University of Virginia Library

THE RECTOR OF ST. MARK'S.

1. CHAPTER I.
FRIDAY AFTERNOON.

THE Sunday sermon was finished, and the young
rector of St. Mark's turned gladly from his study-table
to the pleasant south window where the
June roses were peeping in, and abandoned himself for a
few moments to the feeling of relief he always experienced
when his week's work was done. To say that no secular
thoughts had intruded themselves upon the rector's mind,
as he planned and wrote his sermon, would not be true,
for, though morbidly conscientious on many points and
earnestly striving to be a faithful shepherd of the souls
committed to his care, Arthur Leighton had all a man's
capacity to love and to be loved, and though he fought
and prayed against it, he had seldom brought a sermon to
the people of St. Mark's in which there was not a thought
of Anna Ruthven's soft, brown eyes, and the way they
would look at him across the heads of the congregation.
Anna led the village choir, and the rector was painfully

conscious that far too much of earth was mingled with
his devotional feelings during the moments when, the
singing over, he walked from his chair to the pulpit, and
heard the rustle of the crimson curtain in the organ-loft
as it was drawn back, disclosing to view five heads, of
which Anna's was the centre. It was very wrong he
knew, and on the day when our story opens he had prayed
earnestly for pardon, when, after choosing his text, “Simon,
Simon, lovest thou me?” instead of plunging at
once into his subject, he had, without a thought of what
he was doing, idly written upon a scrap of paper lying
near, “Anna, Anna, lovest thou me more than these?”
the these referring to the wealthy Thornton Hastings, his
old classmate in college, who was going to Saratoga this
very summer for the purpose of meeting Anna Ruthven,
and deciding if she would do to become Mrs. Thornton
Hastings, and mistress of the house on Madison Square.
With a bitter groan for the enormity of his sin, and a fervent
prayer for forgiveness, the rector had torn the slips
of paper in shreds and given himself so completely to his
work, that his sermon was done a full hour earlier than
usual, and he was free to indulge in reveries of Anna for
as long a time as he pleased.

“I wonder if Mrs. Meredith has come,” he thought,
as, with his feet upon the window-sill, he sat looking
across the meadow to where the chimneys and gable
roof of Captain Humphreys' house were visible, for Captain

Humphreys was Anna Ruthven's grandfather, and
it was there she had lived since she was three years old.

As if thoughts of Mrs. Meredith reminded him of
something else, the rector took from the drawer of his
writing-table a letter received the previous day, and
opening to the second page, read as follows:

“If you were here this afternoon, I'd take you to
drive after a pair of bays, which are to sweep the stakes
at Saratoga this summer, and I'd treat you to a finer
cigar than often finds its way to Hanover. Shall I send
you out a box, or would your people pull down the
church about the ears of a minister wicked enough to
smoke. Again adieu.

“T. H.”

There was a half-amused smile on the face of the rector
as he finished the letter, so like its thoughtless, light-hearted
writer, and wondered what the Widow Rider,
across the way, would say of a clergyman who smoked
cigars, and rode after a race-horse with such a gay scapegrace
as Thornton Hastings. Then the amused look
passed away, and was succeeded by a shadow of pain, as
the rector remembered the real import of Thornton's
letter, and felt that he had no right to say, “I have a
claim on Anna Ruthven; you must not interfere.” For
he had no claim on her, though half his parishioners had

long ago given her to him, while he had loved her, as
only natures like his can love, since that week before
Christmas, when their hands had met with a strange,
tremulous flutter, as together they fastened the wreaths
of evergreen upon the wall, he holding them up, and she
driving the refractory tacks, which would keep falling, so
that his hand went often from the carpet or basin to
hers, and once accidentally closed almost entirely over the
little soft white thing, which felt so warm to his touch.

How prettily Anna had looked to him during those
memorable days, so much prettier than the other young
girls of his flock, whose hair was tumbled ere the day's
work was done, and whose dresses were soiled and disordered;
while hers was always so tidy and neat, and
the braids of her chestnut hair were always so smooth
and bright. How well, too, he remembered that brief
ten minutes, when, in the dusky twilight which had crept
so early into the church, he stood alone with her and
talked, he did not know of what, only that he heard her
voice replying to him, and saw the changeful color on
her cheek as she looked modestly into his face. That
was a week of delicious happiness, and the rector had
lived it over many times, wondering if, when the next
Christmas came, it would find him any nearer to Anna
Ruthven than the last had left him.

“It must,” he suddenly exclaimed. “The matter
shall be settled before she leaves Hanover with Mrs.

Meredith. My claim is superior to Thornton's, and he
shall not take her from me. I'll write what I lack the
courage to tell her, and to-morrow I will call and deliver
it myself.”

An hour later, and there was lying in the rector's
desk a letter, in which he had told Anna Ruthven how
much he loved her, and had asked her to be his wife.
Something whispered that she would not refuse him, and
with this hope to buoy him up, his two miles' walk that
warm afternoon was neither warm nor tiresome, and the
old lady by whose bedside he read and prayed was surprised
to hear him as he left her door, whistling an old
love-tune which she, too, had known and sang fifty years
before.

2. CHAPTER II.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

MRS. JULIA MEREDITH had arrived, and the
brown farm-house was in a state of unusual excitement;
not that Captain Humphreys or his
good wife, Aunt Ruth, respected very highly the great
lady who so seldom honored them with her presence, and
who always tried to impress them with a sense of her
superiority, and the mighty favor she conferred upon
them by occasionally condescending to bring her aristocratic
presence into their quiet, plain household, and turn
it topsy-turvy. Still she was Anna's aunt, and then it
was a distinction which Aunt Ruth rather enjoyed,—that
of having a fashionable city woman for her guest,—and
so she submitted with a good grace to the breaking in
upon all her customs, and uttered no word of complaint
when the breakfast-table waited till eight, and sometimes
nine o'clock, and the freshest eggs were taken from the
nest, and the cream all skimmed from the pans to gratify
the lady who came very charming and pretty in her
handsome cambric wrapper, with rosebuds in her hair.
She had arrived the previous night, and while the rector

was penning his letter, she was running her eye rapidly
over Anna's face and form, making an inventory of her
charms, and calculating their value.

“A very graceful figure, neither too short nor too tall.
This she gets from the Ruthvens. Splendid eyes and
magnificent hair, when Valencia has once taken it in
hand. Complexion a little too brilliant, but a few weeks
of dissipation will cure that. Fine teeth, and features
tolerably regular, except that the mouth is too wide and
the forehead too low, which defects she takes from the
Humphreys. Small feet and rather pretty hands, except
that they seem to have grown wide since I saw her before.
Can it be these horrid people have set her to milking
the cows?”

These were Mrs. Meredith's thoughts that first evening
after her arrival at the farm-house, and she had not
materially changed her mind when the next afternoon
she went with Anna down to the Glen, for which she
affected a great fondness, because she thought it was
romantic and girlish to do so, and she was far from having
passed the period when women cease caring for youth
and its appurtenances. She had criticised Anna's taste
in dress,—had said that the belt she selected did not
harmonize with the color of the muslin she wore, and
suggested that a frill of lace about the neck would be
softer and more becoming than the stiff white linen
collar.

“But in the country it does not matter,” she added.
“Wait till I get you to New York, under Madam
Blank's supervision, and then we shall see a transformation
such as will astonish the Hanoverians.”

This was up in Anna's room; and when the Glen was
reached Mrs. Meredith continued the conversation, telling
Anna of her plans for taking her first to New York,
where she was to pass through a reformatory process
with regard to dress. Then they were going to Saratoga,
where she expected her niece to reign supreme, both as a
beauty and a belle.

“Whatever I have at my death I shall leave to you,”
she said; “consequently you will pass as an heiress expectant,
and I confidently expect you to make a brilliant
match before the winter season closes, if, indeed, you do
not before we leave Saratoga.”

“O aunt,” Anna exclaimed, her eyes flashing with
unwonted brilliancy, and the rich color mantling her
cheek. “You surely are not taking me to Saratoga on
such a shameful errand as that?”

“Shameful errand as what?” Mrs. Meredith asked,
looking quickly up, while Anna replied:

“Trying to find a husband. I cannot go if you are,
much as I have anticipated it. I should despise and
hate myself forever. No, aunt, I cannot go.”

“Nonsense, child. You don't know what you are
saying,” Mrs. Meredith retorted, feeling intuitively that

she must change her tactics and keep her real intentions
concealed if she would lead her niece into the snare laid
for her.

Cunningly and carefully for the next half hour she
talked, telling Anna that she was not to be thrust upon
the notice of any one,—that she herself had no patience
with those intriguing mammas who push their bold
daughters forward, but that as a good marriage was the
ultima thule of a woman's hopes, it was but natural that
she, as Anna's aunt, should wish to see her well settled
in life, and settled, too, near herself, where they could
see each other every day.

“Of course there is no one in Hanover whom you, as
a Ruthven, would stoop to marry,” she said, fixing her
eyes inquiringly upon Anna, who was pulling to pieces
the wild flowers she had gathered, and thinking of
that twilight hour when she had talked with their
young clergyman as she never talked before. Of the
many times, too, when they had met in the cottages
of the poor, and he had walked slowly home with her,
lingering by the gate as if loth to say good-by, she
thought, and the life she had lived since he first came to
Hanover, and she learned to blush when she met the
glance of his eye, looked fairer far than the life her aunt
marked out as the proper one for a Ruthven.

“You have not told me yet. Is there any one in
Hanover whom you think worthy of you?” Mrs. Meredith

asked, just as a footstep was heard, and the rector
of St. Mark's came round the rock where they were
sitting.

He had called at the farm-house, bringing the letter,
and with it a book of poetry, of which Anna had asked
the loan.

Taking advantage of her guest's absence, Grandma
Humphreys had gone to a neighbor's after a receipt for
making a certain kind of cake, of which Mrs. Meredith
was very fond, and only Esther, the servant, and Valencia,
the smart waiting-maid, without whom Mrs. Meredith
never travelled, were left in charge.

“Miss Anna's down in the Glen with Mrs. Meredith.
Will you be pleased to wait while I call them?” Esther
said, in reply to the rector's inquiries for Miss Ruthven.

“No, I will find them myself,” Mr. Leighton rejoined.
Then, as he thought how impossible it would be to
give the letter to Anna in the presence of her aunt, he
slipped it into the book, which he bade Esther take to
Miss Ruthven's room.

Knowing how honest and faithful Esther was, the
rector felt that he could trust her without a fear for
the safety of his letter, and went to the Glen, where
the tell-tale blushes which burned on Anna's cheek at
sight of him more than compensated for the coolness
with which Mrs. Meredith greeted him. She, too, had
detected Anna's embarrassment, and when the stranger

was presented to her as “Mr. Leighton, our clergyman,”
the secret was out.

“Why is it that since the beginning of time girls have
run wild after young ministers?” was her mental comment,
as she bowed to Mr. Leighton, and then quietly
inspected his personnel.

There was nothing about Arthur Leighton's appearance
with which she could find fault. He was even
finer-looking than Thornton Hastings, her beau ideal of
a man, and as he stood a moment by Anna's side, looking
down upon her, the woman of the world acknowledged
to herself that they were a well-assorted pair,
and as across the chasm of twenty years there came
to her an episode in her life, when, on just such a day
as this, she had answered “no” to one as young and
worthy as Arthur Leighton, while all the time the
heart was clinging to him, she softened for a moment,
and by the memory of the weary years passed with
the rich old man whose name she bore, she was tempted
to leave alone the couple standing there before her, and
looking into each other's eyes with a look which she
could not mistake. But when she remembered that
Arthur was only a poor clergyman, and thought of that
house on Madison Square which Thornton Hastings
owned, the softened mood was changed, and Arthur
Leighton's chance with her was gone.

Awhile they talked together in the Glen, and then

walked back to the farm-house, where the rector bade
them good-evening, after casually saying to Anna:

“I brought the book you spoke of when I was here
last. You will find it in your room, where I asked
Esther to take it.”

That Mr. Leighton should bring her niece a book did
not seem strange at all, but that he should be so very
thoughtful as to tell Esther to take it to her room struck
Mrs. Meredith as rather odd, and as the practised warhorse
scents the battle from afar, so she at once suspected
something wrong, and felt a curiosity to know what the
book could be.

It was lying on Anna's table as she reached the door
on her way to her own room, and pausing for a moment,
she entered the chamber, took it in her hands, read the
title page, and then opened it where the letter lay.

“Miss Anna Ruthven,” she said. “He writes a fair
hand;” and then, as the thought, which at first was
scarce a thought, kept growing in her mind, she turned
it over, and found that, owing to some defect, it had become
unsealed, and the lid of the envelope lay temptingly
open before her. “I would never break a seal,” she
said, “but surely, as her protector, and almost mother, I
may read what this minister has written to my niece.”

And so she read what he had written, while a scowl
of disapprobation marred the smoothness of her brow.

