OR,

LOVE AND PRIDE.

By MARY J. HOLMES

1878

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CONTENTS

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[CHAPTER I.—THE INMATES OF THE FARM-HOUSE.]

Old Deacon Marshall sat smoking beneath the maple tree which he had planted many years before, when he was scarcely older than the little girl sitting on the broad doorstep and watching the sun as it went down behind the western hills. The tree was a sapling then, and himself a mere boy. The sapling now was a mighty tree, and its huge branches swept the gable roof of the time-worn building, while the boy was a gray-haired man, sitting there in the glorious sunset of that bright October day, and thinking of all which had come to him since the morning long ago, when, from the woods near by, he brought the little twig, and with his mother's help secured it in its place, watching anxiously for the first indications of its future growth.

Across the fields and on a shady hillside, there were white headstones gleaming in the fading sunlight. He could count them all from where he sat,—could tell which was his mother's, which his father's, and which his fair-haired sister's. Then there came a blur before his eyes, and great tears rolled down his furrowed cheek, as he remembered that in that yard there were more graves of his loved ones than there were chairs around his fireside, even though he counted the one which for years had not been used, but stood in the dark corner of the kitchen, just where it had been left that dreadful night when his only son was taken from him. On the hillside there was no headstone for that boy, but there were two graves, which had been made just as many years as the arm-chair of oak had stood in the dark corner, and on the handsome monument which a stranger's hand had reared, was cut the name of the deacon's wife and the deacon's daughter-in-law.

Fourteen times the forest tree had cast its leaf since this last great sorrow came, and the old man had in a measure recovered from the stunning blow, for new joys, new cares, new loves had sprung into existence, and few who looked into his calm, unruffled face, ever dreamed of the anguish he had suffered. Time will soften the keenest grief, and in all the town there was not apparently a happier man than the deacon; though as often as the autumn came, bringing the frosty nights and hazy October days, there stole a look of sadness over his face, and the pipe, his never-failing friend, was brought into requisition more frequently than ever.

"It drove the blues away," he said; but on the afternoon of which we write, the blues must have dipped their garments in a deeper dye than usual, for though the thick smoke curled in graceful wreaths about his head, it did not dissipate the gloom which weighed upon his spirits as he sat beneath the maple, counting the distant graves, and then casting his eye down the long lane, through which a herd of cows was wending its homeward way. They were the deacon's cows, and he watched them as they came slowly on, now stopping to crop the tufts of grass growing by the wayside, now thrusting their slender horns over the low fence in quest of the juicy cornstalk, and then quickening their movements as they heard the loud, clear whistle of their driver, a lad of fourteen, and the deacon's only grandson.

Walter Marshall was a handsome boy, and none ever looked into his frank, open face, and clear, honest eyes, without turning to look again, he seemed so manly, so mature for his years, while about his slightly compressed lips there was an expression as if he were constantly seeking to force back some unpleasant memory, which had embittered his young life and fostered in his bosom a feeling of jealousy or distrust of those about him, lest they, too, were thinking of what was always uppermost in his mind.

To the deacon, Walter was dear as the apple of his eye, both for his noble qualities and the cloud of sorrow which had overshadowed his babyhood. A dying mother's tears had mingled with the baptismal waters sprinkled on his face, and the first sound to which he ever seemed to listen was that of the village bell tolling, as a funeral train wound slowly through the lane and across the field to the hillside, where the dead of the Marshall family were sleeping. He had lain in his grandmother's arms that day, but before a week went by, a stranger held him in her lap, while the deacon went again to the hillside and stood by an open grave. Then the remaining inmates of the farm-house fell back to their accustomed ways, and the prattle of the orphan boy,—for so they called him,—was the only sunshine which for many a weary month visited the old homestead.

Since that time the deacon's daughter had married, had wept over her dead husband, and smiled upon a little pale-faced, blue-eyed girl, to whom she gave the name of Ellen, for the sake of Walter's mother.

Aunt Debby, the deacon's maiden sister, occupied a prominent position in the family, who prized her virtues and humored her whims in a way which spoke volumes in her praise. Although unmarried, Aunt Debby declared that it was not her fault, and insisted that her husband, who was to have been, was killed in the war of 1812. Not that she ever saw him, but her fortune had been told for fifty cents by one who pretended to read the future, and as she placed implicit confidence in the words of the seer, she shed a few tears to the memory of the widower who marched bravely to his death, leaving to the world four little children, and to her a life of single-blessedness. For the sake of the four children whose step-mother she ought to have been, she professed a great affection for the entire race of little ones, and especially for Walter, whose father had been her pet.

"Walter was the very image of him," she said, and when, on the night of which we are writing, she heard his clear whistle in the distance, she drew her straight-backed chair nearer to the window, and watched for the first appearance of the boy. "That's Seth again all over," she thought, as she saw him make believe set the dog on Ellen, who had gone to meet him. "That's just the way Seth used to pester Mary," and she glanced at the meek-eyed woman, moulding biscuits on the pantry shelf. As was usual with Aunt Debby, when Seth was the burden of her thoughts, she finished her remarks with, "Seth allus was a good boy," and then, as she saw Walter take a letter from his pocket and pass it to his grandfather, she hastened to the door, while her pulses quickened with the hope that it might contain some tidings of the wanderer.

The letter bore the New York postmark, and glancing at the signature, the deacon said:

"It's from Richard Graham," while both Walter and Aunt Debby drew nearer to him, waiting patiently to know the nature of its contents.

"There's nothing about my boy," the old man said, when he had finished reading, and with a gesture of impatience Walter turned away, saying to himself, "I'd thank him not to write if he can't tell us something we want to hear," while Aunt Debby went back to her knitting, and the polished needles were wet as they resumed their accustomed click.

"Mary," called the deacon, to his daughter, "this letter concerns you more than it does me. Richard's wife is dead,—killed herself with fashion and fooleries."

Advancing toward her father, Mary said:

"When did she die, and what will he do with his little girl?"

"That's it," returned the father, "that's the very thing he wrote about," and opening the letter a second time, he read that the fashionable and frivolous Mrs. Graham, worn out by a life of folly and dissipation, had died long before her time, and that the husband, warned by her example, wished to remove his daughter, a little girl eight years of age, from the city, or rather from the care of her maternal grandmother, who was sure to ruin her.

It is true the letter was not exactly worded thus, but that was what it meant. Mr. Graham had once lived in Deerwood, and knew the old Marshall homestead well,—knew how invigorating were the breezes from the mountains,—how sweet the breath of the newly mown hay, or soil freshly plowed,—knew how bracing were the winter winds which howled around the farm-house,—how healthful the influences within, and when he decided to shut up his grand house and go to Europe for an indefinite length of time, his thoughts turned toward rustic Deerwood as a safe asylum for his child. In the gentle Mary Howland she would find a mother's care, such as she had never known, and after a little hesitation, he wrote to know if at the deacon's fireside there was room for Jessie Graham.

"She is a wayward, high-spirited little thing," he wrote, "but warm-hearted, affectionate and truthful,—willing to confess her faults, though very apt to do the same thing again. If you take her, Mrs. Howland, treat her as if she were your own; punish her when she deserves it, and, in short, train her to be a healthy, useful woman."

The price offered in return for all this was exceedingly liberal, and would have tempted the deacon had there been no other inducement.

"That's an enormous sum to pay for one little girl," he said, when he finished reading the letter. "It will send Ellen through the seminary, and maybe, buy her a piano, if she's thinking she must have one to drum upon."

"Piano!" repeated Walter. "I'll earn one for her when she needs it. I don't like this Jessie with her city airs. Don't take her, Aunt Mary. We have suffered enough from the Grahams;" and Walter tossed his cap into the tree, with a low rejoinder, which sounded very much like "darn 'em!"

"Walter," said the deacon, "you do wrong to cherish such feelings toward Mr. Graham. He only did what he thought was right, and were your father here now, he'd say Richard was the best friend he ever had."

This was the place for Aunt Debby to put in her accustomed "Seth allus was a good boy," while Walter, not caring to discuss the matter, laughed good-humoredly, and said:

"But that's nothing to do with this minx of a Jessie. Why does he write her name s-i-e? Why don't he spell it s-y-sy, and be sensible? Of course she's as stuck up as she can be,—afraid of cows and snakes and everything," and Walter sneered at the idea of a girl who was afraid of snakes and everything.

"Yes," chimed in Ellen, who Aunt Debby said was born for no earthly use except to "take Walter down." "I shouldn't suppose you'd say anything, for don't you remember when you went to Boston with Mr. Smith to see the caravan, and stopped at the Tremont, and when they pounded that big thing for dinner you were scared almost to death, and hid behind the door screaming, 'The lion's out! the lion's out! Don't you hear him roar?'"

Walter colored crimson, and replied apologetically:

"Pshaw, Nell, I was a little shaver then, only ten years old. I'd never heard a gong before, and why shouldn't I think the lion out?"

"And why shouldn't Jessie be afraid of snakes if she never saw one? She's only eight, and you were ten," was the reply of Ellen, whose heart bounded at the thoughts of a companion, and who had unwittingly avowed herself the champion of the unknown Jessie Graham.

