in her rustling dress of green, with Ellen Tiffton’s bracelet on one arm and the one bought with Adah’s money on the other.

“Here, madam,” and their conductor pointed to chairs directly opposite Dr. Richards, watching them as they came up to the hall, and deciding that the young lady’s arms were most too white for her dark skin, and her cheeks a trifle too red.

“It’s put on skillfully, though,” he thought, while the showily dressed old lady beside him whispered,

“What elegant bracelets, and handsome point lace collar!” just as ’Lina haughtily ordered the servant to move her chair a little farther from the table.

Bowing deferentially, the polite attendant quickly drew back her chair, while she spread out her flowing skirts to an extent which threatened to envelop her mother, sinking meekly into her seat, confused and flurried. But alas for ’Lina. The servant did not calculate the distance aright, and the lady, who had meant to do the thing so gracefully, who had intended showing the people that she had been to Saratoga before, suddenly found herself, prostrate upon the floor, her chair some way behind her, and the plate, which, in her descent, she had grasped unconsciously, flying off diagonally past her mother’s head, and fortunately past the head of her mother’s left-hand neighbor.

Poor ’Lina! How she wished she might never get up again. How she hoped the floor beneath would open and swallow her up, and how she mentally anathematized the careless negro, choking with suppressed laughter behind her. As she struggled to arise she was vaguely conscious that a white hand was stretched out to help her, that the same hand smoothed her dress and held her chair safely. Too much chagrined to think who it was rendering her these little attentions, she took her seat, glancing up and down the table to witness the effect of her mishap.

There was a look of consternation on Dr. Richards face, but he was too well bred to laugh, or even to smile, though there was a visible desire to do so, an expression, which ’Lina construed into contempt for her awkwardness, and then he went on with his previous occupation, that of crumbling his bread and scanning the ladies near, while waiting for the next course. There was also a look of surprise in the face of the lady next to him, and then she too occupied herself with something else.

At first, ’Lina thought nothing could keep her tears back, they gathered so fast in her eyes, and her voice trembled so that she could not answer the servant’s question,

“Soup, madam, soup?”

But he of the white hand did it for her.

“Of course she’ll take soup,” then in an aside, he said to her gently, “Never mind, you are not the first lady who has been served in that way. It’s quite a common occurrence.” There was something reassuring in his voice, and turning toward him ’Lina caught the gleam of the golden glasses, and knew that her vis-à-vis up stairs was also her right-hand neighbor. How grateful she felt for his kind attentions, paid so delicately, and with an evident desire to shield her from remark, and how she wondered who he was, as he tried, by numberless unobtrusive acts, to quiet her.

Kind and gentle as a woman, Irving Stanley was sometimes laughed at by his own sex, as too gentle, too feminine in disposition; but those who knew him best loved him most, and loved him, too, just because he was not so stern, so harsh, so overbearing as men are wont to be. A woman was a sacred piece of mechanism to him—a something to be petted, humored and caressed, and still treated as an equal. The most considerate of sons, the most affectionate of brothers, he was idolized at home, while the society in which he mingled, knew no greater favorite, and ’Lina might well be thankful that her lot was cast so near him. He did not talk to her at the table further than a few commonplace remarks, but when after dinner was over, and his Havana smoked, he found her sitting with her mother out in the grove, apart from everybody, and knew that they were there alone, he went to them, and ere many minutes had elapsed discovered to his surprise that they were his so called cousins from Kentucky. Nothing could exceed ’Lina’s delight. He was there unfettered by mother or sister or sweetheart, and of course would attach himself exclusively to her. ’Lina was very happy, and more than once her loud laugh rang out so loud that Irving, with all his charity, had a faint suspicion that round his Kentucky cousin, there might linger a species of coarseness, not altogether agreeable to one of his refinement. Still he sat chatting with her until the knowing dowagers, who year after year watch such things at Saratoga, whispered behind their fans of a flirtation between the elegant Mr. Stanley and that haughty looking girl from Kentucky.

“I never saw him so familiar with a stranger upon so short an acquaintance,” said Mrs. Buford, whose three daughters would any one of them have exchanged their name for Stanley. “I wonder if he knew her before. Upon my word, that laugh of hers is rather coarse, let her be who she will.”

“Yes, but that silk never cost less than three dollars a yard at Stewart’s. See the lustre there is on it,” and old Mrs. Richards, who had brought herself into the field by way of assisting her son in his campaign, levelled her glass at ’Lina’s green silk, showing well in the bright sunlight “Here, John,” she called to her son, who was passing “can you tell me who that young lady is—the one who so very awkwardly sat down upon the floor at dinner?”

“I do not know, and I cannot say that I wish to,” was the nonchalant reply, as the doctor took the vacant chair his mother had so long been keeping for him. “I hardly fancy her style. She’s too brusque to suit me, though Irving Stanley seems to find her agreeable.”

“Is that Irving Stanley?” and Mrs. Richards levelled her glass again, for Irving Stanley was not unknown to her by reputation. “She must be somebody, John, or he would not notice her,” and she spoke in an aside, adding in a louder tone, “I wonder who she is. There’s their servant. I mean to question her,” and as Lulu came near, she said, “Girl, who do you belong to?”

“’Longs to them,” jerking her head toward ’Lina and Mrs. Worthington.

“Where do you live?” was the next query, and Lulu replied.

“Spring Bank, Kentucky. Missus live in big house, most as big as this.” Then anxious to have the ordeal passed, and fearful that she might not acquit herself satisfactorily to ’Lina, who, without seeming to notice her, had drawn near enough to hear, she added, “Miss ’Lina is an airey, a very large airey, and has a heap of—of——” Lulu hardly knew what, but finally in desperation added, “a heap of ars,” and then fled away ere another question could be asked her.

“What did she say she was?” Mrs. Richards asked, and the doctor replied,

“She said an airey. She meant an heiress.”

“Oh, yes, an heiress. I don’t doubt it, from her appearance, and Mr. Stanley’s attentions. Stylish looking isn’t she?”

“Rather, yes—magnificent eyes at all events,” and the doctor stroked his mustache thoughtfully, while his mother, turning to Mrs. Buford, began to compliment ’Lina’s form, and the fit of her dress.

Money, or the reputation of possessing money, is an all powerful charm, and in a few places does it show its power more plainly than at Saratoga, where it was soon known that the lady from Spring Bank was heiress to immense wealth in Kentucky, how immense nobody knew, and various were the estimates put upon it. Among Mrs. Buford’s clique it was twenty thousand; farther away and in another hall it was fifty, while Mrs. Richards, ere the supper hour arrived, had heard that it was at least a hundred thousand dollars. How or where she heard it she hardly knew, but she endorsed the statement as correct, and at the tea table that night was exceedingly gracious to ’Lina and her mother, offering to divide a little private dish which she had ordered for herself, and into which poor Mrs. Worthington inadvertently dipped, never dreaming that it was not common property.

“It was not of the slightest consequence, Mrs. Richards was delighted to share it with her,” and that was the way the conversation commenced.

’Lina knew now that the proud man whose lip had curled so scornfully at dinner, was Dr. Richards, and Dr. Richards knew that the girl who sat on the floor was ’Lina Worthington, from Spring Bank, where Alice Johnson was going.

“I did not gather from Mr. Liston that these Worthingtons were wealthy,” he said to himself, “but if the old codger would deceive me with regard to Miss Johnson, he would with regard to them,” and mentally resolving to make an impression before they could see and talk with Alice, the doctor was so polite that ’Lina scarcely knew whose attentions to prefer, his or Irving Stanley’s, who, rather glad of a co-worker, yielded the field without a struggle, and by the time tea was over the doctor’s star was in the ascendant.

How ’Lina wanted to stay in the crowded parlors, but her mother had so set her heart upon seeing Alice Johnson, that she was forced to humor her, and repaired to her room to make a still more elaborate toilet, as she wished to impress Miss Johnson with a sense of her importance.

A pale blue silk, with white roses in her hair, was finally decided upon, and when, just as the gas was lighted; she descended with her mother to the parlor, her opera cloak thrown gracefully around her uncovered shoulders, and Ellen Tiffton’s glass in her hand, she had the satisfaction of knowing that she created quite a sensation, and that others than Dr. Richards looked after her admiringly as she swept through the room, followed by her mother and Lulu, the latter of whom was answering no earthly purpose save to show that they had a servant.

CHAPTER XVI.
THE COLUMBIAN.

It was very quiet at the Columbian, and the few gentlemen seated upon the piazza seemed to be of a different stamp from those at the more fashionable houses, as there were none of them smoking, nor did they stare impertinently at the gayly dressed lady coming up the steps, and inquiring of the clerk if Miss Alice Johnson were there.

“Yes, she was, and her room was No. ——. Should he send up the lady’s card? Miss Johnson had mostly kept to her room.”

’Lina had brought no card, but she gave her name and passed on into the parlor, which afforded a striking contrast to the beehive down town. In a corner two or three were sitting; another group occupied a window while at the piano were two more, an old and a young lady; the latter of whom was seated upon the stool, and with her foot upon the soft pedal, was alternately striking a few sweet musical chords, and talking to her companion, who seemed to be a servant. Taking her seat near these last, ’Lina watched them curiously; a thought once crossing her mind that this might be Alice Johnson. But no; Alice, of course, would be habited in deepest black, while the dress this lady wore was a simple, pure white, unrelieved by any color save the jet bracelets upon the snowy arms and the jet pin at the throat. This was not Alice sure, and she felt glad to know it, for she would rather that Alice Johnson should be a shade less lovely than the young girl before her. How dazzling she was in her radiant beauty, with all that wealth of chestnut hair shading her fair brow and falling almost to her waist; but the soft, dreamy eyes of blue, with their long silken lashes, were to ’Lina the chief attraction. None could withstand those eyes, now cast down upon the keys as if heavy with unshed tears, and now upraised to the woman beside her who appeared to regard her with a species of adoration, occasionally laying her hand caressingly upon the sunny hair, and letting it slide down until it rested upon the shoulder.

As the minutes went by ’Lina grew very impatient at Alice’s long delay.

“I mean to ring,” she said, just as the servant to whom she had delivered her message appeared.

Very haughtily ’Lina asked if he had found Miss Johnson. “If she’s not in, we don’t care to stay here all night,” she said, angrily, whereupon she became conscious that the blue eyes of the lady were fixed inquiringly upon her, as if wondering how a well bred person could betray so much ill nature.