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

Hastings may woo in vain. But it shall not be. It is
my duty, as the sister of her dead father, to interfere,
and not let her throw herself away.”

Perhaps Mrs. Meredith really felt that she was doing
her duty. At all events she did not give herself much
time to reason upon the matter, for, startled by a slight
movement in the room directly opposite, the door of
which was ajar, she thrust the letter into her pocket,
and turned to see—Valencia, standing with her back
to her, and arranging her hair in a mirror which hung
upon the wall.

“She could not have seen me; and, even if she
did, she would not suspect the truth,” was the guilty
woman's thought, as with the stolen missive in her
pocket she went down to the parlor, and tried, by petting
Anna more than her wont, to still the voice of conscience,
which clamored loudly of the wrong, and urged
a restoration of the letter to the place whence it was
taken.

But the golden moment fled, and when, later in the
evening, Anna went up to her chamber, and opened the
book which the rector had brought, she never suspected
how near she had been to the great happiness she had
sometimes dared to hope for, or dreamed how fervently
Arthur Leighton prayed that night, that if it were possible,
God would grant the boon he craved above all others,
—the priceless gift of Anna Ruthven's love.

3. CHAPTER III.
SUNDAY.

THERE was an unnatural flush on the rector's
face, and his lips were very white, when he
came before his people that Sunday morning, for
he felt that he was approaching the crisis of his fate;
that he had only to look across the row of heads, up to
where Anna sat, and he should know the truth. Such
thoughts savored far too much of the world which he had
renounced, he knew, and he had striven to banish them
from his mind; but they were there still, and would be
there until he had glanced once at Anna, who was occupying
her accustomed seat, and quietly turning to the
chant she was so soon to sing: “Oh, come, let us sing
unto the Lord; let us heartily rejoice in the strength of
His salvation.” The words echoed through the house,
filling it with rare melody, for Anna was in perfect tone
that morning, and the rector, listening to her with hands
folded upon his prayer-book, felt that she could not thus
“heartily rejoice,” meaning all the while to darken his
whole life, as she surely would if she told him “no.” He
was looking at her now, and she met his eyes at last, but

quickly dropped her own, while he was sure that the
roses burned a little brighter on her cheek, and that her
voice trembled just enough to give him hope, and help him
in his fierce struggle to cast her from his mind, and think
only of the solemn services in which he was engaging.
He could not guess that the proud woman who had sailed
so majestically into church, and followed so reverently
every prescribed form, bowing in the creed far lower than
ever bow was made before in Hanover, had played him
false, and was the dark shadow in his path.

That day was a trying one for Arthur, for, just as the
chant was ended, and the psalter was beginning, a handsome
carriage dashed up to the door, and had he been
wholly blind, he would have known, by the sudden sound
of turning heads, and the suppressed hush which ensued,
that a perfect hailstorm of dignity was entering St.
Mark's.

It was the Hethertons, from Prospect Hill, whose arrival
in town had been so long expected. There was Mrs.
Hetherton, who, more years ago than she cared to remember,
was born in Hanover, but who had lived most of
her life either in Paris, New York, or New Orleans, and
who this year had decided to fit up her father's old place,
and honor it with her presence for a few weeks at least;
also, Fanny Hetherton, a brilliant brunette, into whose
intensely black eyes no one could long look, they were so
bright, so piercing, and seemed so thoroughly to read one's

inmost thoughts; also, Colonel Hetherton, who had
served in the Mexican war, and retiring on the glory of
having once led a forlorn hope, now spent his time in acting
as attendant on his fashionable wife and daughter;
also, young Simon Bellamy, who, while obedient to the
flashing of Miss Fanny's black eyes, still found stolen opportunities
for glancing at the fifth and last remaining
member of the party, filing up the aisle to the large,
square pew, where old Judge Howard used to sit, and
which was still owned by his daughter. Mrs. Hetherton
liked being late at church, and, notwithstanding that the
colonel had worked himself into a tempest of excitement,
had tied and untied her bonnet-strings half a dozen times,
changed her rich basquine for a thread lace mantilla, and
then, just as the bell from St. Mark's gave forth its
last note, and her husband's impatience was oozing out
in sundry little oaths, sworn under his breath, she produced
and fitted on her fat, white hands a new pair of
Alexanders, keeping herself as cool, and quiet, and ladylike
as if outside upon the gravelled walk there was no
wrathful husband threatening to drive off and leave her,
if she did not “quit her cussed vanity, and come along.”

Such was the Hetherton party, and they created quite
as great a sensation as Mrs. Hetherton could desire, first
upon the people nearest the door, who rented the cheaper
pews; then upon those farther up the aisle, and then upon
Mrs. Meredith, who, attracted by the rustling of heavy

silk and the perfume emanating from Mrs. Hetherton's
handkerchief, slightly turned her head at first, and as the
party swept by, stopped her reading entirely, and involuntarily
started forward, while a smile of pleasure flitted
across her face as Fanny's black, saucy eyes took her, with,
others, within their range of vision, and Fanny's black head
nodded a quick nod of recognition. The Hethertons and
Mrs. Meredith were evidently friends, and in her wonder
at seeing them there, in stupid Hanover, the great lady
forgot for a while to read, but kept her eyes upon them all,
especially upon the fifth and last-mentioned member of
the party, the graceful little blonde, whose eyes might
have caught their hue from the deep blue of the summer
sky, and whose long silken curls fell in a golden shower
beneath the fanciful French hat. She was a beautiful
young creature, and even Anna Ruthven leaned forward
to look at her as she shook out her airy muslin and
dropped into her seat. For a moment the little coquettish
head bowed reverently, but at the first sound of the
rector's voice it lifted itself up quickly, and Anna saw
the bright color which rushed into her cheeks, and the
eager joy which danced in the blue eyes, fixed so earnestly
upon the rector, who, at sight of her, started suddenly,
and paused an instant in his reading. Who was she, and
what was she to Arthur Leighton, Anna asked herself,
while, by the fierce pang which shot through her heart as
she watched the stranger and the clergyman, she knew
that she loved the rector of St. Mark's, even if she had
doubted it before.

Anna was not an ill-tempered girl, but the sight of
those gay city people annoyed her, and when, as she sang
the Jubilate Deo, she saw the soft blue orbs of the blonde
and the coal-black eyes of the brunette turned wonderingly
towards her, she was conscious of returning their
glance with as much of scorn as it was possible for her to
show. Anna tried to ask forgiveness for that feeling in
the prayers which followed; but when the services were
over, and she saw a little figure in blue and white
flitting up the aisle to where Arthur, still in his robes,
stood waiting for her, an expression upon his face which
she could not define she felt that she had prayed in vain;
and with a bitterness she had never before experienced,
she watched the meeting between them, growing more and
more bitter as she saw the upturned face, the wreathing
of the rose-bud lips into the sweetest of smiles, and the
tiny white hand, which Arthur took and held while he
spoke words she would have given much to hear.

“Why do I care? It's nothing to me,” she thought,
and, with a proud step, she was leaving the church, when
her aunt, who was shaking hands with the Herthertons,
signed for her to join her.

The blonde was now coming down the aisle with Mr.
Leighton, and joined the group just as Anna was introduced
as “My niece, Miss Anna Ruthven.”

“Oh, you are the Anna of whom I have heard so much
from Ada Fuller. You were at school together in Troy,”
Miss Fanny said, her searching eyes taking in every point
as if she were deciding how far her new acquaintance was
entitled to the praise she had heard bestowed upon her.

“I knew Miss Fuller,—yes;” and Anna bowed haughily,
turning next to the blonde, Miss Lucy Harcourt,
who was telling Colonel Hetherton how she had met Mr.
Leighton first among the Alps, and afterwards travelled
with him until their party returned to Paris, where he left
them for America.

“I was never so surprised in my life as I was to find
him here. Why, it actually took my breath for a moment,”
she went on, “and I greatly fear that, instead of
listening to his sermon, I have been roaming amid that
Alpine scenery, and basking again in the soft moonlight
of Venice. I heard you singing, though,” she said, when
Anna was presented to her, “and it helped to keep up
the illusion, it was so like the music heard from a gondola
that night when Mr. Leighton and myself made a
voyage through the streets of Venice. Oh, it was so
beautiful,” and the blue eyes turned to Mr. Leighton for
confirmation of what the lips had uttered.

“Which was beautiful?—Miss Ruthven's singing or
that moonlight night in Venice?” young Bellamy asked,
smiling down upon the little lady, who still held Anna's
hand, and who laughingly replied:

“Both, of course, though the singing is just now freshest
in my memory, I liked it so much. You must have
had splendid teachers,” and she turned again to Anna,
whose face was suffused with blushes as she met the rector's
eyes, for to his suggestions and criticisms and teachings
she owed much of that cultivation which had so
pleased and surprised the stranger.

“Oh, yes, I see it was Arthur. He tried to train me
once, and told me I had a squeak in my voice. Don't
you remember?—those frightfully rainy days in Rome?”
Miss Harcourt said, the Arthur dropping from her lips
as readily as if they had always been accustomed to speak
it.

She was a talkative, coquettish little lady, but there
was something about her so genuine and cordial, that
Anna felt the ice thawing around her heart, and even returned
the pressure of the fingers which had twined themselves
around her, as Lucy rattled on until the whole
party left the church. It had been decided that Mrs.
Meredith should call at Prospect Hill as early as Tuesday,
at least; and, still holding Anna's hand, Miss Harcourt
whispered to her the pleasure it would be to see her
again.

“I know I am going to like you. I can tell directly I
see a person,—can't I, Arthur?” and kissing her hand
to Mrs. Meredith, Anna, and the rector, too, she sprang
into the carriage, and was whirled rapidly away.

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

“She is an orphan niece of Colonel Hetherton's and a
great heiress, I believe, though I never paid much attention
to the absurd stories told concerning her wealth.”

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

“Yes, she has been quite an invalid, and has spent
four years abroad, where I accidently met her. It was a
very pleasant party, and I was induced to join it, though
I was with them in all not more than four months.”

He told this very rapidly, and an acute observer would
have seen that he did not care particularly to talk of
Lucy Harcourt, with Anna for an auditor. She was
walking very demurely at his side, pondering in her mind
the circumstances which could have brought the rector
and Lucy Harcourt in such familiar relations as to warrant
her calling him Arthur, and appearing so delighted to see
him.

“Can it be there was anything between them?” she
thought, and her heart began to harden against the innocent
Lucy, at that very moment chatting so pleasantly
of her and of Arthur, too, replying to Mrs. Hetherton,
who suggested that Mr. Leighton would be more appropriate
for a clergyman:

“I shall say Arthur, for he told me I might when we
were in Rome. I could not like him as well if I called

him Mr. Leighton. Isn't he splendid though in his
gown, and wasn't his sermon grand?”

“What was the text?” asked Mr. Bellamy mischievously,
and with a toss of her golden curls and a merry
twinkle of her eyes, Lucy replied, “Simon, Simon, lovest
thou me?”

Quick as a flash of lightning the hot blood mounted to
his face, while Fanny cast upon him a searching glance
as if she would read him through. Fanny Hetherton
would have given much to know the answer which
Mr. Simon Bellamy mentally gave to that question, put
by one whom he had known but little more than three
months. It was not fair for Lucy to steal away all Fanny's
beaux, as she surely had been doing ever since her
feet touched the soil of the New World, and truth to tell
Fanny had borne it very well, until young Mr. Bellamy
showed signs of desertion. Then the spirit of resistance
was roused, and she watched her lover narrowly, gnashing
her teeth sometimes when she saw his ill-concealed admiration
for her sprightly little cousin, who could say and
and do with perfect impunity so many things which in
another would have been improper to the last degree.
She was a tolerably correct reader of human nature, and
from the moment she witnessed the meeting between
Lucy and the rector of St. Mark's she took courage, for
she readily guessed the channel in which her cousin's preference
ran. The rector, however, she could not read so

well; but few men she knew could withstand the fascinations
of her cousin, backed as they were by the glamour
of half a million; and though her mother, and possibly
her father too, would be shocked at the mesalliance and
throw obstacles in its way, she was capable of removing
them all, and she would do it, too, sooner than lose the only
man she had ever cared for. These were Fanny's thoughts
as she rode home from church that Sunday afternoon, and
by the time Prospect Hill was reached Lucy Harcourt
could not have desired a more powerful ally than she possessed
in the person of her resolute, strong-willed cousin.

4. CHAPTER IV.
BLUE MONDAY.

IT was to all intents and purposes “blue Monday”
with the rector of St. Mark's, for aside
from the weariness and exhaustion which always
followed his two services on Sunday, and his care
of the Sunday-school, there was a feeling of disquiet and
depression, occasioned partly by that rencontre with
pretty Lucy Harcourt, and partly by the uncertainty as
to what Anna's answer might be. He had seen the look
of displeasure on her face as she stood watching him and
Lucy, and though to many this would have given hope,
it only added to his nervous fears lest his suit should be
denied. He was sorry that Lucy Harcourt was in the
neighborhood, and sorrier still for her tenacious memory,
which had evidently treasured up every incident which
he could wish forgotten. With Anna Ruthven absorbing
every thought and feeling of his heart, it was not
pleasant to remember what had been a genuine flirtation
between himself and the sparkling belle he had met
among the Alps.