"Hush, children," interrupted the deacon. "It isn't worth while to quarrel. Folks raised in the city are sometimes green as well as country people, and this Jessie may be one of 'em. But the question now is, shall she come to Deerwood or not?" and he turned inquiringly toward his daughter. "Mary, are you willing to be a mother to Richard Graham's child?"

Mrs. Howland started, and sweeping her hand across her face, answered: "I am willing," while Aunt Debby, in her straight-backed chair mumbled:

"To think it should come to that,—Mary taking care of his and another woman's child; but, law! it's no more than I should have done if he hadn't been killed," and with a sigh for the widower and his four motherless offspring, Aunt Debby also gave her assent, thinking how she would knit lamb's-wool stockings for the little girl, whose feet she guessed were about the size of Ellen's.

"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Ellen, when it was settled, "for now there'll be somebody to play with when my head aches too hard to go to school. I hope she'll bring a lot of dolls; and, Walter, you won't ink their faces and break their legs as you did that cob baby Aunt Debby made for me?"

When thus appealed to, Walter was reading for himself the letter which had fallen at his grandfather's feet, and his clear hazel eyes were moist with tears, as he read the postscript:

"I have as yet heard nothing from Seth, poor fellow! I hoped he would come back ere this. It may be I shall meet him in my travels."

"He isn't so bad a man after all," thought Walter, and with his feelings softened toward the father, he was more favorably disposed toward the daughter's dolls, and to Ellen's question he replied, "Of course I shan't bother her if she lets me alone and don't put on too many airs."

"I can't see to write as well as I used to," said the deacon, after everything had been arranged, "and Walter must answer the letter."

"Walter won't do any such thing," was the mental comment of the boy, whose animosity began to return toward one who he fancied had done his father a wrong.

After a little, however, he relented, and going to his room wasted several sheets of paper before he was at all satisfied with the few brief lines which were to tell Mr. Graham that his daughter Jessie would be welcome at Deerwood. Great pains he took to spell her name according to his views of orthography, making an extra flourish to the "y" with which he finished up the "Jessy."

"Now, that's sensible," he said. "I wonder Aunt Debby don't spell her name b-i-e-by. She would, I dare say, if she lived in New York."

Walter's ideas of city people were formed entirely from the occasional glimpses he had received of his proud Boston relatives, who had been highly indignant at his mother's marriage with a country youth, the most of them resenting it so far as to absent themselves from her funeral. His lady grandmother, they told him, had been present, and had held him for a moment upon her rich black mourning dress, but from that day she had not looked upon his face. These things had tended to embitter Walter toward his mother's family, and judging all city people by them, it was hardly natural that he should be very favorably disposed toward little Jessie. Still, as the time for her arrival drew near, none watched for her more vigilantly or evinced a greater interest in her coming than himself, and on the day when she was expected, it was observed by his cousin Ellen that he took more than usual pains with his toilet, and even exchanged his cowhide boots for a lighter pair, which would make less noise in walking; then as he heard the whistle in the distance, he stationed himself by the gate, where he waited until the gray horses which drew the village omnibus appeared over the hill. The omnibus itself next came in sight, and the head of a little girl was thrust from the window, a profusion of curls falling from beneath her brown straw hat, and herself evidently on the lookout for her new home.

"Curls, of course," said Walter. "See if I don't cut some of 'em off," and he involuntarily felt for his jack-knife.

By this time the carriage was so near that he vacated his post, lest the strangers should think he was waiting for them, and returning to the house, looked out of the west window, whistling indifferently, and was apparently quite oblivious of the people alighting at the gate, or of the chubby form tripping up the walk, and with sunny face and laughing round bright eyes, winning at once the hearts of the four who, unlike himself, had gone out to receive her.

[CHAPTER II.—MR. GRAHAM AND JESSIE.]

She was a little fat, black-eyed, black-haired girl, with waist and ankles of no Lilliputian size, and when at last Walter dared to steal a look at her, she had already divested herself of her traveling habiliments, and with the household cat in her arms, was looking about for a chair which suited her. She evidently did not fancy the high, old-fashioned ones which had belonged to Deacon Marshall's wife, for, spying the one which was never used, and into which even Ellen dared not climb, she unhesitatingly wheeled it from its place, and seated herself in its capacious depths, quite as a matter of course.

A good deal shocked, and somewhat amused, Walter watched her proceedings, thinking to himself:

"By and by I'll tell her that is father's chair, and then she won't want to sit in it; but she's a stranger now, so I guess I'll let her alone."

By this time the cat, unaccustomed to quite so hard a squeeze as Jessie gave it, escaped from her lap, and jumping down, Jessie ran after it, exclaiming:

"Oh, boy, boy, stop her!"

A peculiar whistle from Walter sent the animal flying faster from her, and shaking back her curls, Jessie's black eyes flashed up into his face, as she said:

"You're the meanest boy, and I don't like you a bit."

"Jessie," said the stern voice of her father, and for the first time since his entrance, Walter turned to look at him, and as he looked he felt the bitterness gradually giving way, for the expression of Mr. Graham's face was not proud and overbearing as he had fancied it to be.

On the contrary, it was mild and gentle as a woman's, while there was something in his pleasant blue eyes which would prompt an entire stranger to trust him at once. He had seen much of the world, and of what is called best society, and his manners were polished and pleasing. Still there was nothing ostentatious about him, no consciousness of superiority, and when Deacon Marshall, pointing to Walter, said to him, "This is Seth's child," he took the boy's hand in his own, and for a moment, stood gazing down into the frank, open face, then pushing the brown hair from off the forehead, he said:

"You look as your father did, when we were boys together, and he was the dearest friend I knew."

"What made you turn against him then?" trembled on Walter's lips, but the words were not uttered, for Mr. Graham's manner had disarmed him of all animosity, and he said instead:

"I hope I may be as good and true a man as I believe him to have been."

For a moment longer Mr. Graham held the hand in his, while he looked admiringly at the boy, who had paid this tribute to one whom the world considered an outcast, then releasing it, he turned away, and Walter was sure that his eyes were moist with something which looked like tears.

"I like him for that," was his mental comment, as he watched Mr. Graham talking with his aunt of little Jessie, who, when he bade her farewell,—for he went back that night,—clung sobbing to his neck, refusing to be comforted, until Walter whispered to her of a bright-eyed squirrel playing in its cage up in the maple tree.

Then her arms relaxed their grasp, and she went with Ellen to see the sight, while Walter accompanied Mr. Graham to the depot. There was a bond of sympathy between the man and boy, and they grew to liking each other very fast during the few moments they talked together upon the platform of the Deerwood station. Numerous were the charges Mr. Graham gave to Walter concerning his little girl, bidding him care for her as if she were his sister, and Walter felt a boyish pride in thinking how well he would fulfill his trust.

Mr. Graham could never tell what prompted him to say it, but as his mind went forward to the future, when Jessie would be grown, he said:

"She will make a beautiful woman, I think, and I hope she will be as good and pure as beautiful, so that her future husband, should she ever have one, will not look to her in vain for happiness."

It might have been that Mr. Graham was thinking of his own wife, and the little congeniality there had been between them. If so, he hastened to thrust such thoughts aside by adding, laughingly:

"Her grandmother is a remarkably scheming old lady, and has already set her heart on William Bellenger, or rather on his family; but I would rather see her buried than the wife of any of that race."

Unconsciously Mr. Graham had wounded Walter deeply, for in his veins the blood of the Bellengers was flowing, and he did not care to hear another speak thus disparagingly of a race from which his gentle mother sprung, though he had no love for it himself. William Bellenger was his cousin, and even now he felt his finger tips tingle as he recalled the only time they had met. It was on the occasion of that first visit to Boston, to which Ellen had alluded. His uncle's family were then boarding at the Tremont and William was making a constrained effort to entertain him in the public parlor, when he became so frightened with the gong, mistaking it for a roaring lion, and taking refuge behind the door as Ellen had said. With explosive shouts of laughter William repeated the story to all whose ear he could gain, and Walter had never forgotten the sneering tone of his voice as he called after him at parting:

"The lion's out! the lion's out!"

They had never seen each other since,—he hoped they never should see each other again,—and though sure that he disliked Jessie very much, he shrank even from the thought of associating her with William Bellenger, though he did not like to have Mr. Graham speak so slightingly of him. Something like this must have shown itself upon his face, for Mr. Graham saw the shadow resting there and quickly divining the cause, hastened to say:

"Forgive me, Walter, for speaking thus thoughtlessly of your mother's family. I did not think of the relationship. You are not like them in the least, I am sure, for you remind me each moment of your father."

Around the curve the train appeared in view, but Walter must ask one question of his companion, and as the latter sprang upon the steps of the forward car, he held his arm, and said to him entreatingly, as it were:

"Do you think my father guilty?"

Oh, how Mr. Graham longed to say no to the impulsive boy, whose handsome face looked up to him so wistfully. But he could not, and he answered sadly:

"I did think so, years ago."

"Yes, yes; but now? Do you think so now?" and Walter held fast to the arm, even though the train was moving slowly on.