“Miss Johnson? I beg pardon, I supposed you knew her and had found her, as she was in here. This is Miss Johnson,” and the waiter bowed toward the musician, who, quick as thought seized upon the truth, and springing to Mrs. Worthington’s side, exclaimed,

“It’s Mrs. Worthington, I know. Why did you sit here so long without speaking to me? I am Alice Johnson,” and overcome with emotions awakened by the sight of her mother’s early friend, Alice hid her face with childlike confidence in Mrs. Worthington’s bosom, and sobbed for a moment bitterly.

Then growing calm, she lifted up her head, and smiling through her tears, said,

“Forgive me for this introduction. It is not often I give way, for I know and am sure it was best and right that mother should die. I am not rebellious now, but the sight of you brought it back so vividly. You’ll be my mother, won’t you?” and the impulsive girl nestled closer to Mrs. Worthington, looking up into her face with a confiding affection which won a place for her at once in Mrs. Worthington’s heart.

“My darling,” she said, winding her arm around her waist, “as far as I can I will be to you a mother, and ’Lina shall be your sister. This is ’Lina,” and she turned to ’Lina, who, piqued at having been so long unnoticed, was frowning gloomily.

But ’Lina never met a glance purer or more free from guile than that which Alice gave her and it disarmed her at once of all jealousy, making her return the orphan’s kisses with as much apparent cordiality as they had been given.

Sitting down beside them Alice made many inquiries concerning Kentucky, startling them with the announcement that as she had that day received a letter from Col. Tiffton, who she believed was a friend of theirs, urging her to come on at once, and spend a few weeks with him, she had about decided to do so, and only waited for Mrs. Worthington’s advice ere answering the colonel’s friendly letter. “They heard from you what were mother’s plans for my future, and also that I was to meet you here. They must be very thoughtful people, for they seem to know that I cannot be very happy here.”

For a moment, ’Lina and her mother looked aghast, and neither knew what to say. ’Lina, as usual, was the first to rally and calculate results. Had Alice been less beautiful she would have opposed her going to Colonel Tiffton’s where she might possibly hear something unfavorable of herself from Ellen, but, as it was, it might be well enough to get rid of her, as she was sure to prove a most formidable rival. Thus it was pure selfishness which prompted her to adopt the most politic course which presented itself to her mind.

“They were very intimate at Colonel Tiffton’s. She and Ellen were fast friends. It was very pleasant there more so than at Spring Bank; and all the objection she could see to Alice’s going was the fear lest she should become so much attached to Moss Side, the colonel’s residence, as to be homesick at Spring Bank.”

Against this Alice disclaimed at once. She was not apt to be homesick. She had made up her mind to be happy at Spring Bank, and presumed she should.

“I am so glad you approve my plan, for my heart is really set on going,” and she turned to Mrs. Worthington, who had not spoken yet.

It was not what she had expected, and she hardly knew what to say, though, of course, “she should acquiesce in whatever Alice and ’Lina thought best.”

“If she’s going, I hope she’ll go before Dr. Richards sees her, though perhaps he knows her already—his mother lives in Snowdon,” ’Lina thought, and rather abruptly she asked if Alice knew Dr. Richards, who was staying at the Union.

Alice blushed crimson as she replied,

“Yes, I know him well, and his family, too.

“His mother is here,” ’Lina continued, “and I like her so much. She is very familiar and friendly, don’t you think so?”

Alice would not tell a lie, and she answered frankly,

“She does not bear that name in Snowdon. They consider her very haughty there. I think you must be a favorite.”

“Are they very aristocratic and wealthy?” ’Lina asked, and Alice answered,

“Aristocratic, but not wealthy. They were very kind to me, and the doctor’s sister Anna is one of the sweetest ladies I ever knew.” Then as if anxious to change the conversation she spoke of Hugh. Where was he now? How did he look, and should she like him?

’Lina and her mother exchanged rapid glances, and then, in spite of the look of entreaty visible on Mrs. Worthington’s face, ’Lina replied,

“To be candid with you, Miss Johnson, I’m afraid you won’t like Hugh. He has many good traits, but I’m sorry to say we have never succeeded in cultivating him one particle, so that he is very rough and boorish in his manner, and will undoubtedly strike you unfavorably. I may as well tell you of this, as you will probably hear it from Ellen Tiffton, and must know it when you see him. He is not popular with the ladies; he hates them all, unless it is a Mrs. Hastings, whom he took in from the street.”

Alice looked up inquiringly, while ’Lina began to tell her of Adah. She had not proceeded far, however, when with a cry of terror she sprang up as a large beetle, attracted by the light, fastened itself upon her hair.

Mrs. Worthington was the first to the rescue, while Lulu, who had listened with flashing eye when Hugh was the subject of remark, came haggardly, whispering slily to Alice,

“That’s a lie she done tell you about Mas’r Hugh. He ain’t rough nor bad, and we blacks would die for him any day.”

Alice was confounded by this flat contradiction between mistress and servant, while a faint glimmer of the truth began to dawn upon her. The “horn-bug” being disposed of, ’Lina became quiet, and might, perhaps, have taken up Hugh again, but for a timely interruption in the shape of Irving Stanley, who had walked up to the Columbian, and seeing ’Lina and her mother through the window, sauntered leisurely into the parlor.

“Ah, Mr. Stanley,” and ’Lina half rose from her chair thus intimating that he was to join them. “Miss Johnson, Mr. Stanley,” and she watched jealously to see what effect Alice’s beauty would have upon the young man.

He was evidently pleased, and this was a sufficient reason for ’Lina to speak of returning. She would not hasten Mr. Stanley, she said, but Irving arose at once and bidding Alice good night, accompanied the ladies back to Union hall, where Mrs. Richards sat fanning herself industriously, and watching John with motherly interest as he sauntered from one group of ladies to another, wondering what made Saratoga so dull, and where Miss Worthington had gone. It is not to be supposed that Dr. Richards cared a fig for Miss Worthington as Miss Worthington. It was simply her immense figure he admired, and as, during the evening, he had heard on good authority that said figure was made up mostly of cotton growing on some Southern field, the exact locality of which his informant did not know, he had decided that of course Miss ’Lina’s fortune was over estimated. Such things always were, but still she must be wealthy. He had no doubt of that, and he might as well devote himself to her as to wait for some one else. Accordingly, the moment he spied her in the crowd he joined her, asking if they should not take a little turn up and down the piazza.

“Wait till I ask mamma’s permission to stay up a little longer. She always insists upon my keeping such early hours,” was ’Lina’s very filial and childlike reply as she walked up to mamma, not to ask permission, but to whisper rather peremptorily, “Dr. Richards wishes me to walk with him, and as you are tired you may as well go to bed.”

Mrs. Worthington was tired, but motherlike, she thought it would be pleasant to stay where she could see her daughter walking with Dr. Richards, and then, too, she wanted to hear the band playing in the court.

“Oh, I ain’t very tired,” she said. “I begin to feel rested, and I guess I’ll set a little while with Mrs. Richards on the sofa yonder. She seems like one of our folks.”

’Lina did not care to leave her truthful, matter-of-fact mother with Mrs. Richards, so she said, rather angrily,

“How do you know Mrs. Richards wants you to sit by her? She has her own set, and you are not much acquainted; besides, I shall feel easier to know you are up stairs. Go, do. He’s waiting for me,” and in the black eyes there was a gleam which Mrs. Worthington always obeyed.

With a sigh, and a lingering glance at the comfortable sofa, where Mrs. Richards sat in solemn state, she left the comparatively cool parlor, and climbing the weary flights of stairs, entered her hot, sultry room, and laying her head upon the table, cried a grieved kind of cry, as she recalled ’Lina’s selfishness and evident desire to be rid of her.

“She’s ashamed of me,” and the chin quivered as the white lips whispered it. “She wants me out of the way for fear I’ll do something to mortify her. Oh, ’Lina, ’Lina, I’m glad I’ve got one child who is not ashamed of his mother,” and the tears dropped like rain upon the table, as Mrs. Worthington remembered Hugh, longing for him so much, and reproaching herself so bitterly for having consented to receive Alice Johnson without even consulting him. “I’ll write to-night,” she said. “I’ll confess the whole,” and glad of something to occupy her mind, Mrs. Worthington took out her writing materials, and commenced the letter, which should have been written long before.

Meantime the doctor and ’Lina were walking up and down the long piazza, chatting gayly, and attracting much attention from ’Lina’s loud manner of talking and laughing.

“By the way, I’ve called on Miss Johnson, at the Columbian,” she said. “Beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Ra-ather pretty, some would think,” and the doctor had an uncomfortable consciousness of the refusal, in his vest pocket.

If Alice had told; but no, he knew her better than that. He could trust her on that score, and so the dastardly coward affected to sneer at what he called her primness, charging ’Lina to be careful what she did, if she did not want a lecture, and asking if there were any ragged children in Kentucky, as she would not be happy unless she was running a Sunday school!

“She can teach the negroes! Capital!” and ’Lina laughed so loudly that Mrs. Richards joined them, laughing, too, at what she did not know, only “Miss Worthington had such spirits; it did one good; and she wished Anna was there to be enlivened. Write to her John, won’t you?”

John mentally thought it doubtful. Anna and ’Lina would never assimilate, and he would rather not have his pet sister’s opinion to combat until his own was fully made up.

As it was growing rather late Mrs. Richards ere long expressed a wish to retire, and hoping to see more of Miss Worthington to-morrow, she bowed good night, and left the doctor alone with ’Lina.

But, somehow, he did not get on well without his mother. There was nothing in common between himself and ’Lina, except deception. She had read but little, and only talked well on commonplace matters, of which he soon grew tired. But she was rich, and perfectly willing to be admired by him, so he put aside his weariness, and chatted with her until the parlors were deserted, and the servants came to extinguish some of the burners.

“She had no idea it was so late, or she would not have staid for anything. He must excuse her. What would mamma think?” and bidding him good night, ’Lina hurried up to where mamma sat waiting for her, the traces of tears still on her patient face, which looked white and worn.

“In the name of the people, what are you sitting up for?” was ’Lina’s first remark, followed by a glowing account of what Dr. Richards had said, and the delightful time she’d had. “Only play our cards well, and I’m sure to go home the doctor’s fiancée. The doctor thinks I’m very rich. So do all the people here. Lulu has told that I’m an heiress; now don’t you upset it all with your squeamishness about the truth. Nobody will ask you how much I’m worth, so you won’t be compelled to a lie direct. Just keep your own counsel, and leave the rest to me. Will you?”

There was, as usual, a feeble remonstrance, and then the weak woman yielded so far as promising to keep silent was concerned, but she asked timidly,

“What will you do if you succeed? He must then know how you’ve deceived him.”