It was nothing but a flirtation he knew, for in his inmost
soul he absolved himself from ever having had a
thought of matrimony connected with Lucy Harcourt.
He had admired her greatly and loved to wander with
her amid the Alpine scenery, listening to her wild bursts
of enthusiasm, and watching the kindling light in her
blue eyes, and the color coming to her thin, pale cheeks,
as she gazed upon some scene of grandeur, and clung
close to him as for protection, when the path was fraught
with peril.

Afterwards in Venice, beneath the influence of those
glorious moonlight nights, he had been conscious of a
deeper feeling, which, had he tarried longer at the syren's
side, might have ripened into love. But he left her just
in time to escape what he felt would have been a most
unfortunate affair for him, for sweet and beautiful as she
was, Lucy was not the wife for a clergyman to choose.
She was not like Anna Ruthven, whom both young and
old had said was so suitable for him.

“And just because she is suitable, I may not win her,
perhaps,” he thought, as he paced up and down his
library, wondering when she would answer his letter, and
wondering next how he could persuade Lucy Harcourt
that between the young theological student, sailing in a
gondola through the streets of Venice, and the rector of
St. Mark's, there was a vast difference; that while the
former might be Arthur with perfect propriety, the

latter should be Mr. Leighton, in Anna's presence, at
least.

And yet the rector of St. Mark's was conscious of a
pleasurable emotion, even now, as he recalled the time
when she had, at his request, first called him Arthur, her
birdlike voice hesitating just a little, and her soft eyes
looking coyly up to him, as she said:

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

“I am not in orders yet, so let me be Arthur to you.
I love to hear you call me so, and you to me shall be
Lucy,” was his reply.

A mutual clasp of hands had sealed the compact, and
that was the nearest to a love-making of anything which
had passed between them, if we except the time when he
had said good-by, and wiped away the tear which came
unbidden to her eye as she told him how lonely she
should be without him.

Hers was a nature as transparent as glass, and the
young man, who for days had paced the ship's deck so
moodily, was fighting back the thoughts which whispered
that in his intercourse with her he had not been all
guileless, and that if in her girlish heart there was feeling
for him stronger than that of friendship, he had
helped to give it life.

Time and absence and Anna Ruthven had obliterated
all such thoughts till now, when Lucy herself had

brought them back again with her winsome ways, and
her evident intention to begin just where they had left
off.

“Let Anna tell me yes, and I will at once proclaim
our engagement, which will relieve me from all embarrassments
in that quarter,” the clergymen was thinking,
just as his housekeeper came up, bringing him
two notes, one in a strange handwriting, and the other in
the graceful running hand which he recognized as Lucy
Harcourt's.

This he opened first, reading as follows:

Yes, he would go, and if Anna's answer did not come
before, he would ask her for it. There would be plenty
of opportunities down in those deep woods. On the
whole, it would be pleasanter to hear the words from her
own lips, and see the blushes on her cheeks when he
tried to look into her eyes.

The imaginative rector could almost see those eyes,

and feel the touch of her hand as he took the other note,
which Mrs. Meredith had shut herself in her room to
write, and sent slyly by Valencia, who was to tell no one
where she had been.

A gleam of intelligence had shone in Valencia's eyes
as she took the note and carried it safely to the parsonage,
never yielding to the temptation to read it as she
had read the one found in her mistress's pocket, while
the family were at church.

Mrs. Meredith's note was as follows:

This was the letter which the cruel woman had
written, and it dropped from the rector's fingers, as,
with a groan, he bent his head upon the back of a chair,
and tried to realize the magnitude of the blow which had
fallen so suddenly upon him. Not till now did he realize
how, amid all his doubts, he had still been sure of
winning her, and the shock was terrible.

He had staked his all on Anna, and lost it; the world,
which before had been so bright, looked very dreary now,
while he felt that he could never again come before his
people weighed down with so great a load of pain and
humiliation; for it touched the young man's pride that,
not content to refuse him, Anna had chosen another than
herself as the medium through which her refusal must be

conveyed to him. He did not fancy Mrs. Meredith.
He would rather she did not possess his secret, and it
hurt him to know that she did.

It was a bitter hour for the clergyman, for strong and
clear as was his faith in God, he lost sight of it for a time,
and poor, weak human nature cried:

“It's more than I can bear.”

But as the mother does not forget her child, even
though she passes from its sight, so God had not forgotten,
and the darkness broke at last and the lips could
pray again for strength to bear and faith to do all that
God might require.

“Though He slay me I will trust Him,” came like a
ray of sunlight into the rector's mind; and ere the day was
over he could say with a full heart, “Thy will be done.”

He was very pale, and his lip quivered occasionally as
he thought of all he had lost, while a blinding headache,
induced by strong excitement, drove him nearly wild
with pain. He had been subject to headaches all his life,
but he had never suffered as he was suffering now but
once, and that on a rainy day in Rome, when, boasting of
her mesmeric power, Lucy had stood by him, and
passed her hands soothingly across his throbbing temples.

How soft and cool they were,—but they had not
thrilled him as the touch of Anna's did when they hung
the Christmas wreaths and she wore that bunch of scarlet
berries in her hair.

That time seemed very far away, farther even than
Rome and the moonlight nights of Venice. He did not
like to think of it, for the bright hopes which were budding
then were blighted now, and dead; and with a moan,
he laid his aching head upon his pillow, and tried to forget
all he had ever hoped or longed for in the future.

“She will marry Thornton Hastings. He is a more
eligible match than a poor clergyman,” he said, and then,
as he remembered Thornton's letter, and that his man
Thomas would be coming soon to ask if there were letters
to be taken to the office, he arose, and going to the study
table, wrote hastily:

The rector felt better after that letter was written.
He had told his grievance to some one, and it seemed to
have lightened half the load.

“Thorne is a good fellow,” he said, as he directed the
letter. “A little fast, it's true, but a splendid fellow
after all. He will sympathize with me in his way, and I
would rather give Anna to him than any other living
man.”

Arthur was serious in what he said, for, wholly unlike
as they were, there was between him and Thornton Hastings
one of those strong friendships which sometimes
exist between two men, but rarely between two women,
of so widely different temperaments. They had roomed
together four years in college, and countless were the
difficulties from which the sober Arthur had extricated
the luckless Thorne, while many a time the rather slender
means of Arthur had been increased in a way so delicate
that expostulation was next to impossible.

Arthur was better off now in worldly goods, for by the
death of an uncle he had come in possession of a few
thousand dollars, which had enabled him to travel in
Europe for a year, and left a surplus, from which he fed
the poor and needy with no sparing hand.

St. Mark's was his first parish, and though he could
have chosen one nearer to New York, where the society
was more congenial to his taste, he had accepted of what
God offered to him, and had been very happy there since

Anna Ruthven came home from Troy and made such
havoc with his heart. He did not believe he should ever
be quite so happy again, but he would try to do his work,
and take thankfully whatever of good might come to him.

This was his final decision, and when at last he laid
down to rest, the wound, though deep and sore, and
bleeding yet, was not quite as hard to bear as it had been
earlier in the day, when it was fresh and raw, and faith
and hope seemed swept away.

5. CHAPTER V.
TUESDAY.

THAT open grassy spot in the dense shadow of
the west woods was just the place for a picnic,
and it looked very bright and pleasant that
warm June afternoon, with the rustic table so fancifully
arranged, the camp-stools scattered over the lawn, and
the bouquets of flowers depending from the trees.

Fanny Hetherton had given it her whole care, aided
and abetted by Mr. Bellamy, what time he could spare
from Lucy, who, endued with a mortal fear of insects,
seemed this day to gather scores of bugs and worms upon
her dress and hair, screaming with every worm, and
bringing Simon obediently to her aid.

“I'd stay at home, I think, if I was silly enough to be
afraid of a harmless caterpillar like that,” Fanny had said,
as with her own hands she took from Lucy's curls and
threw away a thousand-legged thing, the very sight of
which made poor Lucy shiver, but did not send her to
the house.

She was too much interested and too eagerly expectant
of what the afternoon would bring, and so she perched

herself upon the fence where nothing but ants could molest
her, and finished the bouquets which Fanny hung
upon the trees until the lower limbs seemed one mass
of blossoms and the air was filled with the sweet perfume.

Lucy was bewitchingly beautiful that afternoon in her
dress of white, with her curls tied up with a blue ribbon,
and her fair arms bare nearly to the shoulders. Fanny,
whose arms were neither plump nor white, had expostulated
with her cousin upon this style of dress, suggesting
that one as delicate as she could not fail to take a heavy
cold when the dews began to fall; but Lucy would not
listen. Arthur Leighton had told her once that he liked
her with bare arms, and bare they should be. She was
bending every energy to please and captivate him, and a
cold was of no consequence provided she succeeded. So
like some little fairy, she danced and flitted about, making
fearful havoc with Mr. Bellamy's wits, and greatly vexing
Fanny, who hailed with delight the arrival of Mrs.
Meredith and Anna. The latter was very pretty and
very becomingly attired in a light, airy dress of blue,
finished at the throat and wrists with an edge of soft, fine
lace. She, too, had thought of Arthur in the making of
her toilet, and it was for him that the white rose-buds
were placed in her heavy braids of hair, and fastened on
her belt. She was very sorry that she had allowed herself
to be vexed with Lucy Harcourt for her familiarity

with Mr. Leighton, very hopeful that he had not observed
it, and very certain now of his preference for herself.
She would be very gracious that afternoon, she thought,
and not one bit jealous of Lucy, though she called him
Arthur a hundred times.

Thus it was in the most amiable of moods that Anna
appeared upon the lawn, where she was warmly welcomed
by Lucy, who, seizing both her hands, led her away to see
their arrangements, chatting gayly all the time, and casting
rapid glances up the lane as if in quest of some
one.

“I'm so glad you've come. I've thought of you so
much. Do you know it seems to me there must be some
bond of sympathy between us, or I should not like you so
well at once. I drove by the rectory early this morning,
the dearest little place, with such a lovely garden. Arthur
was working in it, and I made him give me some
roses. See, I have one in my curls. Then, when he
brought them to the carriage, I kept him there while I
asked numberless questions about you, and heard from
him just how good you are, and how you help him in the
Sunday-school and everywhere, visiting the poor, picking
up ragged children, and doing things I never thought of
doing; but I am not going to be so useless any longer,
and the next time you visit some of the very miserablest,
I want you to take me with you.

“Do you ever meet Arthur there? Oh, here he

comes,” and with a bound, Lucy darted away from Anna
towards the spot where the rector stood receiving Mrs.
and Miss Hetherton's greeting.

As Lucy had said, she had driven by the rectory, with
no earthly object but the hope of seeing the rector, and
had hurt him cruelly with her questionings of Anna, and
annoyed him a little with her anxious inquiries as to the
cause of his pallid face and sunken eyes; but she was so
bewitchingly pretty, and so thoroughly kind withal, that
he could not be annoyed long, and he felt better for having
seen her bright, coquettish face, and listened to her
childish prattle. It was a great trial for him to attend
the picnic that afternoon, but he met it bravely, and
schooled himself to appear as if there were no such things
in the world as aching hearts and cruel disappointments.
His face was very pale, but his recent headache would
account for that, and he acted his part successfully, shivering
a little, it is true, when Anna expressed her sorrow
that he should suffer so often from these attacks, and
suggested that he take a short vacation and go with them
to Saratoga.

“I should so much like to have you,” she said, and her
clear honest eyes looked him straight in the face, as she
asked why he could not.

“What does she mean?” the rector thought. “Is she
trying to tantalize me? I expected her to be natural, as
her aunt laid great stress on that, but she need not overdo

the matter by showing me how little she cares for having
hurt me so.”

Then, as a flash of pride came to his aid, he thought,
“I will at least be even with her. She shall not have
the satisfaction of guessing how much I suffer,” and as
Lucy then called to him from the opposite side of the
lawn, he asked Anna to accompany him thither, just as
he would have done a week before. Once that afternoon
he found himself alone with her in a quiet part of the
woods, where the long branches of a great oak came
nearly to the ground, and formed a little bower which
looked so inviting that Anna sat down upon the gnarled
roots of the tree, and tossing her hat upon the grass, exclaimed,
“How nice and pleasant it is in here. Come
sit down, too, while I tell you again about my class in
Sunday-school, and that poor Mrs. Hobbs across the millstream.
You won't forget her, will you? I told her
you would visit her the oftener when I was gone. Do
you know she cried because I was going? It made me
feel so badly that I doubted if it was right for me to go,”
and pulling down a handful of the oak-leaves above her
head, Anna began weaving a chaplet, while the rector stood
watching her with a puzzled expression upon his face.
She did not act as if she ever could have dictated that letter,
but he had no suspicion of the truth, and answered
rather coldly, “I did not suppose you cared how much
we might miss you at home.”