The ringing of the bell, the creaking of the machinery, and the puffing of the engine increased each moment; but above the din of them all Walter caught the reply:

"I have had no reason to change my mind," and releasing Mr. Graham, he sprang to the ground and walked slowly back to the farm-house, his bosom swelling with resentment, and his eyes filling with tears, for upon no subject was the high-spirited boy so sensitive as the subject of his father's honor.

"I'll never believe it till he himself tells me it is true," he said, and then, as he had often done before, he began to wonder if his father ever thought of the child he had never seen, and if in this world they would ever meet.

While thus meditating, he reached home, where he found the entire family assembled around little Jessie, who, with flushed cheeks and angry eyes, was stamping her fat feet furiously, and, by way of variety, occasionally bumping her hard head against the harder door.

"What is it?" he asked, pressing forward until he caught sight of the little tempest.

The matter was soon explained. Always accustomed to her own way with her indulgent grandmother, Jessie had insisted upon opening the cage and taking the squirrel in her hands, and when her request was refused she had flown into a most violent passion, screaming for her father to come and take her away from such dirty, ugly people. It was in vain that they tried by turns to soothe her. Her spirit was the ruling one as yet, and she raved on till Walter came and learned the cause of her wrath.

"I can make her mind, I'll bet," he thought, and advancing toward her, he said sternly: "Jessie!" but a more decided stamp of the foot was her only answer, and seizing her arm, he shook her violently, while he said more sternly than before: "Stop, instantly!"

Like coals of fire the black eyes flashed up into his, meeting a look so firm and decided that they quailed beneath the glance. Jessie had met her master, and after a few hysterical sobs, she became as gentle as a lamb, nestling so close to Walter, who had seated himself upon the chintz-covered lounge, that he involuntarily wound his arm around her, as if to make amends for his recent harshness.

Jessie was as affectionate and warm-hearted as she was high-tempered and rebellious. Her tears were like April showers, and before Walter had been with her one half hour, all traces of the storm had disappeared, and in her own way she was cultivating his acquaintance, and occasionally inflicting upon him a pang by criticising some of his modes of speech. Particularly was she shocked at his favorite expression, "Darn it!" and looking wonderingly into his face, she said:

"You mustn't use such naughty words. Nobody but vulgar folks do that."

Walter colored painfully, and that night, in the little diary which he kept, he wrote:

"Resolved to break myself of using the word 'darn;' not because a pert city miss wishes it, but because—"

He didn't know quite what reason to assign, so he left the sentence to be finished at some future time.

In less than three weeks Jessie was the pet of the household, not even excepting Walter, whose prejudices gradually gave way, and who at last admitted that she would be "a niceish kind of a little girl, if she wasn't so awful spunky."

To no one of the family did Jessie take so kindly as to him. He had been the first to conquer her, and she clung to him with a childish, trusting love, whose influence he could not resist. Naturally full of life and fond of exercise, she was his constant companion in the fields and in the woods, where, fearless of complexion or dress, she gathered the rich butternuts, or sought among the yellow leaves for the brown chestnuts which the hoar frost had cast from their prickly covering. She liked the country, she said, and when her grandmother wrote, as she often did, begging her to come back, if only for a week, she absolutely refused to go, bidding Walter, who was her amanuensis, say that she liked staying where she was, and never meant to live in the city again. To Walter she was of inestimable advantage, for she cured him of more than one bad habit, both of word and manner, and though he, perhaps, would not have acknowledged it, he was very careful not to offend her ladyship by a repetition of the offense, until at last his schoolmates more than once called him stuck-up and proud, while even Ellen thought him greatly changed.

And thus the autumn passed away, and the breath of winter was cold and keen upon the New England hills, while the grim old mountain frowned gloomily down upon the pond, or tiny lake, whose surface was covered over with a coat of polished glass, tempting the skaters far and near, and bringing to its banks one day Walter and Jessie Graham. It was in vain that Mrs. Howland and Aunt Debby both urged upon the latter the propriety of remaining at home and knitting on the deacon's socks, just as gentle, domestic Ellen did. Jessie was not to be persuaded, and, wrapped in her warm fur cape and mittens, she went with Walter to the pond, receiving many a heavy fall upon the ice, but always saying it was no matter, particularly if Walter were within hearing. The surest way to win his favor, she knew, was to be brave and fearless, and when, as the bright afternoon drew to its close, some boy, more mischievous than the rest, caught off Walter's cap and sent it flying toward the southern boundary of the pond, she darted after it, unmindful of the many voices raised to stay the rash adventure.

"Stop, Jessie! stop! The deep hole lies just there!" was shouted after her. But she did not hear; she thought only of Walter's commendation when she returned him his cap, and she kept on her way, while Walter, with blanched cheek, looked anxiously after her, involuntarily shutting his eyes as the dreadful cry rose upon the air:

"She's gone! she's gone!"

When he opened them again the space where he had seen her last, with her bright face turned toward him, was vacant, and the cold, black waters were breaking angrily over the spot where she had stood, Walter thought himself dying, and almost hoped he was, for the world would be very dreary with no little Jessie in it; then as he caught sight of the crimson lining to Jessie's cape fluttering above the ice, and thought of her father's trust in him, he cried, "I'll save her, or perish too!" and rushed on to the rescue.

There was a fierce struggle in the water, and the ice was broken up for many yards around, and then, just as those who stood upon the shore, breathlessly awaiting the result, were beginning to despair, the noble boy fell fainting in their midst, his arms clasped convulsively around Jessie, whose short black curls and dripping garments clung tightly to her face and form. Half an hour later and Deacon Marshall, smoking by his kitchen fire, looked from the western window, and, starting to his feet, exclaimed:

"Who are all those people coming this way, and what do they carry with them? It's Walter,—it's Walter!" he cried, as the setting sun shone on the white face, and hurrying out, he asked, huskily, "Is my boy dead?"

"No, not dead," answered one of the group, "his heart is beating yet, but she——" and he pointed to little Jessie, whom a strong man carried in his arms.

But Jessie was not dead, although for a long time they thought she was, and Walter, who had recovered from his fainting fit, was not ashamed to cry as he looked upon the still white face and wished he had never been harsh to the little girl, or shaken her so hard on that first day of her arrival at Deerwood. Slowly, as one wakes from a heavy slumber, Jessie came back to life, and the first words she uttered were:

"Tell Walter I did get his cap, but somebody took it from me and hurt my hand so bad," and she held up the tiny thing on which was a deep cut made by the sharp-pointed ice.

"Yes, darling, I know it," Walter whispered, and when no one saw him he pressed his lips to the wounded hand.

This was a good deal for Walter to do. Never had he called any one darling before, never kissed even his blue-eyed cousin Ellen, but the first taste inspired him with a desire for more, and he wondered at himself for having refrained so long.

"Will she live?" he asked eagerly of the physician, who replied:

"There is now no reason why she should not," and Walter hastened away to his own room, where, unobserved, he could weep out his great joy.

Gradually, as the days went by, Jessie comprehended what Walter had done for her, and her first impulse was that some one should write to her father,—somebody who would say just what she told them to, and as Aunt Debby was the most likely to do this, the poor old lady was pressed into the service, groaning and sweating over the task.

"And now, pa," Aunt Debby wrote, after telling of the accident, "Walter must be paid, and I'll tell you how to pay him. I heard him one night talking with his grandpa about going to school and college, and his grandpa said he couldn't, they were not worth enough in the whole world for that. Then Walter said he should never know anything, and cried so hard that I was just going to cry too, when I fell asleep and forgot it. You are rich, I know, for one of ma's rings cost five hundred dollars, and her shawl a thousand, and I want you to send me money enough for Walter to go to college. It will take a lot, I guess, for I heard him say he'd only studied the things they learn in district schools; but you have got enough. Let me give it to him with my own hands, because he saved me with his, will you, father? Walter is the nicest kind of a boy."

The letter was sent, and in course of time there came a response with a draft for two thousand dollars, the whole to be used for the noble lad who had saved the life of the father's only child. Wild with delight Jessie listened while Aunt Debby, the only one in the secret, spelled out the words, then seizing the draft, she hastened out in quest of Walter, whom she found in the barn, milking the speckled cow. Running up to him she cried:

"It's come,—the money! You're going to school,—to college, and to be a great big man like father. Here it is," and thrusting the paper into his hand she crouched so near to him that the milk-pail was upset, and the white drops spattered her jet black hair.

At first Walter could not understand it, but Jessie managed to explain how she had asked her father for money to pay for his education.

"Because," she said, "if it hadn't been for you I should have been a little dead girl now, and the boys, next winter, would have skated right over me lying there on the bottom of the pond."

Walter's first emotion was one of joy in having within his reach what he had so greatly desired, but considered impossible. Then there arose a feeling of unwillingness to receive his education from Mr. Graham, to whom they were already indebted. It seemed too much like charity, and that he could not endure. Still he did not say so to Jessie,—he would wait, he thought, until he had talked with his grandfather. Greatly surprised, Deacon Marshall listened to the story, saying, when it was finished:

"You'll accept it, of course."