“Humph! so far, it will be an easy thing.

“He thinks I am rich, and I am supposed to think he is. It’s no thanks to him that I know better. But they are very aristocratic, and family position is sometimes better than money. On the whole, I prefer it to wealth. It will be something in this wise,” she continued; “after the honeymoon is past, and my lord hears nothing about bank stock, negroes or lands, he’ll come straight out, and say, ‘Mrs. Richards, I supposed you were rich!’ while Mrs. Richards would retort, ‘And I thought you were rich!’ Don’t you see, it will be an equal thing, and I shall take my chance.”

Meantime the doctor sat in his own room near by, thinking of ’Lina Worthington, and wishing she were a little more refined.

“Where does she get that coarseness?” he thought. “Not from her mother, certainly. She seems very gentle and lady-like. It must be from the Worthingtons,” and the doctor wondered where he had heard that name before, and why it affected him rather unpleasantly, bringing with it memories of Lily. “Poor Lily,” he sighed mentally. “Your love would have made me a better man if I had not cast it from me. Dear Lily, the mother of my child,” and a tear half trembled in his eye lashes, as he tried to fancy that child, tried to hear the patter of the little feet running to welcome him home, as they might have done had he been true to Lily; tried to hear the baby voice calling him “papa;” to feel the baby hands upon his face—his bearded face—where the great tears were standing now. “I did love Lily,” he murmured; “and had I known of the child I never could have left her. Oh, Lily, come back to me, come!” and his arms were stretched out into empty space, as if he fain would encircle again the girlish form he had so often held in his embrace.

It was very late ere Dr. Richards slept that night, and the morning found him pale, haggard, and nearly desperate. Thoughts of Lily all were gone, and in their place was a fixed determination to follow on in the course he had marked out, to find him a rich wife, to cast remorse to the winds, and be as happy as he could. In this state of feeling ’Lina did not find it hard to keep him at her side, notwithstanding that Alice herself came down in the course of the day. Mrs. Richards had not quite given up all hopes of Alice, and she received her very cordially, watching closely when the doctor joined them. A casual observer would not have seen the flush on Alice’s cheek or the pallor upon his, so soon both came and passed away, but they did not escape ’Lina’s notice, and she felt glad when told that she intended starting for Kentucky on the morrow.

“So soon,” she said faintly, feeling that something like remonstrance was expected from her, but Alice was not in the least suspicious, and when next day she stood at the depot with Mrs. Worthington and ’Lina she never dreamed how glad the latter was, in knowing that the coming train would take away one whom she dreaded as a rival.

CHAPTER XVII.
HUGH.

An unexpected turn in Hugh’s affairs made it no longer necessary for him to remain in the sultry climate of New Orleans, and just one week from his mother’s departure from Spring Bank he reached it, expressing unbounded surprise when he heard from Aunt Eunice where his mother had gone, and how she had gone.

“Fool and his money soon parted,” Hugh said,

“But who is that woman,—the one who sent the money?”

“A Mrs. Johnson, an old friend of your mother,” Aunt Eunice replied, while Hugh looked up quickly, wondering why the Johnsons should be so continually thrust upon him, when the only Johnson for whom he cared was dead years ago.

“And the young lady—what about her?” he asked, while Aunt Eunice told him the little she knew, which was that Mrs. Johnson wished her daughter to come to Spring Bank, but she did not know what they had concluded upon.

“That she should not come, of course,” Hugh said. “They had no right to give her a home without my consent, and I’ve plenty of young ladies at Spring Bank now. Oh, it was such a relief when I was gone to know that in all New Orleans there was not a single hoop annoyed on my account. I had a glorious time doing as I pleased,” and helping his aunt to mount the horse which had brought her to Spring Bank, Hugh returned to the house, which seemed rather lonely, notwithstanding that he had so often wished he could once more be alone, just as he was before his mother came.

On the whole, however, he enjoyed his freedom from restraint, and very rapidly fell back into his old loose way of living, bringing his dogs into the parlor, and making it a repository for both his hunting and fishing apparatus.

“It’s splendid to do as I’m a mind to,” he said, one hot August morning, nearly three weeks after his mother’s departure, as with his box of worms upon the music stool, in the little room which ’Lina claimed as exclusively her own, he sat mending his long fish line, whistling merrily, and occasionally thrusting back from his forehead the mass of curling hair, which somewhat obstructed his vision.

Around him upon the floor lay half a dozen dogs, some asleep, and others eyeing his movements curiously, as if they knew and appreciated what he was doing.

“There isn’t a finer lot of dogs in Kentucky,” soliloquized the young man, as he ran his eye over them; “but wouldn’t my lady at Saratoga rave if she knew I’d taken her boudoir for a kennel, and kept my bootjack, my blacking brush, and Sunday shirts all on her piano! Good place for them, so handy to get at, though I don’t suppose it’s quite the thing to live so like a savage. Halloo, Mug, what do you want?” he asked, as a little mulatto girl appeared in the door.

“Claib done buy you this yer,” and the child handed him the letter from his mother, which had been to New Orleans and was forwarded from there.

The first of it was full of affection for her boy, and Hugh felt his heart growing very tender as he read, but when he reached the point where poor, timid Mrs. Worthington tried to explain about Alice, making a wretched bungle, and showing plainly how much she was swayed by ’Lina, it began to harden at once.

“What the plague!” he exclaimed as he read on, “Supposes I remember having heard her speak of her old school friend, Alice Morton? I don’t remember any such thing. Her daughter’s name’s Alice—Alice Johnson,” and Hugh for an instant turned white, so powerfully that name always affected him.

Soon rallying, however, he continued, “Heiress to fifty thousand dollars. Unfortunate Alice Johnson! better be lying beside the Golden Haired; but what! actually coming to Spring Bank, a girl worth fifty thousand, the most refined, most elegant, most beautiful creature that ever was born, coming where I am, without my consent, too! That’s cool upon my word!” and for a moment Hugh went off in a towering passion, declaring “he wouldn’t stand it,” and bringing his foot down upon the little bare toes of Muggins, crouched upon the floor beside him.

Her loud outcry brought him to himself, and after quieting her as well as he could, he finished his mother’s letter, chafing terribly at the thought of a strange young lady being thrust upon him whether he would have her or not.

“She is going to Colonel Tiffton’s first, though they’ve all got the typhoid fever, I hear, and that’s no place for her. That fever is terrible on Northerners—terrible on anybody. I’m afraid of it myself, and I wish this horrid throbbing I’ve felt for a few days would leave my head. It has a fever feel that I don’t like,” and the young man pressed his hand against his temples, trying to beat back the pain which so much annoyed him.

Just then Colonel Tiffton was announced, his face wearing an anxious look, and his voice trembling as he told how sick his Nell was, how sick they all were, and then spoke of Alice Johnson.

“She’s the same girl I told you about the day I bought Rocket; some little kin to me, and that makes it queer why her mother should leave her to you. I knew she would not be happy at Saratoga, and so we wrote for her to visit us. She is on the road now, will be here day after to-morrow, and something must be done. She can’t come to us, without great inconvenience to ourselves and serious danger to her. Hugh, my boy, there’s no other way—she must come to Spring Bank,” and the old colonel laid his hand on that of Hugh, who looked at him aghast, but made no immediate reply.

He saw at a glance that Alice could not go to Moss Side with impunity, and if not there she must, of course come to Spring Bank.

“What can I do with her? Oh, Colonel, it makes me sweat like rain just to think of it, and my head thumps like a mill-hopper, but, I suppose, there’s no help for it. You’ll meet her at the depot. You’ll give her an inkling of what I am. You’ll tell her what a savage she may expect to find, so she won’t go into fits at sight of me.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll fix it; but, I thought, maybe, you’d have Aunt Eunice come over till your mother’s return. Women are gossipping things, and they’d’ talk if she was to live here alone with you. I tell you, she’s handsome; and if I’s you, I’d be a little good, that is, I wouldn’t walk the lots Sundays, but go to church instead.”

“I always do, sir,” and Hugh spoke quickly, for slowly, surely, Adah Hastings was influencing him for good, and more changes than one were already apparent in him.

“That’s right,” rejoined the colonel. “Going to church is well enough for them that like it, which I can’t say I do, but I’ll see her, I’ll meet her; I’ll tell her. Good-bye, my boy. Now, I think of it, you look mighty nigh sick. Your face is as red as a beetle, and eyes kind of blood shot. The very way my wife looked. Are you sick?”

“No, not sick, but this hot weather affects my head which feels much as if there were a snare-drum inside.”

“No, that ain’t the symptom. My wife’s felt like a bumble-bee’s nest. You are all right if you’ll take an emetic, a good big one, such as will turn your stomach inside out. Good-bye—Nelly’s awful sick. Struck to her brain last night. Good-bye. I wouldn’t lose Nell for a farm, if she is a little gritty,” and wringing Hugh’s hand, the colonel hurried off, leaving Hugh to his own reflections.

“A pretty state of things, and a pretty place to bring a young lady,” he muttered, glancing ruefully round the room, and enumerating the different articles he knew were out of place. “Fish-worms, fish-hooks, fish-lines, bootjack, boot-blacking, and rifle, to say nothing of the dogs—and ME!”

The last was said in a tone as if the me were the most objectionable part of the whole, as, indeed, Hugh thought it was.

“I wonder how I do look to persons wholly unprejudiced!” Hugh said, and turning to Muggins he asked what she thought of him.

“I thinks you berry nice. I likes you berry much,” the child replied, and Hugh continued, “Yes; but how do I look, I mean? What do I look like, a dandy or a scarecrow?”

Muggins regarded him for a moment curiously, and then replied, “I’se dunno what kind of thing that dandy is, but I ’members dat yer scarecrow what Claib make out of mars’r’s trouses and coat, an’ put up in de cherry tree. I thinks dat look like Mas’r Hugh—yes, very much like!”

Hugh laughed long and loud, pinching Mug’s dusky cheek, and bidding her run away.

“Pretty good,” he exclaimed, when he was left alone. “That’s Mug’s opinion. Look like a scarecrow. I mean to see for myself,” and going into the sitting-room, where the largest mirror was hung, he scanned curiously the figure which met his view, even taking a smaller glass, and holding it so as to get a sight of his back. “Tall, broad-shouldered, straight, well built. My form is well enough,” he said. “It’s the clothes that bother. I mean to get some new ones. Then, as to my face,” and Hugh turned himself around, “I never thought of it before; but my features are certainly regular, teeth can’t be beaten, good brown skin, eyes to match, and a heap of curly hair. I’ll be hanged if I don’t think I’m rather good-looking!” and with his spirits proportionably raised, Hugh whistled merrily as he went in quest of Aunt Chloe, to whom he imparted the startling information that on the next day but one, a young lady was coming to Spring Bank, and that, in the meantime, the house must be cleaned from garret to cellar, and everything put in order for the expected guest.