Something in his tone made Anna look up into his
face, and her eyes immediately filled with tears, for she
knew that in some way she had displeased him.

“Then you mistake me,” she replied, the tears still
glittering on her long eyelashes, and her fingers trembling
among the oaken leaves. “I do care whether I am
missed or not.”

“Missed by whom?” the rector asked, and Anna impetuously
replied, “Missed by the parish poor, and by
you, too, Mr. Leighton. You don't know how often I
shall think of you, or how sorry I am that—”

She did not finish the sentence, for the rector had
leaped madly at a conclusion, and was down in the grass
at her side with both her hands in his.

“Anna, O Anna,” he began so pleadingly, “have you
repented of your decision? Tell me that you have and it
will make me so happy. I have been so wretched ever
since.”

She thought he meant her decision about going to Saratoga,
and she replied, “I have not repented, Mr. Leighton.
Aunt Meredith thinks it's best, and so do I, though
I am sorry for you, if you really do care so much.”

Anna was talking blindly, her thoughts upon one subject,
while the rector's were upon another, and matters
were getting somewhat mixed when, “Arthur, Arthur,
where are you?” came ringing through the woods, and
Lucy Harcourt appeared, telling them that the refreshments

were ready. “We are only waiting for you two,
wondering where you had gone, but never dreaming that
you had stolen away to make love,” she said playfully,
adding more earnestly as she saw the traces of agitation
visible in Anna's face, “and I do believe you were. If
so, I beg pardon for my intrusion.”

She spoke a little sharply, and glanced inquiringly at
Mr. Leighton, who, feeling that he had virtually been
repulsed a second time by Anna, answered her, “On the
contrary, I am very glad you came, and so I am sure is
Miss Anna. I am ready to join you at the table. Come,
Anna, they are waiting,” and he offered his arm to the
bewildered girl, who replied, “Not just now, please.
Leave me for a moment. I won't be long.”

Very curiously Lucy looked at Anna, and then at Mr.
Leighton, who, fully appreciating the feelings of the latter,
said, by way of explanation, “You see she has not quite
finished that chaplet which I suspect is intended for you.
I think we had better leave her,” and drawing Lucy's
arm under his own, he walked away, leaving Anna more
stunned and pained than she had ever been before.
Surely if love had ever spoken in voice and manner, it
had spoken when Mr. Leighton was kneeling on the grass,
holding her hands in his. “Anna, O Anna;” how she
had thrilled at the sound of those words and waited for
what might follow next. Why had his manner changed
so suddenly, and why had he been so glad to be interrupted.

Had he really no intention of making love to
her; and if so, why did he rouse her hopes so suddenly
and then cruelly dash them to the ground? Was it that
he loved Lucy best, and that the sight of her froze the
words upon his lips?

“Let him take her, then. He is welcome for all of
me,” she thought; and as a keen pang of shame and disappointment
swept over her, she laid her head for a moment
upon the grass and wept bitterly. “He must have
seen what I expected, and I care most for that,” she
sobbed, resolving henceforth to guard herself at every
point, and do all that lay in her power to further Lucy's
interests. “He will thus see how little I really care,”
she said, and lifting up her head she tore in fragments
the wreath she had been making but which she could
not now place on the head of her rival.

Mr. Leighton was flirting terribly with Lucy when she
joined the party assembled around the table, and he never
once looked at Anna, though he saw that her plate was
well supplied with the best of everything, and when at
one draught she drained her glass of ice-water, he quietly
placed another within her reach, standing a little before
her and trying evidently to shield her from too critical
observation. There were two at least who were glad
when the picnic was over, and various were the private
opinions of the company with regard to the entertainment.
Mr. Bellamy, who had been repeatedly foiled in

his attempts to be especially attentive to Lucy Harcourt,
pronounced the whole thing “a bore,” Fanny, who had
been highly displeased with his deportment, came to the
conclusion that the enjoyment did not compensate for all
the trouble; and while the rector thought he had never
spent a more thoroughly wretched day, and Anna would
have given worlds if she had stayed at home, Lucy declared
that never in her life had she had so perfectly delightful
a time, always excepting, of course, “that moonlight
sail in Venice.”

6. CHAPTER VI.
WEDNESDAY.

THERE was a heavy shower the night succeeding
the picnic, and the morning following was as
balmy and bright as June mornings are wont to
be after a fall of rain. They were always early risers at
the farmhouse, but this morning Anna, who had slept but
little, arose earlier than usual, and leaning from the window
to inhale the bracing air and gather a bunch of roses
fresh with the glittering rain-drops, felt her spirits grow
lighter, and wondered at her discomposure of the previous
day. Particularly was she grieved that she should
have harbored a feeling of bitterness towards Lucy Harcourt,
who was not to blame for having won the love she
had been foolish enough to covet.

“He knew her first,” she said, “and if he has since
been pleased with me, the sight of her has won him back
to his allegiance, and it is right. She is a pretty creature,
but strangely unsuited, I fear, to be his wife,” and
then, as she remembered Lucy's wish to go with her
when next she visited the poor, she said:

“I'll take her to see the Widow Hobbs. That will

give her some idea of the duties which will devolve upon
her as a rector's wife. I can go directly there from Prospect
Hill, where, I suppose, I must call with Aunt Meredith.”

Anna made herself believe that in doing this she was
acting only from a magnanimous desire to fit Lucy for
her work, if, indeed, she was to be Arthur's wife,—that
in taking the mantle from her own shoulders, and wrapping
it around her rival, she was doing a most amiable
deed, when down in her inmost heart, where the tempter
had put it, there was an unrecognized wish to see how
the little dainty girl would shrink from the miserable
abode, and recoil from the touch of the dirty hands,
which were sure to be laid upon her dress if the children
were at home, and she waited impatiently to start on her
errand of mercy.

It was four o'clock when, with her aunt, she arrived
at Colonel Hetherton's, and found the family assembled
upon the broad piazza,—Mr. Bellamy dutifully holding
the skein of worsted from which Miss Fanny was crocheting,
and Lucy playing with a kitten, whose movements
were scarcely more graceful than her own, as she sprang
up and ran to welcome Anna.

“Oh yes; I shall be delighted to go with you. Pray let
us start at once,” she exclaimed, when after a few moments'
conversation Anna told where she was going.

Lucy was very gayly dressed, and Anna smiled to herself

as she imagined the startling effect the white muslin
and bright ribbons would have upon the inmates of the
shanty where they were going. There was a remonstrance
from Mrs. Hetherton against her niece walking so
far, and Mrs. Meredith suggested that they should ride,
but to this Lucy objected. She meant to take Anna's
place among the poor when she was gone, she said, and
how was she ever to do it if she could not walk so little
ways as that. Anna, too, was averse to the riding, and
felt a kind of grim satisfaction when, after a time, the
little figure, which at first had skipped along with all the
airiness of a bird, began to lag, and even pant for breath,
as the way grew steeper and the path more stony and
rough. Anna's evil spirit was in the ascendant that
afternoon, steeling her heart against Lucy's doleful exclamations,
as one after another her delicate slippers were
torn, and the sharp thistles, of which the path was full,
penetrated to her soft flesh. Straight and unbending as
a young Indian, Anna walked on, shutting her ears
against the sighs of weariness which reached them from
time to time. But when there came a half-sobbing cry of
actual pain, she stopped suddenly and turned towards
Lucy, whose breath came gaspingly, and whose cheeks
were almost purple with the exertions she had made.

“I cannot go any farther until I rest,” she said, sinking
down exhausted upon a large flat rock beneath a walnut-tree.

Touched with pity at the sight of the heated face, from
which the sweat was dripping, Anna too sat down beside
her, and laying the curly head in her lap, she hated herself
cordially, as Lucy said:

“You've walked so fast I could not keep up. You do
not know, perhaps, how weak I am, and how little it
takes to tire me. They say my heart is diseased, and an
unusual excitement might kill me.”

“No, oh no!” Anna answered with a shudder, as she
thought of what might have been the result of her rashness,
and then she smoothed the wet hair, which, dried by
the warm sunbeams, coiled itself up in golden masses,
which her fingers softly threaded.

“I did not know it until that time in Venice when
Arthur talked to me so good, trying to make me feel that
it was not hard to die, even if I was so young and the
world so full of beauty,” Lucy went on, her voice sounding
very low, and her bright shoulder-knots of ribbon
trembling with the rapid beating of her heart. “When
he was talking to me I could be almost willing to die, but
the moment he was gone the doubts and fears came back,
and death was terrible again. I was always better with
Arthur. Everybody is, and I think your seeing so much
of him is one reason why you are so good.”

“No, no, I am not good,” and Anna's hands pressed
hard upon the girlish head lying in her lap. “I am
wicked beyond what you can guess. I led you this

rough way when I might have chosen a smooth though
longer road, and walked so fast on purpose to worry you.”

“To worry me. Why should you wish to do that?”
and lifting up her head, Lucy looked wonderingly at the
conscience-stricken Anna, who could not confess to the
jealousy, but who in all other respects answered truthfully:
“I think an evil spirit possessed me for a time, and I
wanted to show you that it was not so nice to visit the
poor as you seemed to think, but I am sorry, oh so sorry,
and you'll forgive me, won't you?”

A loving kiss was pressed upon her lips and a warm
cheek was laid against her own, as Lucy said, “Of course
I'll forgive you, though I do not quite understand why
you should wish to discourage me or tease me either,
when I liked you so much from the first moment I heard
your voice, and saw you in the choir. You don't dislike
me, do you?”

“No, oh no. I love you very dearly,” Anna replied,
her tears falling like rain upon the slight form she hugged
so passionately to her, and which she would willingly
have borne in her arms the remainder of the way, as a
kind of penance for her past misdeeds; but Lucy was
much better, and so the two, between whom there was
now a bond of love which nothing could sever, went on
together to the low dismal house where the Widow Hobbs
lived.

The gate was off the hinges, and Lucy's muslin was

torn upon a nail as she passed through, while the long
fringe of her fleecy shawl was caught in the tall tufts of
thistle growing by the path. In a muddy pool of water,
a few rods from the house, a flock of ducks were swimming,
pelted occasionally by the group of dirty, ragged
children playing on the grass, and who, at sight of the
strangers and the basket Anna carried, sprang up like a
flock of pigeons, and came trooping towards her. It was
not the sweet, pastoral scene which Lucy had pictured to
herself, with Arthur for the background, and her ardor
was greatly dampened even before the threshold was
crossed, and she stood in the low, close room where the
sick woman lay, her eyes unnaturally bright, and turned
wistfully upon them as she entered. There were ashes
upon the hearth and ashes upon the floor, a hair-brush
upon the table and an empty plate upon the chair, with
swarms of flies sipping the few drops of molasses and
feeding upon the crumbs of bread left there by the elfish-looking
child now in the bed beside its mother. There
was nothing but poverty,—squalid, disgusting poverty,
visible everywhere, and Lucy grew sick and faint at the,
to her, unusual sight.

“They have not lived here long. We only found them
three weeks ago; they will look better by and by,” Anna
whispered, feeling that some apology was necessary for the
destitution and filth visible everywhere.

Daintily removing the plate to the table, and carefully

tucking up her skirts, Lucy sat down upon the wooden
chair and looked dubiously on while Anna made the
sick woman more tidy in appearance, and then fed her
from the basket of provisions which Grandma Humphreys
had sent.

“I never could do that,” Lucy thought, as shoving off
the little dirty hand fingering her shoulder-knots she
watched Anna washing the poor woman's face, and bending
over her pillow as unhesitatingly as if it had been
covered with ruffled linen like those at Prospect Hill, instead
of the coarse soiled rag which hardly deserved the
name of pillow-case. “No, I never could do that,” and
the possible life with Arthur which the maiden had more
than once imagined began to look very dreary, when suddenly
a shadow darkened the door, and Lucy knew before
she turned her head that the rector was standing at her
back, and the blood tingled through her veins with a delicious
feeling; as, laying both his hands upon her shoulders,
and bending over her so that she felt his breath upon
her brow, he said:

“What, my lady Lucy here? I hardly expected to
find two ministering angels, though I was almost sure of
one,” and his eye rested on Anna with a wistful look of
tenderness, which neither she nor Lucy saw.

“Then you knew she was coming,” Lucy said, an uneasy
thought flashing across her mind as she remembered
the picnic, and the scene she had stumbled upon.

But Arthur's reply, “I did not know she was coming;
I only knew it was like her,” reassured her for a time,
making her resolve to emulate the virtues which Arthur
seemed to prize so highly. What a difference his presence
made in that wretched room. She did not mind
the poverty now, or care if her dress was stained with the
molasses left in the chair, and the inquisitive child with
tattered gown and bare, brown legs was welcome to examine
and admire the bright plaid ribbons as much as
she chose.