"No, I shan't," returned Walter. "We owe Mr. Graham now more than we can ever pay, and I would rather work all my life on the old homestead than be dependent on his bounty. You may send it back to your father," he added, giving the draft to Jessie. "Tell him I thank him, but I can't accept his favor."

"Oh, Walter!" and climbing into a chair, for Walter was standing up, Jessie wound her arms around his neck and poured forth a torrent of entreaties which led him finally to waver, and at last to decide upon accepting it, provided Mr. Graham would allow him to pay it back as soon as he was able.

To this Mr. Graham, who was immediately written to upon the subject, assented, for he readily understood the feeling of pride which had prompted the suggestion.

"I do not respect you less," he wrote to Walter in reply, "for wishing to take care of yourself, and the time may come when the money so cheerfully loaned to you now will be sorely needed by me and mine. Until then, give yourself no trouble about it, but devote all your energies to the acquirement of an education. Were my advice asked in reference to a college, I should tell you Yale, but you must do as you think best. I shall need a partner by-and-by, perhaps, and nothing could please me more than to see the names of Graham and Marshall associated together in business again. God bless your father, wherever he may be."

This letter touched the right chord, and often in his sleep Walter saw the sign whose yellow letters read "Graham & Marshall," and the junior partner of this firm sometimes was himself, but oftener a mild-faced man wearing the sad, weary look he always saw in dreams upon his father's face. The day would come, too, he said, when the honor of the Marshall name would be redeemed, and he looked eagerly forward to the time when he was to enter as a student the Wilbraham Academy, where it was decided that he should fit himself for college.

Very delightful was the bustle and confusion attendant upon the preparations in the deacon's household, the entire family entering into the excitement with a zest which told how much the boy was beloved. Every one wished to do something for him, even to little Jessie, who, having never been taught to do a really useful thing until she came to Deerwood, worked perseveringly, but with small hope of success, upon a pair of socks like those which Ellen had knit for the deacon the winter before. But alas for Jessie! knitting was not her forte, and Walter himself could not forbear a smile at the queer-looking thing which grew but slowly in her hands. At last, in despair, she gave it up, and one night, when no one was near, threw it into the fire.

"I must give him something for a keepsake," she thought, and remembering that he had sometimes smoothed her hair as if he liked it, she seized the shears, and cutting from her head the longest, handsomest curl, gave it to him with the explanation that "her father had taken a lock of her hair when he went away, and perhaps he would like one too."

Affecting an indifference he did not feel, Walter laughingly accepted a gift which in future years would be very dear to him, because of the fair donor.

The bright April morning came at last on which Walter left his home, and with tearful eyes the family watched him out of sight, and then, with saddened hearts, went back to their usual employments, feeling that the sunshine of the house had gone with the stirring, active boy, who, in one corner of the noisy car, was winking hard and counting the fence posts as they ran swiftly past, to keep himself from crying. Anon this feeling left him, and with the hopefulness of youth he looked eagerly into the far future, catching occasional glimpses of the day which would surely come to him when the names of Graham and Marshall would be associated together again.

[CHAPTER III.—EIGHT YEARS LATER.]

It is the pleasant summer time, and on the college green groups of people hurry to and fro, some seeking their own pleasure beneath the grateful shade of the majestic elms, others wending their way to the hotel, while others still are hastening to the Center Church to hear the valedictory, which rumor says will be all the better received for the noble, manly beauty of the speaker chosen to this honor. Flushed with excitement, he stands before the people, his clear hazel eye wandering uneasily over the sea of upturned faces, as if in quest of one from whose presence he had hoped to catch his inspiration. But he looked in vain. Two figures alone met his view,—one a bent and gray-haired old man leaning on his staff, the other a mustached, stylish-looking youth of nearly his own age, who occupied a front seat, and with his glass coolly inspected the young orator.

With a calm, dignified mien, Walter returned the gaze, wondering where he had seen that face before. Suddenly it flashed upon him, and with a feeling of gratified pride that it was thus they met again, he glanced a second time at the calm, benignant expression of the old man, who had come many miles to hear the speech his boy was to make. In the looks of the latter there was that which kindled a thrill of enthusiasm in Walter's frame, and when at last he opened his lips, and the tide of eloquence burst forth, the audience hung upon his words with breathless interest, greeting him at the close with shouts of applause which shook the solid walls and brought the old man to his feet. Then the tumult ceased, and amid the throng the hero of the hour was seen piloting his aged grandfather across the green to the hotel.

"I wish your father was here to-day," the deacon said, as they reached the public parlor; but before Walter could reply he saw approaching them the stranger who had so leisurely inspected him with his quizzing-glass, and who now came forward, offering his hand and saying, laughingly:

"Allow me to congratulate you upon having become yourself a lion."

It did not need this speech to tell Walter that his visitor was William Bellenger, and he answered in the same light strain:

"Yes, I'm not afraid of the lion now;" "nor of the baboon, either," was his mental rejoinder, as he saw the wondrous amount of hair his cousin had brought back from Europe, where for the last two years he had been traveling.

William Bellenger could be very gracious when he tried, and as his object in introducing himself to Walter's notice was not so much to talk with him particularly, as to inquire after a certain young girl and heiress, whose bright, sparkling beauty was beginning to create something of a sensation, he assumed a friendliness he did not feel, and was soon conversing familiarly with Walter of the different people they both knew, mentioning incidentally Mr. Graham, the wealthy New York banker, whom he had met in Europe, for Mr. Graham had remained abroad six years. From him William had heard the warmest eulogies of Walter Marshall, and there had been kindled in his bosom a feeling of jealous enmity, which the events of the day had not in the least tended to diminish. Still if his cousin had not interfered with him in another matter of greater importance than the being praised by Mr. Graham and the people, he was satisfied, and it was to ascertain this fact that he had followed young Marshall to the hotel.

Before going to New Haven William had called at the home of Jessie's grandmother in the city, to inquire for the young lady. The house was shut up and the family were in the country, the servant said, who answered William's ring, but the sharp eyes of the young man caught the outline of a figure listening in the upper hall, and readily divining who the figure was, he answered:

"Yes, but Mrs. Bartow is here. Carry her my card and say that I will wait."

The name of Bellenger brought down at once a bundle of satin and lace, which Jessie called her grandmother, and which was supposed to be showing off its diamonds at some fashionable hotel, instead of fanning itself in the back chamber of that brownstone front. From her William learned that Jessie was in Deerwood, and would probably attend the commencement exercises at Yale, as a boy of some kind, whom Mr. Graham had taken up, was to be graduated at that time. To New Haven, then, he went, examining the books at every hotel, and scanning the faces of those he met with an eager gaze, and at last, as he became convinced she was not there, he determined to seek an interview with his cousin, and question him of her whereabouts. After speaking of the father as a man whose acquaintance every one was proud to claim, he said, quite indifferently:

"By the way, Walter, his daughter Jessie is in Deerwood, is she not?"

"Yes," returned Walter; "she has been there for some weeks. She lived with us all the time her father was in Europe, except when she was away at school," and Walter felt his pulses quicken, for he remembered what Mr. Graham had said of Mrs. Bartow's having set her heart on William as her future grandson.

William knew as well as Walter that Jessie had lived at Deerwood, but he seemed to be surprised, and continued:

"I wonder, then, she is not here to-day. She must feel quite a sisterly interest in you," and the eyes, not wholly unlike Walter's, save that they had in them a sinister expression, were fixed inquiringly upon young Marshall, who replied:

"I did expect her, and my cousin too; but my grandfather says that Ellen was not able to come, and Jessie would not leave her."

"She must be greatly attached to her country friends," returned William, and the slight sneer which accompanied the words prompted Walter to reply:

"She is attached to some of us, I trust. At all events, I love her as a sister, for such she has been to me, while Mr. Graham has been a second father. I owe him everything——"

"Not your education, certainly. You don't mean that?" interrupted William, who had from the first suspected as much, for he knew that Deacon Marshall was comparatively poor.

Walter hesitated, for he had not yet outlived the pride which caused him to shrink from blazoning it abroad that a stranger's money had made him what he was. Deacon Marshall, on the contrary, had no such sensitiveness, and observing Walter's embarrassment, he answered for him:

"Yes, Mr. Graham did pay for his education, and an old man's blessing on his head for that same deed of his'n."

"Mr. Graham is very liberal," returned William, with a supercilious bow, which brought the hot blood to Walter's cheek. "Do you go home immediately?" he continued, and Walter replied:

"My grandfather has a desire to visit Medway, in Massachusetts, where he married his wife, and as I promised to go with him in case he came to New Haven, I shall not return to Deerwood for a week."

Instantly the face of William Bellenger brightened, and Walter felt a strong desire to knock him down when he said:

"Allow me, then, to be the bearer of any message you may choose to send, for I am resolved upon seeing Miss Graham, and shall, accordingly, go to Deerwood. She will need a gallant in your absence, and trust me, I will do my best, though I cannot hope to fill the place of a lion."