With growing years, Aunt Chloe had become rather cross and less inclined to work than formerly, frequently sighing for the days when “Mas’r John didn’t want no clarin’ up, but kep’ things lyin’ handy.” With her hands on her fat hips she stood, coolly regarding Hugh, who was evidently too much in earnest to be opposed. Alice was coming, and the house must be put in order.

Accordingly, two hours afterwards, there was a strong smell of soap suds arising from one room, while from another a cloud of dust was issuing, as Hugh himself bent over the broom, wondering where all that dirt came from, inasmuch as his six dogs had only lain there for a few days!

Aunt Eunice, too, was pressed into the service, and greatly against her will, come to play the hostess for Hugh, who drove both herself and Aunt Chloe nearly distracted with his orders and counter orders.

Particularly was he interested in what was to be Alice’s room, sending for Adah to see if it were right, and would be likely to strike a young lady favorably.

The cleaning and arranging was finished at last, and everything within the house was as neat and orderly as Aunt Eunice and Adah could make it, even Aunt Chloe acknowledging that “things was tip-top,” but said “it was no use settin’ ’em to rights when Mas’r Hugh done on-sot ’em so quick,” but Hugh promised to do better. He would turn over a new leaf; so by way of commencement, on the morning of Alice’s expected arrival he deliberately rolled up his towel and placed it under his pillow instead of his night-shirt, which was hung conspicuously over the washstand. His boots were put behind the fireboard, his every day hat jammed into the bandbox where ’Lina kept her winter bonnet, and then, satisfied that so far as his room was concerned, every thing was in order, he descended the stairs and went into the garden to gather fresh flowers with which to adorn Alice’s room. Hugh was fond of flowers, and two beautiful bouquets were soon arranged and placed in the vases brought from the parlor mantel, while Muggins, who trotted beside him, watching his movements and sometimes making suggestions, was told to see that they were freshly watered, and not allowed to stand where the sun could shine on them, as they might fade before Miss Johnson came.

“You likes her?” and Mug looked inquiringly at him.

“I never saw her,” he replied, “but I mean to like her yes,” and Hugh spoke the truth.

He could not account for it, but now that it came so near, there was something enlivening in the prospect of Alice’s coming. He meant to like her—meant that she should like him. Not as the Golden Haired might have done had she lived, but as a friend, a sister. He’d try his best to win her respect before ’Lina came to prejudice her against him, if indeed she had not done so already and a pang shot through his heart as he thought how possible it was that Alice Johnson was prepared already to dislike him. But no, Ad could not be so mean as that, and Hugh went down to the breakfast which Aunt Eunice had prepared, and of which he could scarcely taste a morsel.

During the excitement of the last few days, the pain in his head had in a measure been forgotten, but it had come back this morning with redoubled force, and the veins upon his forehead looked almost like bursting with their pressure of feverish blood. Hugh did not think it possible for him to be sick, and he tried hard to forget the giddy, half blinding pain warning him of danger, and after forcing himself to sip a little coffee in which he would indulge this morning, he ordered Claib to bring out the covered buggy, as he was going up to Lexington, hoping thus to obtain a sight of Alice without being himself seen, or at least known as Hugh Worthington.

CHAPTER XVIII.
MEETING OF ALICE AND HUGH.

Could ’Lina have seen Hugh that morning as he emerged from a fashionable tailor’s shop, she would scarcely have recognized him, so greatly was he improved by the entire new suit in which he had been indulging, and which gave him so stylish an appearance that Hugh for a moment felt uncomfortable, and was glad that one whole hour must elapse before the cars from Cincinnati were due as he could thus become a little accustomed to himself and not be so painfully conscious. The hour passed rapidly away, and its close found Hugh waiting at the terminus of the Lexington and Cincinnati Railroad. A moment more, and the broad platform was swarming with passengers, conspicuous among whom were an old lady and a young, both dressed in black, both closely veiled and both entire strangers, as was evinced by their anxiety to know what they were next to do, or where to go.

“These are ours,” the young lady said, pointing to a huge pile of trunks, distinctly marked “A. J.,” and Hugh drew so near to her that her long black veil swept against his coat, as she held out her checks in her ungloved hand.

Hugh noticed the hand, saw that it was very small and white and fat, but the face he could not see, and he looked in vain for the magnificent hair about which even his mother had waxed eloquent, and which was now put plainly back, so that not a vestige of it was visible. Still Hugh felt sure that this was Alice Johnson, so sure that when he had ascertained the hotel where she would wait for the Frankfort train, he followed on, and entering the back parlor, the door of which was partly closed, sat down as if he too were a traveller, waiting for the train. It never occurred to Hugh that he was acting the part of an eaves-dropper, so anxious he was to see Alice without being seen, and taking up an old paper, he pretended to be greatly interested in its columns, which, for any information he gleaned from them, might as well have been bottom side up.

Meantime, in the room adjoining, Alice divested herself of her dusty wrappings, and taking out her combs and brushes, began to arrange her hair, talking the while to Densie, her nurse, reclining on the sofa. How the tones of that voice thrilled on Hugh’s ear like some forgotten music, heard he knew not when or where, and how still he sat, when at last the conversation turned upon his mother and ’Lina, about whom Alice talked freely, never dreaming of Hugh’s proximity.

It would seem that Alice’s own luxuriant tresses suggested her first remark, for she said to Densie, “That Miss Worthington had beautiful hair, so glossy, and so wavy, too. I wonder she never curls it. It looks as if she might.”

A smile fitted over Hugh’s face as he thought of the tags, and wondered what Alice would say could she see Ad early in the morning, with a red silk handkerchief, tied round her head by way of covering what he called tags, “It would take a steam engine to make Ad’s hair curl,” he said to himself, while Alice continued, “I did not like her eyes; they were too much like coals of fire, when they flashed angrily on that poor Lulu, who evidently was not well posted in the duties of a waiting-maid. If mother had not so decided, I should shrink from being an inmate of Mrs. Worthington’s family. I like her very much, but I am afraid I shall not get on with ’Lina.”

“I know you won’t. I honor your judgment,” was Hugh’s mental comment, while Alice went on.

“And what she told me of her brother was not calculated to impress me favorably.”

Nervously Hugh’s hands grasped each other, and he could distinctly hear the beating of his heart as he leaned forward so as not to lose a single word.

“She seemed trying to prepare me for him by telling how rough he was; how little he cared for etiquette; and how constantly he mortified her with his uncouth manners.”

The perspiration fairly dripped from Hugh’s flushed face, as with clenched fist and a muttered curse upon his white lips he listened while Alice went on.

“Mother never dreamed he was such a man. Indeed, he was prepossessed in his favor, remembering his distress when he lost his little sister, who was mysteriously abducted by her father, and as mysteriously returned. He was a fine, handsome boy, mother said, and she thought I would like him. Bad as he may be, he is evidently a favorite with his negroes, for Lulu resented what her mistress said of him, and, in her peculiar way, told me it was false.”

“Heaven bless Lulu!” Hugh mentally exclaimed. “I’ll set her free the day that she’s eighteen; but Ad, oh, must it go on thus? Will she always be a thorn to me?”

Alice did not hear the sigh of pain or see the mournful look which stole over Hugh’s face. She did not even suspect his presence, and she continued to speak of Spring Bank, wondering if Hugh would be there before his mother returned, half hoping he would not, as she rather dreaded meeting him, although she meant to like him if she could.

Poor Hugh! How he winced and trembled, and wished he was away. How madly the hot blood poured through his swollen veins, and how fast the pain increased about his temples, while little sparks of fire danced before his eyes. Alice should have her wish, he said bitterly. She should not find Spring Bank encumbered with its hateful owner. ’Lina should not find him there when she returned, she should never blush again for him, for he would go away. With a stifled, noiseless moan, Hugh rose to leave the room, glancing once toward the narrow opening in the folding-doors. Then, as if petrified with what he saw, he stood riveted to the spot, his quivering lips apart, his head bent forward, and his eyes almost black, so strangely bright they grew.

Alice’s long, bright hair, was arranged at last, and the soft curls fell about her face, giving to it the same look it had worn in childhood—the look which was graven on Hugh’s heart, as with a pencil of fire; the look he never had forgotten through all the years which had come and gone since first it shone on him; the look he had never hoped to see again, so sure was he that it had been quenched by the waters of Lake Erie. Alice’s face was turned fully toward him. Through the open window at her back the August sunlight streamed, falling on her chestnut hair, and tinging it with the yellow gleam which Hugh remembered so well. For an instant the long lashes shaded the fair round cheek, and then were uplifted, disclosing the eyes of blue, which, seen but once, could never be mistaken, and Hugh was not mistaken. One look of piercing scrutiny at the face unconsciously confronting him, one mighty throb, which seemed to bear away his very life, and then Hugh knew the grave had given up its dead.

She was not lost for she stood there before him. She whose memory had saved him oftentimes from sin. She, for whom he would almost lay him down and die. She, the Golden Haired. Changed, it is true, from a lovely child of thirteen to a far more lovely woman, but not past his recognition. The golden locks his hands had touched but once, and that when the mad waves were dashing over them, had put on a richer, darker tinge, and fell in heavier masses about her brow and neck. The face, too, with its piquant nose, was more mature; only the eyes were wholly unchanged. In them, the same truthful loving light was shining, and the curve of the silken lashes was just the same as when they drooped coyly, beneath the compliment which the tall youth had paid them.

Golden Hair had come back, but, alas, prejudiced against him. She hoped he might be gone. She would be happier if he never crossed her path. “And I never, never will,” Hugh thought, as he staggered from the room and sought a small outer court, whose locality he knew, and where he could be alone to think.

The throbbing in his head had increased in violence, and what before were gleams of fire dancing before his eyes, were now like rings of blood, of which the sultry air seemed full. How sick and faint he was sitting there in that dingy court, with his head upon his hands, half wishing he might die, and so trouble no one any more. He felt that the dearest treasure he had ever possessed was wrested from him—that in losing Golden Hair’s good opinion he had lost all that made life desirable.

“Oh, Adaline,” he murmured, “what made you so cruel to me? I would not have served you so.”