Lucy had no thought for anything but Arthur, and the
subdued expression of his face, as kneeling by the sick
woman's bedside he said the prayers she had hungered
for more than for the contents of Anna's basket, which
were now purloined by the children crouched upon the
hearth and fighting over the last bit of gingerbread.

“Hush-sh, little one,” and Lucy's hand rested on the
head of the principal belligerent, who, awed by the beauty
of her face and the authoritative tone of her voice, kept
quiet till the prayer was over and Arthur had risen from
his knees.

“Thank you, Lucy; I think I must constitute you my
deaconess when Miss Ruthven is gone. Your very
presence has a subduing effect upon the little savages. I
never knew them so quiet before so long a time,” Arthur
said to Lucy in a low tone, which, low as it was, reached

Anna's ear, but brought no pang of jealousy or sharp regret
for what she felt was lost forever.

She was giving Lucy to Arthur Leighton, resolving
that by every means in her power she would further her
rival's cause, and the hot tears which dropped so fast
upon Mrs. Hobbs's pillow while Arthur said the prayer
were but the baptism of that vow, and not, as Lucy
thought, because she felt so sorry for the suffering woman
who had brought so much comfort to her.

“God bless you wherever you go,” she said, “and if
there is any great good which you desire, may He bring
it to pass.”

“He never will,—no, never,” was the sad response in
Anna's heart, as she joined the clergyman and Lucy, who
were standing outside the door, the former pointing to
the ruined slippers, and asking her how she ever expected
to walk home in such dilapidated things.

“I shall certainly have to carry you,” he said, “or
your blistered feet will evermore be thrust forward as a
reason why you cannot be my deaconess.”

He seemed to be in unusual spirits that afternoon, and
the party went gayly on, Anna keeping a watchful care
over Lucy, picking out the smoothest places, and passing
her arm round her waist as they were going up a hill.

“I think it would be better if you both leaned on me,”
the rector said, offering each an arm, and apologizing for
not having thought to do so before.

“I do not need it, thank you, but Miss Harcourt does.
I fear she is very tired,” said Anna, pointing to Lucy's
face, which was so white and ghastly and so like the face
seen once before in Venice, that without another word,
Arthur took the tired girl in his strong arms and carried
her safely to the summit of the hill.

“Please put me down; I can walk now,” Lucy
pleaded; but Arthur felt the rapid beatings of her heart,
and kept her in his arms until they reached Prospect
Hill, were Mrs. Meredith was anxiously awaiting their
return, her brow clouding with distrust when she saw
Mr. Leighton, for she was constantly fearing lest her
guilty secret should be exposed.

“I'll leave Hanover this very week, and remove her
from danger,” she thought, as she rose to say good-night.

“Just wait a minute, please. There's something I
want to say to Miss Ruthven,” Lucy cried, and leading
Anna to her own room, she knelt down by her side, and
looking up in her face, began:

“There's one question which I wish to ask, and you
must answer me truly. It is rude and inquisitive, perhaps,
but,—tell me,—has Arthur—ever—ever—”

Anna guessed what was coming, and with a sob, which
Lucy thought was a long-drawn breath, she kissed the
pretty, parted lips, and answered:

“No, darling, Arthur never did, and never will, but

some time he will ask you to be his wife. I can see it
coming so plain.”

Poor Anna! her heart gave one great throb as she
said this, and then lay like a dead weight in her bosom,
while with sparkling eyes and blushing cheeks, Lucy exclaimed:

“I am so glad,—so glad. I have only known you
since Sunday, but you seem like an old friend, and you
won't mind my telling you that ever since I first met
Arthur among the Alps, I have lived in a kind of ideal
world, of which he was the centre. I am an orphan,
you know, and an heiress, too. There is half a million,
they say; and Uncle Hetherton has charge of it. Now,
will you believe me, when I say that I would give every
dollar of this for Arthur's love if I could not have it
without?”

“I do believe you,” Anna replied, inexpressibly glad
that the gathering darkness hid her white face from view
as the childlike, unsuspecting girl went on: “The
world, I know, would say that a poor clergyman was not
a good match for me, but I do not care for that. Cousin
Fanny favors it, I am sure, and Uncle Hetherton would
not oppose me when he saw I was in earnest. Once the
world, which is a very meddlesome thing, picked out
Thornton Hastings, of New York, for me; but my! he
was too proud and lofty even to talk to me much, and I
would not speak to him after I heard of his saying that

`I was a pretty little plaything, but far too frivolous for
a sensible man to make his wife.' Oh, wasn't I angry
though, and don't I hope that when he gets a wife she
will be exactly such a frivolous thing as I am.”

Even through the darkness Anna could see the blue
eyes flash, and the delicate nostrils dilate as Lucy gave
vent to her wrath against the luckless Thornton Hastings.

“You will meet him at Saratoga. He is always there
in the summer, but don't you speak to him, the hateful.
He'll be calling you frivolous next.”

An amused smile flitted aoross Anna's face as she
asked, “But won't you too be at Saratoga? I supposed
you were all going there.”

“Cela depend,” Lucy replied. “I would so much
rather stay here, the dressing, and dancing, and flirting
tire me so, and then you know what Arthur said about
taking me for his deaconess in your place.”

There was a call just then from the hall below. Mrs.
Meredith was getting impatient of the delay, and with a
good-by kiss, Anna went down the stairs, and stood out
upon the piazza, where her aunt was waiting. Mr.
Leighton had accepted Fanny's invitation to stay to tea,
and he handed the ladies to their carriage, lingering a
moment while he said his parting words, for he was
going out of town to-morrow, and when he returned
Anna would be gone.

“You will think of us sometimes,” he said, still holding
Anna's hand. “St. Mark's will be lonely without
you. God bless you and bring you safely back.”

There was a pressure of the hand, a lifting of Arthur's
hat, and then the carriage moved away; but Anna, looking
back, saw Arthur standing by Lucy's side, fastening
a rose-bud in her hair, and at that sight the gleam of
hope which for an instant had crept into her heart
passed away with a sigh.

7. CHAPTER VII.
AT NEWPORT.

MOVED by a strange impulse, Thornton Hastings
took himself and his fast bays to Newport instead
of Saratoga, and thither, the first week
in August, came Mrs. Meredith, with eight large trunks,
her niece, and her niece's wardrobe, which had cost the
pretty sum of eighteen hundred dollars.

Mrs. Meredith was not naturally lavish of her money,
except where her own interests were concerned, as they
were in Anna's case. Conscious of having come between
her niece and the man she loved, she determined that in
the procuring of a substitute for this man, no advantages
which dress could afford should be lacking. Besides,
Thornton Hastings was a perfect connoisseur in everything
pertaining to a lady's toilet, and it was with him
and his preference before her mind that Mrs. Meredith
opened her purse so widely and bought so extensively.
There were sun hats and round hats, and hats à la cavalier,—there
were bonnets and veils, and dresses, and
shawls of every color and kind, with the lesser matters
of sashes, and gloves, and slippers, and fans, the whole

making an array such as Anna had never seen before,
and from which she had at first shrank back appalled
and dismayed. But she was not now quite so
much of a novice as when she first reached New York,
the Saturday following the picnic at Prospect Hill. She
had passed successfully and safely through the hands of
mantua-makers, milliners, and hair-dressers since then.
She had laid aside every article brought from home.
She wore her hair in puffs and waterfalls, and her dresses
in the latest mode. She had seen the fashionable world
as represented at Saratoga, and sickening at the sight,
had gladly acquiesced in her aunt's proposal to go on to
Newport, where the air was purer, and the hotels not so
densely packed. She had been called a beauty and a
belle, but her heart was longing still for the leafy woods
and fresh, green fields of Hanover; and Newport, she
fancied, would be more like the country than sultry,
crowded Saratoga, and never since leaving home had she
looked so bright and pretty as the evening after her arrival
at the Ocean House, when, invigorated by the bath
she had taken in the morning, and gladdened by sight of
the glorious sea and the soothing tones it murmured in
her ear, she came down to the parlor, clad in simple
white, with only a bunch of violets in her hair, and no
other ornament than the handsome pearls her aunt had
given to her. Standing at the open window, with the
drapery of the lace curtain sweeping gracefully behind
her, she did not look much like the Anna who led the
choir in Hanover and visited the Widow Hobbs, nor yet
much like the picture which Thornton Hastings had
formed of the girl who he knew was there for his inspection.
He had been absent the entire day, and had
not seen Mrs. Meredith, when she arrived early in the
morning, but he found her card in his room, and a smile
curled his lip as he said:

“And so I have not escaped her.”

Thornton Hastings had proved a most treacherous
knight, and overthrown his general's plans entirely. Arthur's
letter had affected him strangely, for he readily
guessed how deeply wounded his sensitive friend had
been by Anna Ruthven's refusal, while added to this was
a fear lest Anna had been influenced by a thought of
himself, and what might possibly result from an acquaintance.
Thornton Hastings had been flattered and angled
for until he had grown somewhat vain, and it did not
strike him as at all improbable that the unsophisticated
Anna should have designs upon him.

“But I won't give her a chance,” he said, when he
finished Arthur's letter. “I thought once I might like
her, but I shan't, and I'll be revenged on her for refusing
the best man that ever breathed. I'll go to Newport
instead of Saratoga, and so be clear of the entire Meredith
clique, the Hethertons, the little Harcourt, and
all.”

This, then, was the secret of his being at the Ocean
House. He was keeping away from Anna Ruthven, who
never had heard of him but once, and that from Lucy
Harcourt. After that scene in the Glen, where Anna
had exclaimed against intriguing mothers and their bold,
shame-faced daughters, Mrs. Meredith had been too wise
a manœuvrer to mention Thornton Hastings, so that
Anna was wholly ignorant of his presence at Newport,
and looked up in unfeigned surprise at the tall, elegant
man whom her aunt presented as Mr. Hastings. With
all Thornton's affected indifference, there was still a curiosity
to see the girl who could say “no” to Arthur
Leighton, and he did not wait long after receiving Mrs.
Meredith's card before going down to find her.

“That's the girl, I'll lay a wager,” he thought of a
high-colored, showily dressed hoyden, who was whirling
around the room with Ned Peters, from Boston, and
whose corn-colored dress swept against his boots as he
entered the parlor.

How, then, was he disappointed in the apparition Mrs.
Meredith presented as “my niece,” the modest, self-possessed
young girl, whose cheeks grew not a whit the
redder, and whose pulse did not quicken at the sight of
him, though a gleam of something like curiosity shone
in the brown eyes which scanned him so quietly. She
was thinking of Lucy, and her injunction “not to speak
to the hateful if she saw him;” but she did speak to

him, and Mrs. Meredith fanned herself complacently as
she saw how fast they became acquainted.

“You don't dance,” Mr. Hastings said, as she declined
an invitation from Ned Peters, whom she had met at
Saratoga. “I am glad, for you will perhaps walk with
me outside upon the piazza. You won't take cold, I
think,” and he glanced thoughtfully at the white neck
and shoulders gleaming beneath the gauzy muslin.

Mrs. Meredith was in rhapsodies, and sat a full hour
with the tiresome dowagers around her, while up and
down the broad piazza Thornton Hastings walked with
Anna, talking to her as he seldom talked to women, and
feeling greatly surprised to find that what he said was
fully appreciated and understood. That he was pleased
with her he could not deny to himself, as he sat alone in
his room that night, feeling more and more how keenly
Arthur Leighton must have felt her refusal.

“But why did she refuse him?” he wished he knew,
and ere he slept he resolved to study Anna Ruthven
closely, and ascertain, if possible, the motive which
prompted her to discard a man like Arthur Leighton.

The next day brought the Hetherton party, all but
Lucy Harcourt, who, Fanny laughingly said, was just
now suffering from clergyman on the brain, and, as a certain
cure for the disease, had turned my Lady Bountiful,
and was playing the pretty patroness to all Mr. Leighton's
parishioners, especially a Widow Hobbs, whom she

had actually taken to ride in the carriage, and to whose
ragged children she had sent a bundle of cast-off party
dresses; and the tears ran down Fanny's cheeks as she
described the appearance of the elder Hobbs, who came
to church with a soiled pink silk skirt, her black, tattered
petticoat hanging down below, and one of Lucy's opera
hoods upon her head.

“And the clergyman on her brain? Does he appreciate
his situation? I have an interest there. He is an
old friend of mine,” Thornton Hastings asked.

He had been an amused listener to Fanny's gay badinage,
laughing merrily at the idea of Lucy's taking an old
woman out to air, and clothing her children in party
dresses. His opinion of Lucy, as she had said, was that
she was a pretty but frivolous plaything, and it showed
upon his face as he asked the question he did, watching
Anna furtively as Fanny replied:

“Oh yes, he is certainly smitten, and I must say I
never saw Lucy so thoroughly in earnest. Why, she
really seems to enjoy travelling all over Christendom to
find the hovels and huts, though she is mortally afraid
of the small-pox, and always carries with her a bit of
chloride of lime as a disinfecting agent. I am sure she
ought to win the parson. And so you know him, do
you?”