Involuntarily Walter clenched his fist, while in the angry look of defiance he cast upon his cousin, the impudent William read all the withering scorn he felt for him. Ay, more, for he read, too, or thought he did, that the beautiful Jessie Graham, whose father was worth a million, had a warm place in the young plebeian's heart, and this it was which brought the wrathful scowl to his own face as he compelled himself to offer his hand at parting.

"What message did you bid me carry?" he asked, and taking his extended hand, Walter looked fiercely into his eyes as he replied:

"None; I can tell her myself all I have to say."

"Very well," said William, with another bow, and stroking the little forest about his mouth, he walked away.

"I don't put much faith in presentiments," said the deacon, when he was gone, "but all the time that chap was here I felt as if a snake were crawling at my feet. Believe me, he's got to cross my path or yourn, mebby both," and the deacon resumed his post by the window, watching the passers-by, while Walter hurriedly paced the floor with a vague, uneasy sensation, for though he knew of no way in which the unprincipled Bellenger could possibly cross his grandfather's path, he did know how he could seriously disturb himself.

Not that he had any confessed hope of winning Jessie Graham. She was far above him, he said. Yet she was the one particular star he worshiped, feeling that no other had a right to share the brightness with him, and when he remembered the shady, winding paths in the pleasant old woods at Deerwood, and the long afternoons when Ellen would be too languid to go out, and William and Jessie free to go alone, he longed for his grandfather to give up his favorite project and go back with him to Deerwood. But when he saw how the old man was set upon the visit, wondering if he should know the place, and if the thorn-apple tree were growing still where he sat with Eunice and asked her to be his wife, he put aside all thoughts of self, and went cheerfully to Medway, while his cousin, with an eye also to the shadowy woods and the quiet mountain walks, was hurrying on to Deerwood.

[CHAPTER IV.—JESSIE AND ELLEN.]

It was a glorious afternoon, and not a single feathery cloud flecked the clear blue of the sky. The refreshing rain of the previous night had cooled the sultry August air, and all about the farm-house the grass had taken a brighter green and the flowers a brighter hue. Away to the westward, at the distance of nearly one-fourth of a mile, the woods were streaked with an avenue of pines, which grew so closely together that the scorching rays of the noontide sun seldom found entrance to the velvety plat where Walter had built a rustic bench, with Jessie looking on, and where Jessie and Ellen now were sitting, the one upon the seat and the other on the grass filling her straw hat with cones, and talking to her companion of the young graduate, wondering where he was, and if he didn't wish he were there with them beneath the sheltering pines.

Eight years had changed the little girls of nine and eight into grown-up, graceful maidens, and though of an entirely different style, each was beautiful in her own way, Jessie as a brunette, and Ellen as a blonde. Full of frolic, life and fun, Jessie carried it all upon her sparkling face, and in her laughing eyes of black. Now, as of old, her raven hair clustered in short, thick curls around her forehead and neck, giving her the look of a gypsy, her father said, as he fondly stroked the elfin locks, and thought how beautiful she was. Five years she had lived in Deerwood, and then, at her father's request, had gone to a fashionable boarding-school, for the only child of the millionaire must have accomplishments such as could not be obtained among the New England mountains. No process of polishing, however, or course of discipline had succeeded as yet in making her forget her country home, and when Mr. Graham, whose business called him West, offered her the choice between Newport and Deerwood, she unhesitatingly chose the latter, greatly to the vexation of her grandmother, who delighted in society now even more than she did when young. If Jessie went to Deerwood she must remain at home, for she could not go to Newport alone, and what was worse, she must live secluded in the rear of the house for Mrs. Bartow would not for the world let her fashionable acquaintances know that she passed the entire summer in the city. She should lose caste at once, she thought, and she used every possible argument to persuade Jessie to give up her visit to Deerwood, and go with her instead. But Jessie would not listen. "Grandma could accompany old Mrs. Reeves," she said, "they'd have a splendid time quarreling over their respective granddaughters, herself and Charlotte, but as for her, she should go to Deerwood;" and she accordingly went there, and took with her a few city airs and numerous city fashions.

The former, however, were always laid aside when talking to Ellen, who was by some accounted the more beautiful of the two, with her wealth of golden hair, her soft eyes of violet blue, and her pale, transparent complexion. As gentle and quiet as she was lovely, she formed a striking contrast to the merry, frolicsome Jessie, with her darker, richer style of beauty, and neither ever appeared so well as when they were together. In all the world there was no one, except her father, whom Jessie loved as she did Ellen Howland, and though, amid the gay scenes of her city home, she frequently forgot her, and neglected to send the letters which were so precious to the simple country girl, her love returned the moment the city was left behind, and she breathed the exhilarating air of the Deerwood hills.

She called Walter her brother, and had watched him through his college course with all a sister's pride, looking eagerly forward to the time when he would be in her father's employ, for it was settled that he was to enter Mr. Graham's bank as soon as he was graduated. And as on that summer afternoon she sat upon the grassy ridge and talked with Ellen of him, she spoke of the coming winter when he would be with her in the city.

"It will be so nice," she said, "to have such a splendid beau, for I mean to get him introduced right away. I shall be seventeen in a month, and I'm coming out next season. I wish you could spend the winter with me, and see something of the world. I mean to ask your mother. Father will buy your dresses to wear to parties, and concerts, and the opera. Only think of having a box all to ourselves,—you and I and Walter, and maybe Charlotte Reeves once in a great while, or cousin Jennie. Wouldn't you love to go?"

"No, not for anything," answered Ellen, who liked early hours and quiet rooms, and always experienced a kind of suffocation in the presence of fashionable people, and who continued: "I don't believe Walter will like it either, unless he changes greatly. He used to have a horror of city folks, and I do believe almost hated you before you came to Deerwood, just because you were born in New York."

"Hated me, Ellen!" repeated Jessie. "He shook me, I know, and I've been a little afraid of him ever since, but it did me good, for I deserved it, I was such a high-tempered piece; but I did not know he hated me. Do you suppose he hates me now?" and Jessie's manner evinced a deeper interest in Walter than she herself believed existed.

Ellen saw it at once, and so did the man who for the last ten minutes had been watching the young girls through the pine tree boughs. William Bellenger had reached Deerwood on the afternoon train, and gone at once to the farm-house, whose gable roof, small window panes, and low walls had provoked a smile of derision, while he wondered what Jessie Graham could find to attract her there. Particularly was he amused with the quaint expressions of Aunt Debby, who, in her high-crowned cap, with black handkerchief smoothly crossed in front, and her wide check apron on, sat knitting by the door, stopping occasionally to take a pinch of snuff, or "shoo" the hens when they came too near.

"The gals was in the woods," she said, when he asked for Miss Graham, and she bade him "make Ellen get up if he should find her setting on the damp ground, as she presumed she was. Ellen was weakly," she said, "and wasn't an atom like Walter, who was as trim a chap as one could wish to see. Did the young man know Walter?"

"Oh, yes," returned William. "He is my cousin."

"Your cousin!" and the needles dropped from the old lady's hands. "Bless me!" and adjusting her glasses a little more firmly upon her nose she peered curiously at him. "I want to know if you are one of them Bellengers? Wall, I guess you do favor Walter, if a body could see your face. It's the fashion, I s'pose, to wear all that baird."

"Yes, all the fashion," returned William, who was certainly good-natured, even if he possessed no other virtue, and having asked again the road to the woods, he set off in that direction.

Following the path Aunt Debby pointed out, he soon came near enough to catch a view of the white dress Jessie wore, and wishing to see her first, himself unobserved, he crept cautiously to an opening among the pines, where he could see and hear all that was passing. Jessie's sparkling, animated face was turned toward him, but he scarcely heeded it in his surprise at another view which greeted his vision. A slender, willowy form was more in accordance with Will's taste than a fat chubby one, and in Ellen Howland his idea of a beautiful woman was, if possible, more than realized. She was leaning against a tree, her blue gingham morning gown,—for she was an invalid,—wrapped gracefully about her her golden hair, slightly tinged with red, combed back from her forehead, her long eyelashes veiling her eyes of blue, and shading her colorless cheek, while her lily-white hands were folded together, and rested upon her lap.

"Jupiter!" thought William, "I did not suppose Deerwood capable of producing anything like that. Why, she's the realization of what I've often fancied my wife should be. Now, if she were only rich I'd yield the black-eyed witch of a Jessie to my milksop cousin. But, pshaw! it shan't be said of me that I fell in love at first sight with a vulgar country girl. What the deuce, they talk of Walter, do they! I'll try eavesdropping a little longer," and bending his head, he listened while their conversation proceeded.

He heard what Ellen said of Walter; he saw the startled look upon the face of Jessie as she exclaimed, "Does he hate me now?" and in that look he read what Jessie did not know herself.

"The wretch!" he muttered, between his teeth; "why couldn't he take the other one? I would, if the million were on her side," and in the glance he cast on Ellen there was more than a mere passing fancy.

She must have felt its influence, for as that look fell upon her she said:

"It's cold,—I shiver as with a chill. Let's go back to the house," and she arose to her feet, just as the pine boughs parted asunder, and William appeared before them.

"Mr. Bellenger!" Jessie exclaimed. "When did you come?"