There was a roll of wheels before the door, and Hugh knew by the sound that it was the carriage for the cars. She was going. They would never meet again, Hugh said, and she would never know that the youth who tried to save her life was the same for whose coming they would wait and watch in vain at Spring Bank—the Hugh for whom his mother would weep awhile; and for whose dark fate even Ad might feel a little sorry. She was not wholly depraved—she had some sisterly feeling, and his loss would waken it to life. They would appreciate him after he was gone, and the poor heart which had known so little love throbbed joyfully, as Hugh thought of being loved at last even by the selfish ’Lina.

Fiercely the August sun poured down into that pent up court, creating a drowsiness which Hugh did not care to shake off. Unconsciousness was welcome at any price, and leaning his aching head against the damp, mouldy wall, he fell at last into a heavy sleep.

Meantime Alice and Densie proceeded on their way to the Big Spring station, where Col. Tiffton was waiting for them, according to his promise. There was a shadow in the colonel’s good-humored face, and a shadow in his heart. His idol, Nellie, was very sick, while added to this was the terrible certainty that he alone must pay a $10,000 note on which he had foolishly put his name, because Harney had preferred it. He was talking with Harney when the cars came up, and the villain, while expressing regret that the colonel should be compelled to pay so much for what he never had received, had said with a relentless smile, “But it’s not my fault, you know I can’t afford to lose it.”

From that moment the colonel felt he was a ruined man, but he would not allow himself to appear at all discomposed.

“Wait awhile,” he said; “do nothing till my Nell lives or dies,” and with a sigh as he thought how much dearer to him was his youngest daughter than all the farms in Woodford, he went forward to meet Alice, just appearing upon the platform.

The colonel explained to Alice why she must go to Spring Bank, adding by way of consolation, that she would not be quite as lonely now Hugh was at home.

“Hugh at home!” and Alice shrank back in dismay, feeling for a moment that she could not go there.

But there was no alternative, and after a few tears which she could not repress, she said, timidly,

“What is this Hugh? What kind of a man, I mean?”

She could not expect the colonel to say anything bad of him, but she was not prepared for his frank response.

“The likeliest chap in Kentucky. Nothing dandified about him, to be sure. Wears his trouser legs in his boots as often as any way, and don’t stand about the very latest cut of his coat, but he’s got a heart bigger than an ox—yes, big as ten oxen! I’d trust him with my life, and know it was safe as his own. You’ll like Hugh— Nell does.”

The colonel never dreamed of the comfort his words gave Alice, or how they changed her feelings with regard to one whom she had so dreaded to meet.

“There ’tis; we’re almost there,” the colonel said at last, as they turned off from the highway, and leaning forward Alice caught sight of the roofs and dilapidated chimneys of Spring Bank. “’Tain’t quite as fixey as Yankee houses, that’s a fact, but we that own niggers never do have things so smarted up,” the colonel said, guessing how the contrast must affect Alice, who felt so desolate and homesick as she drew up in front of what, for a time at least, was to be her home.

At a single glance she took in every peculiarity, from the mossy, decaying eaves, where the swallows were twittering their songs, to the group of negroes ranged upon the piazza, staring curiously at her as she alighted, followed by Densie Densmore. Where was Hugh? Surely he should be there to greet her, and with a return of something like the olden terror Alice looked nervously in all directions, as if expecting some vampyre to start out and seize her. But only Aunt Eunice, in trim white cap and black silk apron, appeared, welcoming the strangers with a motherly kindness, which went to Alice’s heart.

Aunt Eunice saw that she looked very tired, and asked if she would not go at once to her room and lie down. Glad to be alone, Alice followed her through the hall and up the stairs to the pleasant chamber in which Hugh had been so interested.

“You are tired and homesick, too, I guess,” Aunt Eunice said, “but you’ll get over it by and by. Spring Bank is a pleasant place, and if Hugh could he’d make it a handsome one. He has the taste.”

“Where is Hugh?” Alice asked.

Aunt Eunice would not say he had gone to Lexington for the sake, perhaps, of seeing her, so she replied,

“He went to town this morning, but he’ll be back pretty soon. He has done his best to make it pleasant for you. You’ll like Hugh. There, try to go to sleep,” and kind Aunt Eunice bustled from the room just as Densie entered it, together with Aunt Chloe. The old negress was evidently playing the hostess to Densie, for she was talking quite loud, and all about “Mas’r Hugh.” “Pity he wasn’t thar, ’twould seem so different; ’tain’t de same house without him. You’ll like Mas’r Hugh,” and she, too glided from the room.

Was this the password at Spring Bank, “You’ll like Mas’r Hugh?” It would seem so, for when at last Hannah brought up the waffles and tea, which Aunt Eunice had prepared, she sat down her tray, and after a few inquiries concerning Alice’s head, which was now aching sadly, she, too, launched forth into a panegyric on Mas’r Hugh, ending, as the rest had done, “You’ll like Mas’r Hugh.”

Alice began to believe she should, and with a silent thanksgiving that the great bugbear of Spring Bank was likely to prove so harmless, she waited and listened for any sounds which might herald Hugh’s approach. But the summer evening waned and the summer night closed quietly around Spring Bank, without bringing its master home. One by one the negroes went to their cabins, and when at last the clock struck twelve, Aunt Eunice, who had been waiting for her boy, lighted her tallow candle and stole noiselessly to her room, where by the open window she sat for a long, long time, listening to the howl of Rover, who, sat upon the steps and filled the air with his lonely cries. Aunt Eunice was not superstitious, but Rover’s howl sounded painfully in her ear, and when at last she crept slowly to her pillow there was a dread fear at her heart lest something had befallen Hugh.

CHAPTER XIX.
ALICE AND MUGGINS.

Had an angel appeared suddenly to the blacks at Spring Bank they would not have been more surprised or delighted than they were with Alice when she came down to breakfast looking so beautifully in her muslin wrapper, with a simple white blossom and geranium leaf twined among her flowing curls, and an expression of content upon her childish face which said that she had resolved to make the best of the place to which Providence had so clearly led her for some wise purpose of his own. She had arisen early and explored the premises in quest of the spots of sunshine which she knew were there as well as elsewhere, and she had found them, too, in the grand old elms and maples which shaded the wooden building, in the clean, grassy lawn and the running brook, in the well kept garden of flowers, and in the few choice volumes arranged in the old bookcase at one end of the hall. Who read those books? Not ’Lina, most assuredly, for Alice’ reminiscences of her were not of the literary kind; nor yet Mrs. Worthington, kind, gentle creature as she seemed to be. Who then but Hugh could have pored over those pages? And with a thrill of joy she was turning from the corner, when the patter of little naked feet was heard upon the stairs, and a bright mulatto child, apparently seven or eight years old, appeared, her face expressive of the admiration with which she regarded Alice, who asked her name.

Curtesying very low the child replied,

“I dunno, missus; Mas’r Hugh don nickname me Muggins, and every folks do that now. You know Mas’r Hugh? He done rared when he read you’s comin’; do this way with his boot, ‘By George, Ad will sell the old hut yet without ’sultin’ me,’” and the little darkey’s fist came down upon the window sill in apt imitation of her master.

A crimson flush overspread Alice’s face as she wondered if it were possible that the arrangements concerning her coming there had been made without reference to Hugh’s wishes.

“It may be; he was away,” she sighed; then feeling an intense desire to know more, and being only a woman and mortal, she said to Muggins, walking round her in circles, with her fat arms folded upon her bosom, “Your master did not know I was coming till he returned from New Orleans and found his mother’s letter?”

“Who tole you dat ar?” and Muggin’s face was perfectly comical in its bewilderment at what she deemed Alice’s foreknowledge. “But dat’s so. I hear Aunt Chloe say so, and how’t was right mean in Miss ’Lina. I hate Miss ’Lina! Phew-ew!” and Muggins’ face screwed itself into a look of such perfect disgust that Alice could not forbear laughing outright.

“You should not hate any one, my child,” she said, while Muggins rejoined,

“I can’t help it—none of us can; she’s so—mean—and so—low-flung, Claib says. She hain’t any bizzens orderin’ us round nuther, and I will hate her!”

“But, Muggins, the Bible teaches us to love those who treat us badly, who are mean, as you say.”

“Who’s he?” and Muggins looked up quickly. “I never hearn tell of him afore, or, yes, I has. Thar’s an old wared out book in Mas’r Hugh’s chest, what he reads in every night, and oncet when I axes him what was it, he say ‘It’s a Bible, Mug.’ Dat’s what he calls me for short, Mug.”

There was a warm spot now in Alice’s heart for Hugh. A man who read his Bible every night could not be very bad, and she blessed Mug for the cheering news, little dreaming whose Bible it was Hugh read, or whose curl of yellow hair served him for a book mark. Mug’s prying eyes had ferreted that out, too, and delighted with so attentive a listener as Alice, she continued:

“Dat’s the thing, then, what teaches us to love the hatefuls. Mug don’t want to read him, though I reckon Mas’r Hugh done grow some better, for he hain’t been hoppin’ mad this good while, like he got at Miss ’Lina ’bout that dress and Miss Adah. He was awful then. He swared, he did.”

“Muggins, you must not tell me these things of your master. It is not right,” Alice interposed and Muggins replied,

“Well, then, I done took ’em back. He didn’t swared, but he do read the Bible, and he do kiss dat curl of yaller har what he keeps in it. I see him through the do’ and I hear him whisper ’bout Golden Har or somethin’ mighty like him.”

Alice was in a tremor of distress. She knew Muggins ought not to disclose Hugh’s secrets, and she saw no way to stop her except by sending her away, and this she was about to do when a new idea was suggested to her. Possibly she could keep her from repeating the story to others, so she asked if “Muggins had ever told this about the curl to any one else.”

“Nobody but Chloe, and she boxt my ears so that I done forgot till I see you, and that har of your’n makes me ’member the one Mas’r Hugh kissed—real smackin’ loud, so,” and Muggins illustrated on her own hand.

“Well, then,” Alice said, “promise you will not. Your master would be very angry to know you watched him through the door, and then told what you saw. You must be a good girl, Muggins. God will love you if you do. Do you ever pray?”

“More times I do, and more times when I’se sleepy I don’t,” was Muggins’ reply, her face brightening up as she continued, “But I can tell you who does—Miss Adah and Uncle Sam, over dar in the cornfield. They prays, both of ’em, and Sam, is powerful, I tell you. I hears him at the black folk’s meetin’. Hollers—oh! oh!” and Muggins stopped her ears, as if even the memory of Sam’s prayers were deafening; but if the ears stopped, the tongue was just as busy as the talkative child went on: “Sam prays for Mas’r Hugh, that God would fetch him right some day, and Miss Adah say God will, ’case she say he see and hear everyting. Mug don’t believe dat; can’t cheat dis chile, ’case if he hear and see, what made him hold still dat time Miss ’Lina licked me for telling Mas’r Harney how’t she done up her har at night in fourteen little braids, and slep’ in great big cap to make it look wavy like yourn. Does you twist yourn up in tails?” and as she had all along been aching to do, Muggins laid her hands on the luxuriant tresses, which Alice assured her were not done up in tails.