“Yes; we were in college together, and I esteem him

so highly that, had I a sister, there is no man living to
whom I would so readily give her as to him.”

He was looking now at Anna, whose face was very
pale, and who pressed a rose she held so tightly that the
sharp thorns pierced her flesh, and a drop of blood
stained the whiteness of her hand.

“See, you have hurt yourself,” Mr. Hastings said.
“Come to the water-pitcher and wash the stain away.”

She went with him mechanically, and let him hold
her hand in his while he wiped off the blood with
his own handkerchief, treating her with a tenderness for
which he could hardly account. He pitied her, and suspected
she had repented of her rashness, and because he
pitied her he asked her to ride with him that day after
the fast bays, of which he had written to Arthur. Many
admiring eyes were cast after them as they drove away,
and Mrs. Hetherton whispered softly to Mrs. Meredith:

“A match in progress, I see. You have done well for
your charming niece.”

And yet matrimony, as concerned himself, was very
far from Thornton Hastings' thoughts that afternoon,
when, because he saw that it pleased Anna to have him
do so, he talked to her of Arthur, hoping, in his unselfish
heart, that what he said in his praise might influence
her to reconsider her decision and give him a different
answer. This was the second day of Thornton
Hastings' acquaintance with Anna Ruthven, but as time

went on, bringing the usual routine of life at Newport,
the drives, the rides, the pleasant piazza talks, and the
quiet moonlight rambles, when Anna was always his companion,
Thornton Hastings came to feel an unwillingness
to surrender even to Arthur Leighton the beautiful girl
who pleased him better than any one he had known.

Mrs. Meredith's plans were working well, and so,
though the autumn days had come, and one after another
the devotees of fashion were dropping off, she lingered
on, and Thornton Hastings still rode and walked with
Anna Ruthven, until there came a night when they wandered
farther than usual from the hotel, and sat down together
on a height of land which overlooked the placid
waters, where the moonlight lay softly sleeping. It was
a most lovely night, and for awhile they listened in
silence to the music of the sea, and then talked of the
breaking-up which would come in a few days, when the
hotel was to be closed, and wondered if next year they
would come again to the old haunts and find them unchanged.

There was witchery in the hour, and Thornton felt its
spell, speaking out at last, and asking Anna if she would
be his wife. He would shield her so tenderly, he said,
protecting her from every care, and making her as happy
as love and money could make her. Then he told her of his
home in the far-off city, which needed only her presence
to make it a paradise, and then he waited for her answer,

watching anxiously the limp, white hands, which, when
he first began to talk, had fallen helplessly upon her lap,
and then had crept up to her face, which was turned
away from him, so that he could not see its expression,
or guess at the struggle going on in Anna's mind. She
was not wholly surprised, for she could not mistake the
nature of the interest which, for the last two weeks,
Thornton Hastings had manifested in her. But now
that the moment had come, it seemed to her that she
had never expected it, and she sat silent for a time, dreading
so much to speak the words which she knew would
inflict pain on one whom she respected so highly, but
whom she could not marry.

“Don't you like me, Anna?” Thornton asked at last,
his voice very low and tender, as he bent over her and
tried to take her hand.

“Yes, very much,” she answered; and emboldened by
her reply, Thornton lifted up her head, and was about to
kiss her forehead, when she started away from him, exclaiming:

“No, Mr. Hastings. You must not do that. I cannot
be your wife. It hurts me to tell you so, for I believe
you are sincere in your proposal; but it can never be.
Forgive me, and let us both forget this wretched summer.”

“It has not been wretched to me. It has been a very
happy summer, since I knew you at least,” Mr. Hastings
said, and then he asked again that she should reconsider

her decision. He could not take it as her final one. He
had loved her too much, had thought too much of making
her his own, to give her up so easily, he said, urging
so many reasons why she should think again, that Anna
said to him, at last:

“If you would rather have it so, I will wait a month,
but you must not hope that my answer will be different
then from what it is to-night. I want your friendship,
though, the same as if this had never happened. I like
you, because you have been kind to me, and made my
stay in Newport so much pleasanter than I thought it
could be. You have not talked to me like other men.
You have treated me as if I at least had common-sense.
I thank you for that; and I like you because—”

She did not finish the sentence, for she could not say
“Because you are Arthur's friend.” That would have
betrayed the miserable secret tugging at her heart, and
prompting her to refuse Thornton Hastings, who had also
thought of Arthur Leighton, wondering if it were thus
that she rejected him, and if in the background there
was another love standing between her and the two men
to win whom many a woman would almost have given
her right hand. To say that Thornton was not piqued
at her refusal would be false. He had not expected it,
accustomed as he was to adulation; but he tried to put that
feeling down, and his manner was even more kind and considerate
than ever as he walked back to the hotel, where

Mrs. Meredith was waiting for them, her practised eye
detecting at once that something was amiss. Thornton
Hastings knew Mrs. Meredith thoroughly, and, wishing
to shield Anna from her displeasure, he preferred stating
the facts himself to having them wrung from the pale,
agitated girl, who, bidding him good-night, went quickly
to her room; so, when she was gone, and he stood for a
moment alone with Mrs. Meredith, he said:

“I have proposed to your niece, but she cannot answer
me now. She wishes for a month's probation, which I
have granted, and I ask that she shall not be persecuted
about the matter. I must have an unbiassed answer.”

He bowed politely and walked away, while Mrs. Meredith
almost trod on air as she climbed the stairs and
sought her niece's chamber. Over the interview which
ensued that night we pass silently, and come to the next
morning, when Anna sat alone on the piazza at the rear
of the hotel, watching the playful gambols of some children
on the grass, and wondering if she ever could conscientiously
say yes to Thornton Hastings' suit. He was
coming towards her now, lifting his hat politely, and asking
what she would give for news from home.

“I found this on my table,” he said, holding up a
dainty little missive, on the corner of which was written
“In haste,” as if its contents were of the utmost importance.
“The boy must have made a mistake, or else
he thought it well to begin at once bringing your letters

to me,” he continued with a smile, as he handed Anna
the letter from Lucy Harcourt. “I have one, too, from
Arthur, which I will read while you are devouring yours,
and then, perhaps, you will take a little ride. The September
air is very bracing this morning,” he said, walking
away to the far end of the piazza while Anna broke
the seal of the envelope, hesitating a moment ere taking
the letter from it, and trembling as if she guessed what
it contained.

There was a quivering of the eyelids, a paling of the
lips as she glanced at the first few lines, then with the
low moaning cry, “No, no, oh no, not that,” she fell
upon her face.

To lift her in his arms and carry her to her room was
the work of an instant, and then, leaving her to Mrs.
Meredith's care, Thornton Hastings went back to finish
Arthur's letter, which might or might not throw light
upon the fainting-fit.

“Engaged to Lucy Harcourt! I never could have believed
it. He's right in saying that she is far more suitable
for me than him,” Thornton exclaimed, dashing aside
the letter and feeling conscious of a pang as he remembered
the bright airy little beauty in whom he had once
been strongly interested, even if he did call her frivolous
and ridicule her childish ways.

She was frivolous, too much so by far to be a clergyman's
wife, and for a full half-hour Thornton paced up
and down the room, meditating on Arthur's choice and
wondering how upon earth it ever happened.

8. CHAPTER VIII.
SHOWING HOW IT HAPPENED.

LUCY had insisted that she did not care to go to
Saratoga. She preferred remaining in Hanover,
where it was cool and quiet, and where she
would not have to dress three times a day and dance
every night until twelve. She was beginning to find that
there was something to live for besides consulting one's
own pleasure, and she meant to do good the rest of her
life, she said, assuming such a sober, nun-like air, that
no one who saw her could fail to laugh, it was so at variance
with her entire nature. But Lucy was in earnest.
Hanover had a greater attraction for her than all the
watering-places in the world, and she was very grateful
when Fanny threw her influence on her side and so
turned the scale in her favor.

Fanny was glad to leave her dangerous cousin at home,
especially after Mr. Bellamy decided to join their party
at Saratoga; and as she carried great weight with both
her parents it was finally decided to let Lucy remain at
Prospect Hill in peace, and one morning in July she saw
the family depart without a single feeling of regret that

she was not of their number. She had far too much on
her hands to spend her time in regretting anything:
there was the parish school to visit, and a class of children
to hear, children who were no longer ragged, for
Lucy's money had been expended till even Arthur had
remonstrated with her, and read her a long lecture on the
subject of misapplied charity. Then there was Widow
Hobbs waiting for the jelly which Lucy had promised,
and for the chapter which Lucy now read to her, sitting
where she could watch the road and see just who turned
the corner, her voice always sounding a little more serious
and good when the footsteps belonged to Arthur
Leighton, and her eyes always glancing at the bit of a
cracked mirror on the wall, to see that her dress and
hair and ribbons were right before Arthur came in. It
was a very pretty sight to see her thus and hear her as
she read to the poor, whose surroundings she had so
greatly improved; and Arthur always smiled gratefully
upon her, and then walked back with her to Prospect
Hill, where he lingered while she played or talked to
him, or brought the luscious fruits with which the garden
abounded.

This was Lucy's life, which she preferred to Saratoga,
and they left her to enjoy it, somewhat to Arthur's discomfiture,
for, much as he valued her society, he would
rather she had gone where the Hethertons did, for he could
not be insensible to the remarks which were being made by

the curious villagers, who watched this new flirtation, as
they called it, and wondered if their minister had forgotten
Anna Ruthven. He had not forgotten her, and many a
time was her loved name upon his lips and a thought of
her in his heart, while he never returned from an interview
with Lucy that he did not contrast the two, and
sigh for the olden time when Anna was his coworker instead
of pretty Lucy Harcourt. And yet there was about
the latter a powerful fascination which he found it hard
to resist. It rested him just to look at her, she was so
fresh, so bright, and so beautiful; and then she flattered
his self-love by the unbounded deference she paid to his
opinions, studying all his tastes and bringing her will into
perfect subjection to his, until she could scarcely be
said to have a thought or feeling which was not a reflection
of his own. And so the flirtation, which at first had
been a one-sided affair, began to assume a more serious
form, and the rector went oftener to Prospect Hill, while
the Hetherton carriage stood daily at the gate of the parsonage,
and people talked and gossiped, until Captain
Humphreys, Anna's grandfather, concluded it was his duty
as senior warden of St. Mark's, to talk with the young
rector and know “what his intentions were.”

“You have none?” he said, fixing his mild eyes reproachfully
upon his clergyman, who recoiled a little beneath
the gaze. “Then, if you have no intentions, my
advice to you is that you quit it and let the gal alone, or

you'll ruin her, if she ain't spoilt already, as some of the
women folks say she is. It don't do no gal any good to
have a chap, and 'specially a minister, gallivantin' after
her, as I must say you've been after this one for the last
few weeks. She's a pretty little creeter, and I don't
blame you for liking her. It makes my old blood stir
faster when she comes purring around me, with her soft
ways and winsome face, and so I don't wonder at you, but
when you say you've no intentions, I blame you greatly.
You or'to have. Excuse my plainness; I'm an old
man, and I like my minister, and don't want him to go
wrong; and then I feel for her, left all alone by all her
folks; more's the shame to them, and more's the harm to
you, to tangle up her affections as you are doing if you
are not in earnest; and so I speak for her just as I should
want some one to speak for Anna!”

The old man's voice trembled a little here, for it had
been a wish of his that Anna should occupy the parsonage,
and he had at first felt a little resentment against the
gay young creature who seemed to have supplanted her,
but he was over that now, and in all honesty of heart he
spoke both for Lucy's interest and that of his clergyman.
And Arthur listened to him respectfully, feeling when he
was gone that he merited the rebuke,—that he had not
been guiltness in the matter,—that if he did not mean to
marry Lucy Harcourt he should let her alone. And he
would, he said,—he would not go to Prospect Hill again

for two whole weeks, nor visit at the cottages where he
was sure to find her; he would keep himself at home; and
he did, and shut himself up among his books, not even
going to make a pastoral call on Lucy when he heard
that she was sick. And so Lucy came to him, looking
dangerously charming in her blue riding-habit with the
white feather streaming from her hat. Very prettily she
pouted, too, as she chided him for his neglect, and asked
why he had not been to see her nor anybody;—there
was the Widow Hobbs, and Mrs. Briggs, and those miserable
Donelsons, whom he had not been near for a fortnight.

“What is the reason?” she asked, beating her foot
upon the carpet and tapping the end of her riding-whip
upon the sermon he was writing. “Are you displeased
with me, Arthur,” she continued, her eyes filling with
tears as she saw the expression of his face. “Have I
done anything wrong; I am so sorry if I have.”