"Half an hour since," he returned, "and not finding you in the house I came this way, little thinking I should stumble upon two wood nymphs instead of one," and again the peculiar glance rested upon Ellen, who had sunk back upon her seat, and whose soft eyes fell beneath his gaze.

The brief introduction was over, and then Ellen rose to go, complaining that she was cold and tired.

"We will go, too," said Jessie, putting on her hat, when Mr. Bellenger touched her arm, and said in a low voice of entreaty:

"Stay here with me."

"Yes, stay," rejoined Ellen, who caught the words. "It is pleasant here, and I can go alone."

So Jessie stayed, and when the slow footsteps had died away in the distance William sat down beside her, and after expressing his delight at meeting her again, said, indifferently as it were:

"By the way, I have just come from New Haven, where I had the pleasure of hearing the charity boy's valedictory. It is strange what assurance some people have."

"Charity boy!" repeated Jessie; "I thought Walter Marshall was to deliver the valedictory."

"And isn't he a charity scholar? Don't your father pay his bills?" asked William, in a tone which Jessie did not like.

"Well, yes," she answered, "but somehow I don't like to hear you call him that, because——" she hesitated, and William's face grew dark while waiting for her answer, which, when it came, was, "because he saved my life;" and then Jessie told her companion how, but for Walter Marshall, she would not have been sitting there that summer afternoon.

"Was Walter's speech a good one?" she asked, her manner indicating that she knew it was.

Not a change in her speaking face escaped the watchful eye of William, and knowing well that insinuations are often stronger and harder to refute than any open assertion, he replied, with seeming reluctance:

"Yes, very good; though some of it sounded strangely familiar, and I heard others hinting pretty strongly at plagiarism."

This last was in a measure true, for one of Walter's class, chagrined that the honor was not conferred upon himself, had taken pains to say that the valedictory was not all of it Walter's,—that an older and wiser head had helped him in its composition. William did not believe this, but it suited his purpose to repeat it, and he watched narrowly for the effect. Jessie Graham was the soul of truth, and no accusation could have been brought against Walter which would have pained her so much as the belief that he had been dishonorable in the least degree.

"Walter would never pass off what was not his own!" she exclaimed. "It isn't like him, or like any of the Marshall family."

"You forget his father," said the man beside her, carelessly thrusting aside a cone with his polished boot.

"What did his father do?" Jessie asked in some surprise, and her companion replied:

"You astonish me, Miss Graham, by professing ignorance of what Walter's father did. You know, of course."

"Indeed I do not," she returned. "I only know that there is something unpleasant connected with him,—something which annoys Walter terribly, but I never heard the story. I asked my father once and he seemed greatly agitated, saying he would rather not talk of it. Then I asked Ellen, but if she knew she would not tell, and she evaded all my questioning, so I gave it up, for I dare not ask Deacon Marshall or Walter either. What was it, Mr. Bellenger?"

William understood just how proud Jessie Graham was, and how she would be shocked at the very idea of public disgrace. Once convince her of the parent's guilt, and she will sicken of the son, he thought, so when she said again, "What was it? What did Mr. Marshall do?" he replied:

"If your father has kept it from you, I ought not to speak of it, perhaps; but this I will say, if Seth Marshall had his just deserts, he would now be the inmate of a felon's cell."

"Walter's father a felon!" Jessie exclaimed, bounding to her feet. "I never thought of anything as bad as that. Is it true? Oh! is it true?" and in the maiden's heart there was a new-born feeling, which, had Walter been there then, would have prompted her to shrink from him as if he, too, had been a sharer of his father's sin.

"You seem greatly excited," said William. "It must be that you are more deeply interested in young Marshall than I supposed."

"I am interested," she replied. "I have liked him so much that I never dreamed of associating him with dishonor."

"Why need you now?" asked the wily Will. "Walter had nothing to do with it, though, to be sure, it is but natural to suppose that the child is somewhat like the father, particularly if it does not inherit any of its mother's virtues, as Walter, I suppose, does not. He is a Marshall through and through," and William smiled exultingly as he saw how well his insinuation was doing its work.

"Tell me more," Jessie whispered. "What did Mr. Marshall do?"

"I would rather not," returned William, at the same time hinting that it was something she ought not to hear. "If your father had good reason for keeping it from you, so have I. Suffice it to know that it killed his young wife, my father's sister, and that our family since have scarcely recognized Walter as belonging to us. It wasn't any fault of mine," he continued, as he saw the flash of Jessie's eyes, and readily divined that she did not wish to have Walter slighted. "I cannot help it. Our family are very proud, my grandmother particularly; and when my aunt married a poor ignorant country youth, it was natural that she should feel it, and when the disgrace came it was ten times worse. There is such a thing as marrying far beneath one's station, and you can imagine my grandmother's feelings by fancying what your own father's would be if you were to throw yourself away upon—well, upon this Waiter, who may be well enough himself, but who can never hope to wipe away the stain upon his name," and William looked at her sideways, to see the effect of what he had said.

Jessie Graham was easily influenced, and she attached far more importance to William's words than she would have done had she known his real design; so when he spoke of her marrying Walter as a preposterous and impossible event, she accepted it as such, and wondered why her heart should throb so painfully or why she should feel as if something had been wrested from her,—something which, all unknown to herself, had made her life so happy. She had taken her first lesson in distrust, and the poison was working well.

For a long time they sat there among the pines, not talking of Walter, but of the city and the wondrous sights which Will had seen in his foreign travels. There was something very soothing to Jessie in William's manner, so different from that which Walter assumed toward her. Like most young girls she was fond of flattery, and Walter had more than once offended her by his straightforward way of telling her faults. William, on the contrary, sang her praises only; and, while listening to him, she wondered she had never thought before how very agreeable he was. He saw the impression he was making, and when at last, as the sun was nearing the western horizon, she arose to go, proposing that they should take the Marshall grave-yard in their route, he assented, for this, he knew, would keep him longer with her alone.

"Your aunt is buried here," Jessie said, as they drew near to the fence which surrounded the home of dead; "that is hers," and she pointed to the monument gleaming in the sunlight.

"Do you bury your bodies above the ground?" asked William, directing her attention to the flutter of a blue morning dress, plainly visible beyond the taller stone.

"Why, that is Ellen!" cried Jessie, hurrying on until she reached the gate, where she stopped suddenly, and beckoned her companion to approach as noiselessly as possible.

Ellen also had come that way, and seating herself by her grandmother's grave, had fallen asleep, and like some rare piece of sculpture, she lay among the tall, rank grass—so near to a rose tree that one of the fading blossoms had dropped its leaves upon her face.

"Isn't she beautiful?" Jessie said to her companion, who replied; "Yes, wonderfully beautiful," so loud that the fair sleeper awoke and started up.

"I was so tired," she said, "that I sat down and must have gone to sleep, for I dreamed that I was dead, and that the man who came to us in the pines dug my grave. Where is he, Jessie!"

"I am here," said William, coming forward, "and believe me, my dear Miss Howland, I would dig the grave of almost any one sooner than your own. Allow me to assist you," and he offered her his hand.

Ellen was really very weak, and when he saw how pale she was he made her lean upon him as they walked down the hillside to the house. And once, when Jessie was tripping on before, he slightly pressed the little blue-veined hand trembling on his arm, while in a very tender voice he asked if she felt better. Ellen Howland was wholly unaccustomed to the world, and had grown up to womanhood as ignorant of flattery or deceit as the veriest child. Pure and innocent herself, she did not dream of treachery in others. Walter to her was a fair type of all mankind, and she could not begin to fathom the heart of the man who walked beside her, touching her hand more than once before they reached the farm-house door.

They found the supper table neatly spread for five, and though William's intention was to spend the night at the village hotel, he accepted Mrs. Howland's invitation to stay to tea, making himself so much at home, and chatting with all so familiarly, that Aunt Debby pronounced him a clever chap, while Mrs. Howland wondered why people should say the Bellengers of Boston were proud and overbearing. It was late that night when William left them, for there was something very attractive in the blue of Ellen's eyes, and the shining black of Jessie's, and when at last he left them, and was alone with himself and the moonlight, he was conscious that there had come to him that day the first unselfish, manly impulse he had known for years. He had mingled much with fashionable ladies. None knew how artificial they were better than himself, and he had come at last to believe that there was not among them a single true, noble-hearted woman. Jessie Graham might be an exception, but even she was tainted with the city atmosphere. Her father's purse, however, would make amends for any faults she might possess, and he must win that purse at all hazards; but while doing that he did not think it wrong to pay the tribute of admiration to the golden-haired Ellen, whose modest, refined beauty had impressed him so much, and whose artless, childlike manner had affected him more than he supposed. "Little Snow-Drop" he called her to himself, and sitting alone in his chamber at the hotel, he blessed the happy chance which had thrown her in his way.

"It is like the refreshing shower to the parched earth," he said, and he thought what happiness it would be to study that pure girl, to see if, far down in the depths of her heart, there were not the germs of vanity and deceit, or better yet, if there were not something in her nature which would sometime respond to him. He did not think of the harm he might do her. He did not care, in fact, even though he won her love only to cast it from him as a useless thing. Country girls like her were only made for men like him to play with. No wonder then if in her dreams that night Ellen moaned with fear of the beautiful serpent which seemed winding itself, fold on fold, about her.