Here was a spot where Alice might do good; this half-heathen, but sprightly, African child needed her, and she began already to get an inkling of her mission to Kentucky. She was pleased with Muggins, and suffered the little dusky hands to caress her curls as long as they pleased, while she questioned her of the bookcase and its contents, whose was it, ’Lina’s or Hugh’s?

“Mas’r Hugh’s in course. Miss ’Lina can’t read!” was Muggins’ reply, which Alice fully understood.

’Lina was no reader, while Hugh was, it might be, and she continued to speak of him. Did he read evenings to his mother, or did ’Lina play to them?

“More’n we wants, a heap!” and Muggins spoke scornfully. “We can’t bar them things she thumps out. Now we likes Mas’r Hugh’s the best—got good voice, sing Dixie, oh, splendid! Mas’r Hugh loves flowers, too. Tend all them in the garden.”

“Did he?” and Alice spoke with great animation, for she had supposed that ’Lina’s or at least Mrs. Worthington’s hands had been there.

But it was all Hugh, and in spite of what Muggins had said concerning his aversion to her coming there she felt a great desire to see him. She could understand in part why he should be angry at not having been consulted, but he was over that, she was sure from what Aunt Eunice said, and if he were not, it behooved her to try her best to remove any wrong impression he might have formed of her. “He shall like me,” she thought; “not as he must like that golden haired maiden, whose existence this sprite of a negro has discovered, but as a friend, or sister,” and a softer light shone in Alice’s blue eyes, as she foresaw in fancy Hugh gradually coming to like her, to be glad that she was there, and to miss her when she was gone.

“What time did he come home last night?” she asked, feeling more disappointed than she cared to confess at Muggin’s answer that, “he hadn’t come at all!”

Alice was but human, and it must be confessed that she had made her toilet that morning with a slight reference to Hugh’s eyes, wondering if he liked white, and wondering, too, if he liked flowers, when she placed the wax ball in her hair.

“You are sorry?” Mug said, interpreting her looks aright.

“Yes, I am sorry. I want to see your master, Hugh. I mean to like him very much.”

“I’ll tell him dat ar,” thought Muggins. “I ’members how’t he say oncet that nobody done love him,” and, spying Claib in the distance, the little tattler ran off to tell him how beautiful the new missus was, and how she let her smooth her har, all she wanted to.

CHAPTER XX.
POOR HUGH.

Could Hugh have known the feelings with which Alice Johnson already regarded him, and the opinion she had expressed to Muggins, it would perhaps have stilled the fierce throbbings of his heart, which sent the hot blood so swiftly through his veins, and made him from the first delirious. They had found him in the quiet court just after the sun setting, and his uncovered head was already wet with the falling dew, and the profuse perspiration induced by his long, heavy sleep. He was well known at the hotel, and measures were immediately taken for apprising his family of the sudden illness, and for removing him to Spring Bank as soon as possible.

Breakfast was not yet over at Spring Bank, and Aunt Eunice was wondering what could have become of Hugh, when from her position near the window she discovered a horseman riding across the lawn at a rate which betokened some important errand. Alice spied him too, and the same thought flashed over both herself and Aunt Eunice. “Something had befallen Hugh.”

Alice was the first upon the piazza, where she stood waiting till the rider came up,

“Are you Miss Worthington?” he asked, doffing his soil hat, and feeling a thrill of wonder at sight of her marvellous beauty.

“Miss Worthington is not at home,” she said, going down the steps and advancing closer to him, “but I can take your message. Is any thing the matter with Mr. Worthington?”

Aunt Eunice had now joined her, and listened breathlessly while the young man told of Hugh’s illness, which threatened to be the prevailing fever.

“They were bringing him home,” he said—“were now on the way, and he had ridden in advance to prepare them for his coming.”

Aunt Eunice seemed literally stunned and wholly incapable of action, while the negroes howled dismally for Mas’r Hugh, who, Chloe said, was sure to die.

Alice alone was calm and capable of acting. A room must be prepared, and somebody must direct, but to find the somebody was a most difficult matter. Chloe couldn’t, Hannah couldn’t, Aunt Eunice couldn’t, and consequently it all devolved upon herself. Throwing aside the feelings of a stranger she summoned Densie to her aid, and then went quietly to work. By dint of questioning Muggins, who hovered near her constantly, she ascertained which was Hugh’s sleeping room, and entered it to reconnoiter.

It was the most uncomfortable room in the house, for during two thirds of the day the hot sun poured down upon the low roof, heating the walls like an oven, and rendering it wholly unfit for a sick man. Hugh must not be put there, and after satisfying herself that her own chamber was the coolest and most convenient in the house, Alice came to a decision, and regardless of her own personal comfort, set to work to remove, with Densie’s help, her various articles of luggage.

By this time Aunt Eunice had rallied a little, and hearing what Alice was doing, offered a faint remonstrance. Hugh would never be reconciled to taking Miss Johnson’s room, she said, but Alice silenced every objection, and Aunt Eunice yielded the point, feeling intuitively that the sceptre had passed from her hand into a far more efficient one. The pleasant chamber, in which only yesterday morning Hugh himself had been so interested, was ready at last. The wide north windows were open, and the soft summer air came stealing in, lifting the muslin curtains which Alice had looped back, blowing across the snowy pillows which Alice’s hands had arranged, and kissing the half withered flowers which Hugh had picked for Alice.

“I’ll done get some fresher ones. Mas’r Hugh love the posies,” Muggins said, as she saw Alice bending over the vase.

“Poor Hugh!” Alice sighed, as Muggins ran off for the flowers, which she brought to Miss Johnson, who arranged them into beautiful bouquets for the sick man now just at the gate. Alice saw the carriage as it stopped, and saw the tall form which the men were helping up the walk; and that was all she saw, so busily was she occupied in hushing the outcries of the excitable negroes, while Hugh was carried to the room designated by Densie, and into which he went unwillingly. “It was not his den,” he said, drawing back with a bewildered look; “his was hot, and close, and dingy, while this was nice and cool—a room such as women had; there must be a mistake,” and he begged of them to take him away.

“No, ho, my poor boy. This is right; Miss Johnson said you must come here just because it is cool and nice. You’ll get well so must faster,” and Aunt Eunice’s tears dropped on Hugh’s flushed face.

“Miss Johnson!” and the wild eyes looked up eagerly at her. “Who is she? Oh, yes, I know, I know,” and a moan came from his lips as he whispered, “Does she know I’ve come? Does it make her hate me worse to see me in such a plight? Ho, Aunt Eunice, put your ear down close while I tell you something. Ad said—you know Ad—she said I was—I was—I can’t tell you what she said for this buzzing in my head. Am I very sick, Aunt Eunice?” and about the chin there was a quivering motion, which betokened a ray of consciousness, as the brown eyes scanned the kind, motherly face bending over him.

“Yes, Hugh, you are very sick,” and Aunt Eunice’s tears dropped upon the face of her boy, so fearfully changed since yesterday.

He wiped them away himself, and looked inquiringly at her.

“Am I so sick that it makes you cry? Is it the fever I’ve got?”

“Yes, Hugh, the fever,” and Aunt Eunice bowed her face upon his burning hands.

For a moment he lay unconscious, then raising himself up, he fixed his eyes piercingly upon her, and whispered hoarsely,

“Aunt Eunice, I shall die! I have never been sick in my life; and the fever goes hard with such. I shall surely die. It’s been days in coming on, and I thought to fight it off, I don’t want to die. I’m not prepared,” and in the once strong man’s voice there was a note of fear, such as only the dread of death could have wrung from him. “Aunt Eunice,” and the voice was now a kind of sob, “tell Adah and Sam to pray. I shall lose my senses soon, they go and come so fast; and tell Miss Johnson, (I’ve heard that she too prays) tell her when she watches by me, as perhaps she will, tell her to pray, though I do not hear it, pray that I need not die, not yet, not yet. Oh if I had prayed sooner, prayed before,” and the white lips moved as if uttering now the petitions too long left unsaid.

Then the mind wandered again, and Hugh talked of Alice and Golden Hair, not as one and the same, but as two distinct individuals, and then he spoke of his mother.

“You’ll send for her; and if I’m dead when she comes, tell her I tried to be a dutiful son, and was always sorry when I failed. Tell her I love my mother more than she ever dreamed; and tell Ad——” Here he paused, and the forehead knit itself into great wrinkles, so intense were his thoughts. “Tell Ad—no, not tell her anything. She’ll be glad when I’m dead, and trip back from my grave so gaily!”

He was growing terribly excited now, and Aunt Eunice hailed the coming of the doctor with delight. Hugh knew him, offering his pulse and putting out his tongue of his own accord. The doctor counted the rapid pulse, numbering even then 130 per minute, noted the rolling eyeballs and the dilation of the pupils, felt the fierce throbbing of the swollen veins upon the temple, and then shook his head. Half conscious, half delirious, Hugh watched him nervously, until the great fear at his heart found utterance in words,

“Must I die?”

“We hope not. We’ll do what we can to save you. Don’t think of dying, my boy,” was the physician’s reply, as he turned to Aunt Eunice, and gave out the medicine, which must be most carefully administered.

Too much agitated to know just what he said, Aunt Eunice listened as one who heard not, noticing which the doctor said,

“You are not the right one to take these directions. Is there nobody here less nervous than yourself? Who was that young lady standing by the door when I came in. The one in white, I mean, with such a quantity of curls.”

“Miss Johnson—our visitor. She can’t do anything,” Aunt Eunice replied, trying to compose herself enough to know what she was doing.

But the doctor thought differently. Something of a physiognomist, he had been struck with the expression of Alice’s face, and felt sure that she would be a more efficient aid than Aunt Eunice herself. “I’ll speak to her,” he said, stepping to the hall. But Alice was gone. She had stood by the sick room door long enough to hear Hugh’s impassioned words concerning his probable death—long enough to hear him ask that she might pray for him; and then she stole away to where no ear, save that of God, could hear the earnest prayer that Hugh Worthington might live—or that dying, there might be given him a space in which to grasp the faith, without which the grave is dark and terrible indeed.