Her voice had in it the grieved tones of a little child,
and her eyes were very bright with the tears quivering
on her long eyelashes. Leaning back in his chair, with
his hands clasped behind his head, a position he usually
assumed when puzzled and perplexed, the rector looked
at her a moment before he spoke. He could not define
to himself the nature of the interest he took in Lucy
Harcourt. He admired her greatly, and the self-denials
and generous exertions she had made to be of use to him

since Anna went away, had touched a tender chord and
made her seem very near to him. Habit with him was
everything, and the past two weeks' isolation had shown
him how necessary she had become to him. She did not
satisfy his higher wants as Anna Ruthven had done. No
one could ever do that, but she amused and soothed and
rested him, and made his duties lighter by taking half of
them upon herself. That she was more attached to him
than he could wish he greatly feared, for since Captain
Humphreys' visit he had seen matters differently from
what he saw them before, and had unsparingly questioned
himself as to how far he would be answerable for
her future weal or woe.

“Guilty, verily I am guilty in leading her on if I
meant nothing by it,” he had written against himself,
pausing in his sermon to write it just as Lucy came in,
appealing to him to know why he had neglected her so
long.

She was very beautiful this morning, and Arthur felt
his heart beat rapidly as he looked at her, and thought
any man who had not known Anna Ruthven would
be glad to gather that bright creature in his arms and
know she was his own. One long, long sigh to the memory
of all he had hoped for once,—one bitter pang as
he remembered Anna and that twilight hour in the
church, and then he made a mad plunge in the dark and
said:

“Lucy, do you know people are beginning to talk
about my seeing you so much?”

“Well, let them talk; who cares?” Lucy replied, with
a good deal of asperity of manner for her, for that very
morning the house-keeper at Prospect Hill had ventured
to remonstrate with her for “running after the parson.”
“Pray where is the wrong? What harm can come of
it?”

“None, perhaps,” Arthur replied, “if one could
keep their affections under control. But if either of us
should learn to love the other very much and the love
was not reciprocated, harm would surely come of that.
At least that was the view Captain Humphreys took of
the matter when he was speaking to me about it.”

There were red spots on Lucy's face, but her lips were
very white and the buttons on her riding-dress rose and
fell rapidly with the beating of her heart as she looked
steadily at Arthur. Was he going to send her from him,
—back to the insipid life she had lived before she knew
him? It was too terrible to believe, and the great tears
rolled slowly down her cheeks. Then as a flash of pride
came to her aid, she dashed them away and said to him
haughtily:

“And so for fear I shall fall in love with you, you are
sacrificing both comfort and freedom, and shutting yourself
up with your books and studies to the neglect of
other duties. But it need be so no longer. The necessity

for it, if it existed once, certainly does not now. I
will not be in your way; forgive me that I ever have
been.”

Lucy's voice began to tremble as she gathered up her
riding-habit and turned to find her gauntlets. One of
them had dropped upon the floor between the table and
the rector, and as she stooped to reach it her curls almost
swept the young man's lap.

“Let me get it for you,” he said, hastily pushing back
his chair and awkwardly entangling his foot in her long
sweeping dress, so that when she arose she stumbled backward
and would have fallen, but for the arm he quickly
passed around her.

Something in the touch of that quivering form completed
the work of temptation, and he held it for an instant,
when she said to him pettishly:

“Please let me go, sir.”

“No, Lucy, I can't let you go. I want you to stay
with me.”

Instantly the drooping head was uplifted, and Lucy's
eyes looked into his with such a wistful, pleading, wondering
look that Arthur saw or thought he saw his duty
plain, and gently touching his lips to the brow glistening
so white within their reach, he continued:

“There is a way to stop the gossip and make it right
for me to see you. Promise to be my wife, and not even
Captain Humphreys can say aught against it.”

Arthur's voice trembled now, for the mention of Captain
Humphreys had brought a thought of Anna, whose
eyes seemed for an instant to look reproachfully upon
that wooing. But he had gone too far to retract; he had
only to wait for Lucy's answer. There was no deception
about her; hers was a nature as clear as crystal, and with
a gush of glad tears she promised to be the rector's wife;
and hiding her face on his bosom, told him, brokenly,
how unworthy she was of him; how foolish, and how unsuited
to the place, but promising to do the best she
could not to bring him into disgrace on account of her
shortcomings.

“With the knowledge that you love me I can do anything,”
she said, and her white hand crept slowly into the
cold, clammy one which lay so listlessly on Arthur's
lap.

He was already repenting, for he felt that it was sin
to take that warm, trusting, loving heart in exchange for
the cold, half lifeless one he should render in return, and
in which scarcely a pulse of joy was beating, even though
he held his promised wife; and she was fair and beautiful
as ever promised wife could be.

“But I can make her happy, and I will,” he thought,
pressing the warm fingers which quivered to his touch.

But he did not kiss her again; he could not for the
eyes, which still seemed looking at him and asking what
he did. There was a strange spell about those phantom

eyes, and they made him say to Lucy, who was now sitting
demurely at his side:

“I could not clear my conscience if I did not confess
that you are not the first woman whom I have asked to
be my wife.”

There was a start, and Lucy's face was pale as ashes,
while her hand went quickly to her side, where the heartbeats
were visible, warning Arthur to be careful how he
startled one whose life hung on so slender a thread as
Lucy's; so, when she asked, “Who was it, and why did
you not marry her? Did you love her very much?” he
answered indifferently, “I would rather not tell you who
it was, as that might be a breach of confidence. She did
not care to be my wife, and so that dream was over and
I was left for you.”

He did not say how much he loved her who had discarded
him, but Lucy forgot the omission, and asked,
“Was she very young and pretty?”

“Young and pretty both, but not as beautiful as you,”
Arthur replied, his fingers softly putting back the golden
curls from the face looking so trustingly into his.

And in that he answered truly. He had seen no face
as beautiful of its kind as Lucy's was, and he was glad
that he could tell her so. He knew how that would
please her and partly make amends for the tender words
which he could not speak,—for the phantom eyes still
haunting him so strangely.

And Lucy, who took all things for granted, was more
than content, although she wondered that he did not kiss
her again, and wished she knew the girl who had come so
near being in her place. But she respected his wishes too
much to ask after what he had said, and she tried to
make herself glad that he had been so frank with her and
not left his other love-affair to the chance of her discovering
it afterwards, at a time when it might be painful to
her.

“I wish I had something to confess,” she thought;
but from the score of her flirtations, and even offers, for
she had not lacked for them, she could not find one
where her own feelings had been enlisted in ever so
slight a degree until she remembered Thornton Hastings,
who for one whole week had paid her such attentions as
had made her dream of him, and even drive round once
on purpose to look at the house on Madison Square
where the future Mrs. Hastings was to live.

But his coolness afterwards, and his comments on her
frivolity had terribly angered her, making her think that
she hated him, as she had said to Anna. Now, however,
as she remembered the drive and the house, she nestled
closer to Arthur and told him all about it, fingering the
buttons on his dressing-gown as she told him it, and
never dreaming of the pang she was inflicting as Arthur
thought how mysterious were God's ways, and wondered
that He had not reversed the matter and given Lucy to

Thornton Hastings, rather than to him, who did not half
deserve her.

“I know now I never cared a bit for Thornton Hastings,
though I might if he had not been so mean as to call me
frivolous,” Lucy said, as she arose to go; then suddenly
turning to the rector, she added: “I shall never ask who
your first love was, but would like to know if you have
quite forgotten her?”

“Have you forgotten Thornton Hastings?” Arthur
asked, laughingly; and Lucy replied, “Of course not;
one never forgets, but I don't care a pin about him now;
and did I tell you, Fanny writes that rumor says he will
marry Anna Ruthven?”

“Yes,—no,—I did not know; I am not surprised;”
and Arthur stooped to pick up a book lying on the floor,
thus hiding his face from Lucy, who, woman-like, was
glad to report a piece of gossip, and continued:

“She is a great belle, Fanny says; dresses beautifully
and in perfect taste, besides talking as if she knew something,
and this pleases Mr. Hastings, who takes her out
to ride and drive, and all this after I warned her against
him and told her just what he said of me. I am surprised
at her!”

Lucy was drawing on her gauntlets, and Arthur was
waiting to see her out, but she still lingered on the threshold,
and at last said to him:

“I wonder you never fell in love with Anna yourself.

I am sure, if I were you I should prefer her to me. She
knows something and I do not, but I am going to study;
there are piles of books in the library at Prospect Hill,
and you shall see what a famous student I will become.
If I get puzzled will you help me?”

“Yes, willingly,” Arthur replied, wishing that she
would go, before she indulged in any more speculation
as to why he did not love Anna Ruthven.

But Lucy was not done yet; the keenest pang was yet
to come, and Arthur felt as if the earth was giving way
beneath his feet, when, as he lifted her into the saddle
and took her hand at parting, she said:

“You remember I am not going to be jealous of that
other girl. There is only one person who could make
me so, and that is Anna Ruthven; but I know it was not
she, for that night we all came from Mrs. Hobbs's and
she went with me up-stairs, I asked her honestly if you
had ever offered yourself to her, and she told me you had
not. I think you showed a lack of taste; but I am glad
it was not Anna.”

Lucy was far down the road ere Arthur recovered from
the shock her last words had given him. What did it
mean, and why had Anna said he never proposed? Was
there some mistake, and he the victim of it? There was
a blinding mist before the young man's eyes, and a gnawing
pain at his heart as he returned to his study and
went over again with all the incidents of Anna's refusal,

even to the reading of the letter which he already knew
by heart. Then, as the thought came over him that possibly
Mrs. Meredith played him false in some way,
he groaned aloud, and the great sweat-drops fell upon the
table where he leaned his head. But this could not be,
he reasoned. Lucy was mistaken. She had not heard
aright. Somebody surely was mistaken, or he had committed
a fatal error.

“But I must abide by it,” he said, lifting up his pallid
face. “God forgive the wrong I have done in asking
Lucy to be my wife when my heart belonged to another.
God help me to forget the one and love the other as I
ought. She is a lovely little girl, trusting me so wholly
that I can make her happy,—and I will!—but Anna,—
O Anna!”

It was a despairing cry, such as a newly-engaged man
should never have sent after another than his affianced
bride; and Arthur thought so too, fighting back his first
love with an iron will, and after that hour of anguish
burying it so far from sight that he went that night to
Captain Humphreys and told of his engagement; then
called upon his bride-elect, and tried so hard to be satisfied,
that, when at a late hour he returned to the parsonage,
he was more than content; and by way of fortifying
himself still more, wrote the letter which Thornton
Hastings read at Newport.

And that was how it happened.

9. CHAPTER IX.
ANNA.

THROUGH the rich curtains which shaded the
windows of a room looking out on Fifth Avenue
the late October sun was shining; and as
its red light played among the flowers on the carpet, a
pale young girl sat watching it and thinking of the Hanover
hills, now decked in their autumnal glory, and of
the ivy on St. Mark's, growing so bright and beautiful
beneath the autumnal frosts. Anna had been very sick
since that morning in September when she sat on the
piazza at the Ocean House and read Lucy Harcourt's
letter. The faint was a precursor of fever, the physician
said when summoned to her aid; and in a tremor of fear
and distress Mrs. Meredith had had her removed at once
to New York, and that was the last Anna remembered.
From the moment her aching head had touched the soft
pillows in Aunt Meredith's home, all consciousness had
fled, and for weeks she had hovered so near to death that
the telegraph-wires bore daily messages to Hanover,
where the aged couple who had cared for her since her
childhood wept, and prayed, and watched for tidings

from their darling. They could not go to her, for
Grandpa Humphreys had broken his leg, and his wife
could not leave him; so they waited with what patience
they could for the daily bulletins which Mrs. Meredith
sent, appreciating their anxiety, and feeling glad withal
of anything which kept them from New York.

“She had best be prayed for in church,” the old man
said; and so, Sunday after Sunday, Arthur read the
prayer for the sick, his voice trembling as it had never
trembled before, and a keener sorrow in his heart than
he had ever known when saying the solemn words.

Heretofore the persons prayed for had been comparative
strangers,—people in whom he felt only the interest
a pastor feels in all his flock; but now it was Anna,
whose case he took to God, and he always smothered a
sob during the moment he waited for the fervent response
the congregation made, the Amen which came from the
per where Lucy sat being louder and heartier than all
the rest, and having in it a sound of the tears which
dropped so fast on Lucy's book, as she asked that her
dear friend might not die. Oh, how he longed to go to
her! But this he could not do, and so he had sent
Lucy, who bent so tenderly above the sick girl, whispering
loving words in her ear, and dropping kisses upon
the lips which uttered no response, save once, when
Lucy said, “Do you remember Arthur?”

Then they murmured faintly: “Yes,—Arthur,—I remember

him, and the Christmas song, and the gathering
in the church. But that was long ago; there's much
happened since then.”

“And I am to marry Arthur,” Lucy had said again;
but this time there was no sign that she was understood,
and that afternoon she went back to Hanover loaded
with tickets for the children of St. Mark's and new books
for the Sunday-school, and accompanied by Valencia,
who, having had a serious difference with her mistress,
Mrs. Meredith, had offered her services to Miss Harcourt,
and been at once accepted.