Jessie, too, had troubled dreams of felon's cells, of clanking chains, and even of a gallows, with Walter standing underneath beseeching her to come and share the shame with him. Truly the serpent had entered this Eden and left its poisonous trail.

For nearly a week William staid in town, and the village maidens often looked wistfully after him as he drove his fast horses, sometimes with Jessie at his side, and sometimes with Ellen, but never with them both, for the words he breathed into the ear of one were not intended for the other. Drop by drop was he infusing into Jessie's mind a distrust of one whom she had heretofore considered the soul of integrity and honor. Not openly, lest she should suspect his motive, but covertly, cautiously, always apparently seeking an excuse for anything the young man might hereafter do, and succeeding at last in making Jessie thoroughly uncomfortable, though why she could not tell. She did not blame Walter for his father's sins, but she would much rather his name should have been without a blemish.

Gradually the brightness of Jessie's face gave way to a thoughtful, serious look, her merry laugh was seldom heard, and she would sit for hours so absorbed in her own thoughts as not to heed the change which the last few days had wrought in Ellen, too. Never before had the latter seemed so happy, so joyous, so full of life as now, and Aunt Debby said the rides with Mr. Bellenger upon the mountains had done her good. William had pursued his study faithfully, and, in doing so, had become so much interested himself that he would have asked Ellen to be his wife had she been rich as she was lovely. But his bride must be an heiress; and so, though knowing that he could never be to Ellen Howland other than a friend, he led her on step by step until at last she saw but what he saw, and heard but what he heard. He was not deceiving her, he said, sometimes when conscience reproached him for his cruelty. She knew how widely different their stations were; she could not expect that one whom half the belles of Boston and New York would willingly accept could think of making her his wife. He was only polite to her, only giving a little variety to her monotonous life. She would forget him when he was gone. And at this point he was conscious of an unwillingness to be forgotten.

"If we were only Mormons," he thought, the last night of his stay at Deerwood, when out under the cherry trees in the garden he talked with her alone, and saw the varying color on her cheek, as he said, "We may never meet again." "If we were only Mormons, I would have them both, Nellie and Jessie, the one for her gilded setting, the other because——"

He did not finish the sentence, for he was not willing then to acknowledge to himself the love which really and truly was growing in his heart for the fair girl beside him.

"But you'll surely come to us again," Nellie said. "Jessie will be here. You'll want to visit her," and a tear trembled on her long eyelashes.

"I can see Jessie in the city, and if I come to Deerwood it will be you who brings me. Do you wish me to come and see you, Nellie?" and the dark, handsome face bent so low that the rich brown hair rested on the golden locks of the artless, innocent girl, who answered, in a whisper,

"Yes, I wish you to come."

"Then you must give me a kiss," he said, "as a surety of my welcome, and when the trees on the mountain where we have been so happy together are casting their dense leaves in the autumn, I will surely be with you again."

The kiss was given—not one—not two—but many, for William Bellenger was greedy, and his lips had never touched aught so pure and sweet before.

"I wouldn't tell Walter that I'm coming," he said, "for he does not like me, I fancy, and I cannot bear to have him prejudice you against me. I wouldn't tell my mother either, or any one——"

"Not Jessie?" Ellen asked, for she had a kind of natural pride in wishing her friend to know that she, who never aspired to notice of any kind, had succeeded in pleasing the fastidious William Bellenger.

"No, not Jessie," he said, "because,—well, because you better not," and knowing well his power over the timid girl, he felt sure that his wishes would be regarded, and with another good-by, he left her.

He had hoped that Jessie would be induced to accompany him to New York, and as there was a secret understanding between himself and Mrs. Bartow, the old lady had written, entreating her granddaughter to return with William.

"You have stayed in the country long enough," she wrote, "and I dare say you are as sunburnt and freckled as you can be, so pray come home. Everybody is gone, I know, and New York is just like Sunday, while I stay like a guilty thing in the rear of the house, to make folks think I'm off to some watering place. I wouldn't for the world let old Mrs. Reeves know that I have been cooped up here the blessed summer. It's all owing to your obstinacy, too, and I think you ought to come back and entertain me. Mr. Bellenger will attend to you, and you couldn't ask for a more desirable companion. Old Mrs. Reeves says he is the most eligible match in the city, his family are so aristocratic. There isn't a single mechanic or working person in the whole line, for she spent an entire season in tracing back their ancestry, finding but one blot, and that an unfortunate marriage of a Miss Ellen Bellenger with some ignorant country loafer she met at boarding-school, and who she says was hung, or sent to State prison, I forgot which. I am sorry she discovered this last, as in case you cut out Charlotte, and of course you will, it will be like the spiteful old wretch to blazon it abroad, though William ain't to blame, of course."

"I wonder I never told grandma that Walter was connected with the Bellengers," Jessie thought, as she finished reading this letter, which came to her the night when William, beneath the cherry trees, was whispering words to Ellen which should never have been spoken. "It's probably because I've not been much with her of late, and she never seemed at all interested in him, except indeed, to say that pa ought to get him a situation in a grocery, or something to pay him for saving my life. I wish she wasn't so foolishly proud," and as Jessie read the letter again, she felt glad that her grandmother did not know how nearly Walter Marshall was connected with the man who "was hung, or sent to State prison."

Gradually, too, there arose before her mind the whole array of her city friends, with old Mrs. Reeves and Charlotte at their head, and the idea of having Walter with her in the city the coming winter was not as pleasant as it once had been. Her grandmother might find out who he was; William would tell, perhaps, and she could not bear the thought of seeing him slighted, as he was sure to be if the tide, of which the old lady Reeves was the under-current, should set in against him.

"I've half a mind to go home," she thought, "before anything definite is arranged, and persuade father to secure Walter just as good a situation in some other place where he won't be slighted."

This allusion to her father was a fortunate one, for in her cool moments of reflection there was no one whose judgment Jessie regarded so highly as her father's. He knew Walter,—he respected him, too, and had often spoken with pleasure of the time when he would be with him.

"People dare not laugh if father takes him up," she thought, while something whispered to her that she, too, could, if she would, do much toward helping Walter to the position in society he was fitted to occupy. "I won't go," she said, at last. "I'll stay and see Walter again, at all events, though I do wish Will hadn't told me about his speech, and his father, too. I mean to ask him some time to tell me the exact truth." And having reached this resolution Jessie sat down and wrote to her grandmother that she could not come yet, she was so happy in the country.

This she intended taking to William in the morning, for she had promised to meet him at the depot and see him off. "I shall be rather lonely when he is gone," she thought, and walking to the window of her room, she wondered if Charlotte Reeves would succeed in winning William Bellenger.

"Her grandmother will strain every nerve," she thought, "but by just saying a word I can supplant her, I know, else why has he stayed here a whole week? Nell, is that you?" and Jessie started as the young girl glided into the room, her face unusually pale, and her whole appearance indicative of some secret agitation. "Where have you been?" asked Jessie, "and who was it that shut the gate?"

"Where? I didn't hear any gate," Ellen replied, trembling lest she should betray what she had been forbidden to divulge.

Had she confessed it then it would have saved her many a weary heartache, and her companion from many a thoughtless act, but she did not, and when Jessie, caressed her white cheek, and said laughingly, "Has my prudish Nell a secret love affair?" she made some incoherent answer, and, seeking her pillow, lived over again the scene in the garden, blushing to herself as she recalled the dark face which had bent so near to hers, and the tender voice which had whispered in her ear the name so recently given to her. "Little Snow-Drop," he called her when he bade her adieu, and the moon went down behind the mountain ere she fell asleep thinking of that name and the time when the forest tree would cast its leaf and he be with her again.

[CHAPTER V.—WALTER AND JESSIE.]

"So you won't go with me," William said to Jessie, next morning, when she met him at the depot and gave him the note intended for her grandmother.

"No," she replied. "The city is dull as yet, and I'd rather remain here with Ellen."

"Oh, yes, Ellen," and William spoke quite indifferently. "Why didn't she come to bid me good-by?" and he looked curiously at Jessie to see how much she knew.

But Jessie suspected nothing, and replied at once:

"She has a headache this morning and was still in bed when I left her."

The heartless man was conscious of a pleasurable sensation,—a feeling of gratified vanity,—for he knew that headache was for him. But he merely said:

"Tell her that I'm sorry she's sick; she is a pleasant, quiet little girl, quite superior to country girls in general."

"There's the train," cried Jessie, and in a moment the cars rolled up before them.

"It will seem a young eternity until you come home," said William, clasping Jessie's hand. "Good-bye," he added, as "all aboard" was shouted in his ear, and as he turned away his place was taken by another, who had witnessed the parting between the two, and at whom Jessie looked wonderingly, exclaiming:

"Why, Walter, I didn't expect you to-day."

"And shall I infer that I am the less welcome from that?" the young man asked, for with his inborn jealousy, which no amount of discipline could quite subdue, he thought he detected in Jessie's tone and manner something cold and constrained.