“I’m glad I came here now,” she whispered, as she rose from her knees. “I know my work in part, and may God give me strength to do it.”

“Is you talkin’ to God, Miss Alice?” said a little voice, and Mug’s round black face looked cautiously in.

“Yes, Muggins, I was talking to God.”

“I’d mighty well like to know what you done say,” was Mug’s next remark, as she ventured across the threshold.

“I asked him to make your Master Hugh well again, or else take him to heaven,” was Alice’s reply; whereupon the great tears gathered in the eyes of the awe-struck child, who continued,

“I wish I could ax God, too. Would he hear a black nigger like me?”

“Yes, Muggins, God hears everybody, black as well as white.”

“Then I jest go down in the woods whar Claib can’t see me, and ax Him to cure Mas’r Hugh, not take him to heaven. I don’t like dat ar.”

It was in vain that Alice tried to explain. Muggins’ mind grasped but one idea. Master Hugh must live; and she started to leave the room, turning back to ask, “if God could hear all the same if she got down by the brook where the bushes were so thick that Claib nor nobody could find her if they tried.” Assured that he would, she stole from the house, and seeking out the hiding place kneeled down upon the tall, rank grass, and with her face hidden in the roots of the alder bushes, she asked in her peculiar way, that “God would not take Mas’r Hugh to heaven, but give him a heap of doctor’s stuff, and make him well again,” promising, if he did, that “She would not steal any more jam from the jars in the cellar, or any more sugar from the bowl in the closet.” She could not remember for whose sake Alice had bidden her pray, so she said, “for the sake of him what miss done tell me,” adding quickly, “Miss Alice, I mean, not Miss ’Lina! Bah!”

Muggins intended no irreverence, nor did she dream that she was guilty of any. She only felt that she had done her best, and into her childish heart there crept a trusting faith that God had surely heard, and Mas’r Hugh would live.

And who shall say that He did not hear and answer Muggin’s prayer, made by the running brook, where none but Him could hear?

Meantime, the Hugh for whom the prayer was made had fallen into a heavy sleep, and Aunt Eunice noiselessly left the room, meeting in the hall with Alice, who asked permission to go in and sit by him until he awoke. Aunt Eunice consented, and with noiseless footsteps Alice advanced into the darkened room, and after standing still for a moment to assure herself that Hugh was really sleeping, stole softly to his bedside and bent down to look at him, starting quickly at the resemblance to somebody seen before. Who was it? Where was it? she asked herself, her brain a labyrinth of bewilderment as she tried in vain to recall the time or place a face like this reposing upon the pillow had met her view. But her efforts were all in vain to bring the past to mind, and thinking she was mistaken in supposing she had ever seen him before, she sat softly down beside him.

How disappointed Alice was in him, asking herself if it could be the dreaded Hugh. There was surely nothing to be dreaded from him now, and as if she had been his sister she wiped the sweat drops from his face.

There was a tremulous motion of the lids, a contracting of the muscles about the mouth, and then the eyes opened for a moment, but the stare he gave to Alice was wholly meaningless. He evidently had no thought of her presence, though he murmured the name “Golden Hair,” and then fell away again into the heavy stupor which continued all the day. Alice would not leave him. She had heard him say, “When she watches by me as perhaps she will, though I may not know her,” and that was sufficient to keep her at his side. She was accustomed to sickness, she said, and in spite of Aunt Eunice’s entreaties, she sat by his pillow, bathing his burning hands, holding the cooling ice upon his head, putting it to his lips, and doing those thousand little acts which only a kind womanly heart can prompt, and silently praying almost constantly as Hugh had said she must.

There were others than Alice praying for Hugh that summer afternoon, for Muggins had gone from the brook to the cornfield, startling Adah with the story of Hugh’s sickness, and then launching out into a glowing description of the new miss, “with her white gownd and curls as long as Rocket’s tail.”

“She talked with God, too,” she said, “like what you does, Miss Adah. She axes him to make Mas’r Hugh well, and He will, won’t He?”

“I trust so,” Adah answered, her own heart going silently up to the Giver of life and health, asking, if it were possible, that her noble friend might be spared.

Old Sam, too, with streaming eyes stole out to his bethel by the spring, and prayed for the dear “Massah Hugh” lying so still at Spring Bank, and insensible to all the prayers going up in his behalf.

How terrible that deathlike stupor was, and the physician, when later in the afternoon he came again, shook his head sadly.

“I’d rather see him rave till it took ten men to hold him,” he said, feeling the wiry pulse which were now beyond his count.

“Is there nothing that will rouse him?” Alice asked, “no name of one he loves more than another?”

The doctor answered “no; love for woman-kind, save as he feels it for his mother or his sister, is unknown to Hugh Worthington.”

But Alice did not think so. The only words he had whispered since she sat there, together with Muggins’ story of the Bible and the curl, would indicate that far down in Hugh’s heart, where the world had never seen, there was hidden a mighty, undying love for some one. How she wished they were alone, that she might whisper, that name in his ear, but with the doctor there, and Aunt Eunice and Densie close at hand, she dared not, lest she should betray the secret she had no right to possess.

“I’ll speak to him of his mother,” she said, and moistening with ice the lips which were now of a purple hue she said to him softly,

“Mr. Worthington.”

“Call him Hugh,” Aunt Eunice whispered, and Alice continued,

“Hugh, do you know I’m speaking to you?”

She bent so low that her breath lifted the rings of hair from his forehead, and her auburn curls swept his cheek. There was a quivering of the lids, a scarcely perceptible moan, and thus encouraged, Alice continued,

“Hugh, shall I write to your mother? She’s gone, you know, with ’Lina.”

To this there was no response, and taking advantage of something outside which had suddenly attracted her three auditors to the window, Alice said again softly, lest she should be heard,

“Hugh, shall I call Golden Haired?”

“Yes, yes, oh yes,” and the heavy lids unclosed at once, while the eyes, in which there was no ray of consciousness, looked wistfully at Alice.

“Are you the Golden Haired?” and he laid his hand caressingly over the shining tresses just within his reach.

Alice was about to reply, when an exclamation from those near the window, and the heavy tramp of horse’s feet, arrested her attention, and drew her also to the window, just as a beautiful grey, saddled but riderless, came dashing over the gate, and tearing across the yard until he stood panting at the door. Rocket had come home for the first time since his master had lead him away!

Hearing of Hugh’s illness, the old colonel had ridden over to inquire how he was, and fearing lest it might be difficult to get Rocket away if once he stood in the familiar yard, he had dismounted in the woods, and fastening him to a tree, walked the remaining distance. But Rocket was not thus to be cheated. Ever since turning into the well-remembered lane he had seemed like a new creature, pricking up his ears, and dancing and curvetting daintily along, as he had been wont to do on public occasions when Hugh was his rider instead of the fat colonel. In this state of feeling it was quite natural that he should resent being tied to a tree, and as if divining why it was done, he broke his halter the moment the colonel was out of sight, and went galloping through the woods like lightning, never for an instant slackening his speed until he stood at Spring Bank door, calling, as well as he could call, for Hugh, who heard and recognized that call.

Throwing his arms wildly over his head, he raised himself in bed, and exclaimed joyfully,

“That’s he! that’s Rocket! I knew he’d come. I’ve only been waiting for him to start on that long journey. Ho! Aunt Eunice! Pack my clothes. I’m going away where I shan’t mortify Ad any more. Hurry up. Rocket is growing impatient. Don’t you hear him pawing the turf? I’m coming, my boy, I’m coming!” and he attempted to leap upon the floor, but the doctor’s strong arm held him down, while Alice, whose voice alone he heeded, strove to quiet him.

“I wouldn’t go away to-day,” she said soothingly. “Some other time will do as well, and Rocket can wait.”

“Will you stay with me?” Hugh asked.

“Yes, I’ll stay,” was Alice’s reply.

“All right, all right. Tell Claib to put up Rocket, till another day, and then we’ll go together, you and I,” and Hugh sank back upon his pillow, just as the wheezy colonel come in, greatly alarmed and surprised to find the young man so ill.

“It beats all,” he said, “how symptoms differ. That buzzing he complained of wasn’t an atom like my wife’s—beats all;” then turning to Alice he delivered a message from Ellen who was better, and had expressed a wish to see Miss Johnson, hoping she might be induced to return with her father.

But Alice would not leave Hugh, and she declined the colonel’s invitation.

“That’s right. Stick to him,” the colonel said. “He’s a noble fellow, odd as Dick’s hat band, but got the right kind of spirit. Poor boy. It makes me feel to see him some as I felt when my Hal lay ravin’ mad with the dumb fever in his head. Poor Hal! He is up in the grave-yard now. Good day to you all. I’ve got a pesky job on hand getting that Rocket home.”

And the colonel was right, for Rocket stubbornly refused to move, kicking and biting as he had done once before when any one approached him. He had taken his stand near by the block where Hugh had been accustomed to mount him, and there he staid, evidently waiting for his master, sometimes glancing toward the house and uttering a low whinny.

“I reckon I’ll have to leave him here for a spell,” the colonel said at last when every stratagem had been resorted to in vain.

“Yes, I ’specs mas’r will,” returned the delighted Claib, who, had let one or two good opportunities pass for seizing Rocket’s bridle. “I’ll get Mas’r Tiffton anodder nag,” and with great alacrity the negro saddled a handsome bay, on which the colonel was soon riding away from Spring Bank, leaving Rocket standing patiently by the block, and waiting for the master who might never come to him again.

“I’m glad he’s roused up,” the doctor said of Hugh, “though I don’t like the way his fever increases,” and Alice knew by the expression of his face, that there was but little hope, determining not to leave him during the night.

Aunt Eunice might sleep on the lounge, she said, but the care, the responsibility should be hers. To this the doctor willingly acceded, thinking that Hugh was safer with her than any one else. Exchanging the white wrapper she had worn through the day for one more suitable, Alice, after an hour’s rest in her own room, returned to Hugh, who had missed her and who knew the moment she came back to him, even though, he seemed to be half asleep.

Softly the summer twilight faded and the stars came out one by one, while the dark night closed over Spring Bank, which held many anxious hearts. Never had a cloud so black as this fallen upon the household. There had been noisy, clamorous mourning when John Stanley died, but amid that storm of grief there was one great comfort still, Hugh was spared to them, but now he, too, was leaving them they feared, and the sorrow which at first had manifested itself in loud outcries had settled down into a grief too deep, too heart-felt for noisy demonstrations. In the kitchen where a light was burning casting fitful, ghastly glances over the dusky forms congregated there, old Chloe, as the patriarchess of the flock, sat with folded arms, talking to those about her of her master’s probable death, counting the few who had ever survived that form of fever, and speculating as to who would be their next owner. Would they be sold at auction? Would they be parted one from the other, and sent they knew not whither? The Lord only knew, old Chloe said, as the hot tears rained over her black face,

“Mas’r Hugh won’t die,” and Muggins’ faith came to the rescue, throwing a ray of hope into the darkness. “Miss Alice axed God to spar him, and so did I; now he will, won’t he, miss?” and she turned to Adah, who with Sam, had just come up to Spring Bank, and hearing voices in the kitchen had entered there first. “Say, Miss Adah, won’t God cure Mas’r Hugh—case I axed him oncet?”

“You must pray more than once, child; pray many, many times,” was Adah’s reply; whereupon Mug looked aghast, for the idea of praying a second time had never entered her brain.

Still, if she must, why, she must, and she stole quietly from the kitchen. But it was now too dark to go down in the woods by the running brook, and remembering Alice had said that God was every where, she first cast around her a timid glance, as if fearful she should see him, and then kneeling in the grass, wet with the heavy night dew, the little negro girl prayed again for Master Hugh, starting as she prayed at the sound which met her ear and which came from the spot where Rocket was standing by the block, waiting for his master.

Claib had offered him food and drink, but both had been refused, and opening the stable door so that he could go in whenever he chose, Claib had left him there alone.

Muggins knew that it was Rocket, and stole up to him, whispering as she laid her hand on his neck,

“Poor Rocket, I’m sory too for Mas’r Hugh, but he won’t die, ’case I’ve prayed for him. I has prayed twicet, and I knows now he’ll live. If you could only pray—I wonder if horses can!” and thinking she would ask the new miss, Mug continued to stroke the horse, who suffered her caress, and even rubbed his face against her arm, eating the tuft of grass she plucked for him. Once Mug thought of trying to lead him to the stall, but he looked so tall and formidable, towering up above her, that she dared not, and after a few more assurances that Mas’r Hugh would live, she left him to himself, with the very sensible advice, that if she’s he, she wouldn’t ac so, but would go to bed, in the stable like a good boy.

Returning to the house Mug stole up stairs to the door of the sick room, where Alice was now alone with Hugh.

He was awake, and for an instant seemed to know her, for he attempted to speak, but the rational words died on his lips, and he only moaned, as if in distress.

“What is it?” Alice said, bending over him.

“Are you the Golden Haired?” he asked again as her curls swept his face.

“No, I’m not Golden Hair,” she answered, soothingly. “I’m Alice, come to nurse you. You have heard of Alice Johnson. ’Lina told you of her.”

“Ad!” he almost screamed. “Do you know Ad? I am sorry for you. Who are you?” and as if determined to solve the mystery he raised himself upon his elbow and stretching out his hand, pushed her flowing curls back from her sunny face, muttering as he did so, “‘There angels do always behold his face.’ That’s in her Bible. I’m reading it through. I began last winter, when Adah came. Have you heard of Adah?”

Alice had heard of Adah and suggested sending for her, asking “if he would not like to have her come.”

“And you go away?” he said, grasping her hand and holding it fast. “No, you must not go. There’s something in your face that makes me happy, something like hers. When I say her or she, I mean Golden Hair. There’s only one her to me.”

“Who is Golden Hair?” Alice asked, and instantly the great tears gathered in Hugh’s dark eyes as he replied.

“Don’t say who is she, but who was she. I’ve never told a living being before. Golden Hair was a bright angel who crossed my path one day, and then disappeared forever, leaving behind the sweetest memory a mortal man ever possessed. It’s weak for men to cry, but I have cried many a night for her, when the clouds were crying, too, and I heard against my window the rain which I knew was falling upon her little grave.”

He was growing excited, and thinking he had talked too much, Alice was trying to quiet him, when the door opened softly and Adah herself came in. Bowing politely to Alice she advanced to Hugh’s bedside, and bending over him spoke his name. He knew her, and turning to Alice, said, “This is Adah; you will like each other; I am sure.”

And they did like each other at once, Alice recognizing readily a refinement of feeling and manner, which showed that however unfortunate Adah might have been, she was still the true-born lady, while Adah felt intuitively that in Alice she had found a friend in whom she could trust. For a few moments they talked together, and then in the hall without there was a shuffling sound and Adah knew that Sam was coming. With hobbling steps the old man came in, scarcely noticing either of the ladies so intent was he upon the figure lying so still and helpless, before him.

“Massah Hugh, my poor, dear Massah Hugh,” he cried, bending over his young master.

“You may disturb him,” Adah said, putting from her lap little Willie, who had come in with Sam, and at whom Alice had looked with wonder, marvelling at the striking resemblance between him and Hugh.

“Could it be?” and Alice grew dizzy with that dreadful thought. “Could it be? No, no, oh, no. Adah was too pure, too good, while Hugh was too honorable,” and Alice felt a pang at this injustice to both.

Taking the child in her lap while Adah spoke with Sam she smoothed his soft, brown hair, and scanned his infantile features closely, tracing now another look than Hugh’s, a look which made her start as if smitten suddenly. The eyes, the brow, the hair were Hugh’s, but for the rest; the dedicate mouth, with its dimpled corners, the curve of the lip, the nose, the whole lower part of the face was like, oh, so like, sweet Anna Richards, and she was like her brother. Alice had heard from ’Lina that Adah professed to have had a husband who deserted her and as she held Willie in her lap, there were all sorts of fancies in her bewildered brain nor was it until a loud outcry from Sam, fell on her ear that she roused herself from the castle she was building as to what might be if Willie were indeed of the Richard’s line. Sam had turned away from Hugh, and with his usual politeness was about making his obeisance to Alice, when the words, “Your servant, Miss,” were changed into a howl of joy, and falling upon his knees, he clutched at Alice’s dress, exclaiming,

“Now de Lord be praised, I’se found her again. I’se found Miss Ellis, an’ I feels like singin’ ‘Glory Hallelujah.’ Does ye know me, lady? Does you ’member shaky ole darkey, way down in Virginny? You teach him de way, an’ he’s tried to walk dar ever sence. Say, does you know ole Sam?” and the dim eyes looked eagerly into Alice’s face.

She did remember him, and for a moment seemed speechless with surprise, then, stooping beside him, she took his shrivelled hand and pressed it between her own, asking how he came there, and if Hugh had always been his master.

“You ’splain, Miss Adah. You speaks de dictionary better than Sam,” the old man said, and thus appealed to, Adah told what she knew of Sam’s coming into Hugh’s possession.

“He buy me just for kindness, nothing else, for Sam aint wo’th a dime, but Massa Hugh so good. I prays for him every night, and I asks God to bring you and him together. Oh, I’se happy chile to-night. I prays wid a big heart, ’case I sees Miss Ellis again,” and in his great joy Sam kissed the hem of Alice’s dress, crouching at her feet and regarding her with a look almost idolatrous.

At sight of his nurse Willie had slid from Alice’s lap and with his arm around Sam’s neck, was lisping the only words he as yet could speak, “Up, up, Tam, Willie up,” meaning that he must be taken. Struggling to his feet Sam took Willie on his shoulder, then with another blessing on Miss Ellis and a pitying glance at Hugh, he left the room, Willie looking down from his elevated position triumphant as a young lord, and crowing in childish glee as he buried his hands in Uncle Sam’s white wool.

In every move which Willie made there was a decidedly Richards’ air, a manner such as would have been expected from John Richards’ son playing in the halls of Terrace Hill.

“Is Willie like his father?” Alice asked as the door closed after Sam.

“Yes,” and a shadow flitted over Adah’s face.

She did not like to talk of Willie’s father and was glad when Hugh at last claimed their attention. They watched together that night, tending Hugh so carefully that when the morning broke and the physician came, he pronounced the symptoms so much better that there was hope, he said, if the faithful nursing were continued. Still Hugh remained delirious, lying often in a kind of stupor from which nothing had power to arouse him unless it were Alice’s voice, whispering in his ear the name of “Golden Hair,” or the cry of Rocket, who for an entire week waited patiently by the block, his face turned towards the door whence he expected his master to appear. During the day he would neither eat nor drink, but Claib always found the food and drink gone, which was left in the stall at night, showing that Rocket must have passed the hours of darkness in his old, accustomed place. With the dawn of day, however, he returned to his post by the block, and more than one eye filled with tears at sight of the noble brute waiting so patiently and calling so pitifully for one who never came. But Rocket grew tired at last, and they missed him one morning at Spring Bank, while Col. Tiffton on that same morning was surprised and delighted to find him standing demurely by the gate and offering no resistance when they led him to the stable which he never tried to leave again. He seemed to have given Hugh up and a part of the affection felt for his young master was transferred to the colonel, who petted and caressed the beautiful animal, sighing the while as he thought how improbable it was that Hugh ever could redeem him, and how if he did not, the time was coming soon when Rocket must again change masters, and when Harney’s long cherished wish to possess him would undoubtedly be gratified.

CHAPTER XXI.
ALICE AND ADAH.

At Alice’s request, Adah and Sam staid altogether at Spring Bank, but Alice was the ruling power—Alice, the one whom Chloe and Claib consulted; Alice to whom Aunt Eunice looked for counsel, Alice, who remembered all the doctor’s directions, taking the entire charge of Hugh’s medicines herself—and Alice, who wrote to Mrs. Worthington, apprising her of Hugh’s illness. They hoped he was not dangerous, she said, but he was very sick, and Mrs. Worthington would do well to come at once. She did not mention ’Lina, but the idea never crossed her mind that a sister could stay away from choice when a brother was so ill; and it was with unfeigned surprise that she one morning saw Mrs. Worthington and Lulu alighting at the gate, but no ’Lina with them.

“She was so happy at Saratoga,” Mrs. Worthington said, when a little over the first flurry of her arrival. “So happy, too, with Mrs. Richards that she could not tear herself away, unless her mother should find Hugh positively dangerous, in which case she should, of course, come at once.”

This was the mother’s charitable explanation, made with a bitter sigh as she recalled ’Lina’s heartless anger when the letter was received, as if Hugh were to blame, as indeed, ’Lina seemed to think he was.

“What business had he to come home so quick? If he’d staid in New Orleans, he might not have had the fever. Any way, she wasn’t going home. Alice had said he was not dangerous yet, so if her mother went, that was enough;” and utterly forgetful of the many weary hours and days when Hugh had watched by her, the heartless girl had stifled every feeling of self reproach, and hurried her mother off, entrusting to her care a note for Alice, who, she felt, would wonder at her singular conduct.