Nor was he wholly mistaken, for Jessie did not feel toward him just as she had done before. Still she greeted him cordially,—thought how handsome he was, and came pretty near telling him so,—but told him instead, that she thought he resembled his cousin William. This brought the conversation to a point Walter longed to reach, and as they walked slowly towards home he questioned her of William,—asking when he came, and if she had seen much of him previous to his visit there.

"I saw him almost every day before he went to Europe," she replied. "You know he lives in New York now, and grandma thinks there's nobody like him."

"Yes," returned Walter, "I remember your father told me once that she had set her heart upon your marrying him."

"People would think it a splendid match," returned Jessie, a little mischievously, for as she had known that William disliked Walter, so she now felt that Walter disliked William, and she continued: "Charlotte Reeves would give the world to have him spend a week in the country with her," and the saucy black eyes looked roguishly up at Walter, who frowned gloomily for an instant, and then rejoined:

"Shall I tell you what your father said about it?"

"Yes, do. I think everything of his opinion."

"He said, then, that he would rather see you buried than the wife of any of that race," and Walter laid a great stress upon the last two words.

For a time Jessie walked on in silence, then stopping short and looking up from under her straw hat, she said:

"Ain't you one of that race?"

"I suppose I am," answered Walter, smiling at a question which admitted of two or three significations.

Jessie thought of but one. Her father liked Walter very much, even though his mother was a Bellenger; consequently it must be something about William himself which prompted that remark, and as Jessie usually echoed her father's sentiments, she felt, the old disagreeable sensation giving way, and before they reached the farm-house she was chatting as gayly with Walter, as if nothing had ever come between them.

That night Walter and Jessie sat together in the little portico, which was securely shaded from the sun by Aunt Debby's thrifty hop vines. Walter was telling Jessie of his recent visit, and how his grandfather cried when he stood in the room where he was married nearly fifty years before.

"I supposed old people outlived all their romance," said Jessie, adding laughingly, as she plucked the broad green leaves growing near her head, "I don't think I could love any body but father fifty years,—could you?"

"It would depend a good deal upon the person I loved," returned Walter, and the look he gave Jessie seemed to say that it would not be a hard matter to love her through all time.

Jessie saw the look, and while it thrilled her with a sudden emotion of pleasure, it involuntarily reminded her of what William had said of the valedictory, and abruptly changing the conversation she said:

"Mr. Bellenger told me your speech was very good. May I see it for myself?"

Walter was a fine orator, and knew that the favor with which his speech had been received was in a great measure owing to the manner in which it was delivered. He was willing for Jessie to have heard it, but he felt a natural reluctance in permitting her to read it. Jessie saw his hesitancy, and it strengthened the suspicion which before had hardly existed.

"Yes, let me see it," she said. "You are surely not afraid of me!" and she persisted in her entreaties until he gave it into her hands, and then joined his grandfather, while she returned to her room, and striking a light, abandoned herself to the reading of the valedictory; and as she read it seemed even to her that she had heard some portion of it before.

"Yes, I have!" she exclaimed, as she came upon a strikingly expressed and peculiar idea. "I have read that in print," and in Jessie's heart there was a sore spot, for the losing confidence in Walter was terrible to her. "He is not strictly honorable," she said, and laying her face upon the roll of paper, she cried to think how she had been deceived.

The next morning Walter was not long in observing her cold distant manner, and he accordingly became as cold and formal toward her, addressing her as Miss Graham, when he spoke to her at all, and after breakfast was over, going to the village, where he remained until long past the dinner hour, hearing that which made him in no hurry to return home and make his peace with the little dark-eyed beauty. Everybody was talking of Miss Graham's city beau, who had taken her to ride so often, and who, when joked by his familiar landlord, had partially admitted that an engagement actually existed between them.

"So you've lost her, sleek and clean," said the talkative Joslyn to Walter, who replied that "it was difficult losing what one never had," and said distinctly that "he did not aspire to the honor of Miss Graham's hand."

But whether he did or not, the story he had heard was not calculated to improve his state of mind, and his dejection was plainly visible upon his face when he at last reached home.

"Jessie was up among the pines," Aunt Debby said, advising him "to join her and cheer her up a bit, for she seemed desput low spirited since Mr. Bellenger went away."

Had Aunt Debby wished to keep Walter from Jessie, she could not have devised a better plan than this, for the high spirited young man had no intention of intruding upon a grief caused by William Bellenger's absence, and hour after hour Jessie sat alone among the pines, starting at every sound, and once, when sure a footstep was near, hiding behind a rock, "so as to make him think she wasn't there." Then, when the footstep proved to be a rabbit's tread, she crept back to her seat upon the grass, and pouted because it was not Walter.

"He might know I'd be lonesome," she said, "after receiving so much attention, and he ought to entertain me a little, if only to pay for all father has done for him. If there is anything I dislike, it is ingratitude," and having reached this point, Jessie burst into tears, though why she should cry, she could not tell.

She only knew that she was very warm and very uncomfortable, and that it did her good to cry, so she lay with her face in the grass, while the rabbit came several times very near, and at last fled away as a heavier, firmer step approached.

It was not likely Jessie would stay in the pines all the afternoon, Walter thought, and as the sun drew near the western horizon, he said to his grandfather:

"I will go for the cows to-night just as I used to do," and though the pasture where they fed lay in the opposite direction from the pines, he bent his footsteps toward the latter place, and came suddenly upon Jessie, who was sobbing like a child.

"Jessie," he exclaimed, laying his hand gently upon her arm, "what is the matter."

"Nothing," she replied, "only I'm lonesome and homesick, and I wish I'd gone to New York with Mr. Bellenger."

"Why didn't you then?" was Walter's cool reply, and Jessie answered, angrily:

"I would, if I had known what I do now."

"And pray what do you know now?" Walter asked, in the same cold, calm, tone, which so exasperated Jessie that she replied:

"I know you hate me, and I know you didn't write all that valedictory, and everything."

"Jessie," Walter said, sternly, "what do you mean about that valedictory. Come, sit by me and tell me at once."

In Walter's voice there was a tone which, as a child, Jessie had been wont to obey, and now at his command she stole timidly to his side upon the rustic bench, and told him all her suspicions, and the source from which they originated.

There was a sudden flash of anger in Walter's eye at his cousin's meanness, and then, with a merry laugh, he said:

"And it sounded familiar to you, too, did it? Some parts of it might, I'll admit, for you had heard them before. Do you remember being at any examination in Wilbraham, when I took the prize in composition, or rather declamation? It was said then that my essay was far beyond my years, and I am inclined to think it was; for I have written nothing since which pleased me half so well. I was appointed valedictorian, as you know, and in preparing my oration I selected a few of those old ideas and embodied them in language to suit the occasion. I am hardly willing to call it plagiarism, stealing from myself, and I am sure you would never have recognized it either if Mr. Bellenger had not roused your suspicions. Is my explanation satisfactory?"

It was perfectly so, for Jessie now remembered where she had heard something like Walter's valedictory, and with her doubts removed she became much like herself again, though she would not admit that William's insinuations were mere fabrications of his own. He never heard it before, she knew, but some of Walter's old Wilbraham associates might have been present and said in his hearing that it seemed familiar, and then it would be quite natural for him to think so too.

Walter did not dispute her, but said:

"What else did my amiable cousin say against me?"

Clasping her hands over her burning face, Jessie answered faintly:

"He told me that your father had done a horrible thing, though he didn't explain what it was. I knew before that there was something unpleasant, and once asked father about it, but he wouldn't tell, and I want so much to know. What was it, Walter?"

For a moment Walter hesitated, then drawing Jessie nearer to him, he replied:

"It will pain me greatly to tell you that sad story, but I would rather you should hear it from my lips than from any other," and then, unmindful of the cows, which, having waited long for their accustomed summons, were slowly wending their way homeward, he began the story as follows:

"You know that old stone building on the hill near the village, and you have heard also that it was a flourishing high school for girls. There one pleasant summer my mother came. She was spending several months with a family who occupied what is now that huge old ruin down by the river side. Mother was beautiful, they say, and so my father thought, for every leisure moment found him at her side."

"But wasn't she a great deal richer than he," Jessie asked, unconscious of the pang her question inflicted upon her companion, who replied:

"Yes, he was poor, while Ellen Bellenger was rich, but she had a soul above the foolish distinction the world will make between the wealthy and the working class. She loved my father, and he loved her. At last they were engaged, and then he proposed writing to her parents, as he would do nothing dishonorable; but she begged him not to do it, for she knew how proud they were, and that they would take her home at once. And so, in an unguarded moment, they went together over the line into New York, where they were married. The Bellengers, of course, were fearfully enraged, denouncing her at once, and bidding her never cross their threshold again. But this only drew her nearer to her husband, who fairly worshiped her, as did the entire family,—for she lived in the old gable-roofed house,—and was happy in that little room which we call yours now. Father was anxious that she should have everything she wanted, and it is said was sometimes very extravagant, buying for her costly luxuries which he could not well afford."

"But my father," said Jessie. "What had he to do with it?"