That was near the middle of October; now it was the
last, and Anna was so much better that she set up for an
hour or more and listened with some degree of interest
to what Mrs. Meredith told her of the days when she
lay so unconscious of all that was passing around her,
never heeding the kindly voice of Thornton Hastings,
who more than once had stood by her pillow with his
hand on her feverish brow, and tokens of whose thoughtfulness
were visible in the choice bouquets he sent each
day, with notes of anxious inquiry when he did not come
himself. Anna had not seen him yet since her convalescence.
She would rather not see any one until strong
enough to talk, she said. And so Thornton waited
patiently for the interview she had promised him when
she should be stronger, but every day he sent her fruit,
and flowers, and books which he thought would interest

her, and which always made her cheeks grow hot and
her heart beat regretfully, for she knew of the answer
she must give him when he came, and she shrank from
wounding him.

“He is too good, too noble, to have an unwilling
wife,” she thought; but that did not make it the less
hard to tell him so, and when at last she was well enough
to see him, she waited his coming nervously, starting
when she heard his step, and trembling like a leaf as he
drew near her chair.

It was a very thin, wasted hand which he took in his,
holding it for a moment between his own, and then laying
it gently back upon her lap. He had come for the
answer to a question put six weeks before, and Anna
gave it to him,—kindly, considerately, but decidedly.
She could not be his wife, she said, because she did not
love him as he ought to be loved.

“It is nothing personal,” she added, working nervously
at the heavy fringe of her shawl. “I respect you
more than any man I ever knew,—except one; and had
I met you years ago,—before—before—”

“I understand you,” Thornton said, coming to her
aid. “You have tried to love me, but you cannot, because
your affections are given to another.”

Anna bowed her head in silence; then, after a moment,
she continued:

“You must forgive me, Mr. Hastings, for not telling

you this at once. I did not know then but I could love
you; at least, I meant to try, for you see this other one,”
—the fingers got terribly tangled in the fringe as Anna
gasped for breath and went on,—“he does not know,
and never will,—that is,—he never cared for me, nor
guessed how foolish I was to give him my love unsought.”

“Then it is not Arthur Leighton, and that is why you
refused him too,” Mr. Hastings said involuntarily; and
Anna looked quickly up, her cheeks growing paler than
they were before, as she replied: “I don't know what
you mean. I never refused Mr. Leighton,—never!”

“You never refused Mr. Leighton?” Thornton exclaimed,
forgetting all discretion in his surprise at this
flat contradiction. “I have Arthur's word for it, written
to me last June, while Mrs. Meredith was there, I
think.”

“He surely could not have meant it, because it never
occurred; there is some mistake,” Anna found strength
to say; and then she lay back in her easy-chair panting
for breath, her brain all in a whirl as she thought of the
possibility that she was once so near the greatest happiness
she had ever desired, and which was lost to her
now.

He brought her smelling-salts; he gave her ice-water
to drink, and then, kneeling beside her, he fanned her
gently, while he continued: “There surely is a mistake,

and, I fear, a great wrong, too, somewhere. Were all
your servants trusty? Was there no one who would
withhold a letter if he had written? Were you always
at home when he called?”

Thornton questioned her rapidly, for there was a suspicion
in his mind as to the real culprit, but he would
not hint it to Anna unless she suggested it herself. And
this she was not likely to do. Mrs. Meredith had been
too kind to her during the past summer, and especially
during her recent illness, to allow of such a thought concerning
her; and in a maze of perplexity she replied to
his inquiries: “We keep but one servant,—Esther,—and
she I know is trusty. Besides, who could have refused
him for me? Grandfather would not, I know, because
—because—” she hesitated a little, and her cheeks
blushed scarlet as she added, “I sometimes thought he
wanted it to be.”

It Thornton had previously had a doubt as to the other
man who stood between himself and Anna, that doubt was
now removed, and laying aside all thoughts of self, he
exclaimed:

“I tell you there is a great wrong somewhere. Arthur
never told an untruth; he thought that you refused him;
he thinks so still, and I shall never rest till I have solved
the mystery. I will write to him to-day.”

For an instant there swept over Anna a feeling of unutterable
joy as she thought what the end might be; then,

as she remembered Lucy, her heart seemed to stop its beating,
and with a moan she stretched her hands towards
Thornton, who had risen as if to leave her.

“No, no, you must not interfere,” she said. “It is
too late, too late. Don't you remember Lucy? don't you
know she is to be his wife? Lucy must not be sacrificed
for me. I can bear it the best.”

She knew she had betrayed her secret, and she tried to
take it back, but Thornton interrupted her with, “Never
mind now, Anna. I guessed it all before, and it hurts
my self-pride less to know that it is Arthur whom you
prefer to me. I do not blame you for it.”

He smoothed her hair pityingly, while he stood over
her a moment, wondering what his duty was. Anna told
him plainly what it was. He must leave Arthur and
Lucy alone. She insisted upon having it so, and he promised
her at last that he would not interfere. Then taking
her hand, he pressed it a moment between his own and
went out from her presence. In the hall below he met
with Mrs. Meredith, who he knew was waiting anxiously
to hear the result of that long interview.

“Your niece will never be my wife, and I am satisfied
to have it so,” he said; then, as he saw the lowering of
her brow, he continued, “I have long suspected that she
loved another, and my suspicions are confirmed, though
there's something I cannot understand,” and fixing his
eyes searchingly upon Mrs. Meredith, he told what Arthur

had written and of Anna's denial of the same. “Somebody
played her false,” he said, rather enjoying the look
of terror and shame which crept into the haughty woman's
eyes, as she tried to appear natural and express her own
surprise at what she heard.

“I was right in my conjecture,” Thornton thought as he
took his leave of Mrs. Meredith, who could not face Anna
then, but paced restlessly up and down her spacious
rooms, wondering how much Thornton suspected, and what
the end would be.

She had sinned for naught; Anna had upset all her
cherished plans, and could she have gone back for a few
months and done her work again, she would have left the
letter lying where she found it. But that could not be
now. She must reap as she had sown, and resolving
finally to hope for the best and abide the result, she went
up to Anna, who, having no suspicion of her, hurt her
ten times more cruelly, by the perfect faith with which she
confided the story to her, than bitter reproaches would
have done.

“I know you wanted me to marry Mr. Hastings,”
Anna said, “and I would if I could have done so conscientiously,
but I could not, for I may confess it now to
you. I did love Arthur so much, and I hoped that he
loved me.”

The cold, hard woman, who had brought this grief upon
her niece, could only answer that it did not matter. She

was not very sorry, although she had wanted her to
marry Mr. Hastings, but she must not fret about that
now, or about anything. She would be better by and by,
and forget that she ever cared for Arthur Leighton.

“At least,” and she spoke entreatingly now, “you will
not demean yourself to let him know of the mistake. It
would scarcely be womanly, and he may have gotten over
it. Present circumstances seem to prove as much.”

Mrs. Meredith felt now that her secret was comparatively
safe, and with her spirits lighter she kissed her
niece lovingly and told her of a trip to Europe which she
had in view, promising that Anna should go with her,
and so not be at home when the marriage of Arthur and
Lucy took place.

It was appointed for the 15th of January, that being
the day when Lucy came of age, and the very afternoon
succeeding Anna's interview with Mr. Hastings the little
lady came down to New York to direct about her bridal
trousseau making, in the city. She was brimming over
with happiness and her face was a perfect gleam of sunshine,
when she came next day to Anna's room, and
throwing off her wrappings plunged at once into the subject
uppermost in her thoughts, telling first how she and
Arthur had quarrelled,—“not quarrelled as uncle and
aunt Hetherton and lots of people do, but differed so seriously
that I cried and had to give up, too,” she said. “I
wanted you for bridesmaid, and do you think, he objected;

not objected to you, but to bridesmaids generally, and
he carried his point, so that we are just to stand up stiff
and straight alone, except as you'll all be round me in
the aisle. You'll be well by that time, and I want you
very near to me,” Lucy said, squeezing the icy hand,
whose coldness made her start and exclaim, “Why,
Anna, how cold you are, and how pale you are looking.
You have been so sick, and I am so well; it don't seem
quite right, does it? And Arthur, too, is so thin that I
have coaxed him to raise whiskers to cover the hollows in
his cheeks. He looks a heap better now, though he was
always handsome. I do so wonder that you two never
fell in love, and I tell him so most every time I see him,
for I always think of you then.”

It was terrible to Anna to sit and hear all this, and
the room grew dark as she listened, but she forced back
her pain, and stroking the curly head almost resting on
her lap, and said kindly, “You love him very much, don't
you, darling,—so much that it would be hard to give him
up?”

“Yes, oh yes, I could not give him up now, except to
God. I trust I could do that, though once I could not, I
am sure,” and nestling closer to Anna, Lucy whispered
to her of the hope that she was better than she used to
be,—that daily intercourse with Arthur had not been
without its effect, and now she believed she tried to do
right from a higher motive than just to please him.

“God bless you, darling,” was Anna's response, as she
clasped the hand of the young girl, who was now far more
worthy to be Arthur's wife than once she had been.

If Anna had ever had a thought of telling Arthur, it
would have been put aside by that interview with Lucy.
She could not harm that pure, loving, trusting girl, and
she sent her from her with a kiss and a blessing, praying
silently that she might never know a shadow of the pain
which she was suffering.

10. CHAPTER X.
MRS. MEREDITH'S CONSCIENCE.

SHE had one years before, but since the summer
day when she sent from her the white-faced
man, whose heart she knew she had broken, it
had been hardening,—searing over with a stiff crust which
nothing, it seemed, could penetrate. And yet there were
times when she was softened and wished that much which
she had done might be blotted out from the great book
in which even she believed. There was many a misdeed
recorded there against her, she knew, and occasionally
there stole over her a strange disquietude as to how she
should confront them when they all came up before her.
Usually she could cast such thoughts aside by a drive
down gay Broadway, or at most by a call at Stewart's,
but the sight of Anna's white face and the knowing
what made it so white were a constant reproach, and conscience
gradually wakened from its torpor, enough to
whisper of the only restitution in her power, that of confession
to Arthur. But from this she shrank nervously.
She could not humble herself thus to any one, and she
would not either, she said. Then came the fear lest by

another than herself her guilt should come to light. What
if Thornton Hastings should find her out? She was half
afraid he suspected her now, and that gave her the heaviest
pang of all, for she respected Thornton highly, and it
would cost her much to lose his good opinion. She had
lost him for her niece, but she could not spare him from
herself, and so in sad perplexity, which wore upon her
visibly, the autumn days went on until at last she sat
one morning in her dressing-room and read in a foreign
paper:

“Died at Strasburg, Aug. 31st, Edward Coleman, Esq.
aged 46.”

That was all, but the paper dropped from the trembling
hands, and the proud woman of the world bowed
her head upon the cold marble of the table and wept
aloud. She was not Mrs. Meredith now, she was Julia
Ruthven again, and she stood with Edward Coleman out
in the grassy orchard where the apple-blossoms were
dropping from the trees, and the air was full of the insects'
hum and the song of mating birds. Many years
had passed since then. She was the wealthy Mrs. Meredith
now, and he was dead in Strasburg. He had been
true to her to the last, for he had never married, and
those who had met him abroad had brought back the
same report of a “white-haired man, old before his time,
and with a tired, sad look on his face.” That look she
had written there, and she wept on as she recalled the

past and murmured softly: “Poor Edward, I loved you
all the while, but I sold myself for gold, and it turned
your brown locks snowy white,—poor darling,—” and
her hands moved up and down the folds of her cashmere
robe as if it were the brown locks they were smoothing
just as they used to do. Then came a thought of Anna,
whose face wore much the look which Edward's did
when he went slowly from the orchard and left her there
alone with the apple-blossoms dropping on her head, and
the hum of the bees in her ear.

“I can at least do right in that respect,” she said.
“I can undo the past to some extent and lessen the load
of sin upon my shoulders. I will write to Arthur
Leighton; I surely need tell no one else,—not yet, at
least, lest he has outlived his love for Anna. I can
trust to his discretion and to his honor too; he will not
betray me, unless it is necessary, and then only to Anna.
Edward would bid me do it if he could speak; he was
some like Arthur Leighton.”

And so with the dead man in Strasburg before her
eyes, Mrs. Meredith nerved herself to write to Arthur
Leighton, confessing the fraud imposed upon him, imploring
his forgiveness, and begging him to spare her as
much as possible.

“I know from Anna's own lips how much she has
always loved you,” she wrote in conclusion, “but she
does not know of the stolen letter, and I leave you to

make such use of the knowledge as you shall think
proper.”

She did not put in a single plea for poor little Lucy
dancing so gayly over the mine just ready to explode.
She was purely selfish still with all her qualms of conscience,
and only thought of Anna, whom she would
make happy at another's sacrifice. So she never hinted
that it was possible for Arthur to keep his word pledged
to Lucy Harcourt, and as she finished her own letter and
placed it in an envelope with the one which Arthur had
sent to Anna, her thoughts leaped forward to the wedding
she would give her niece,—a wedding not quite like
that she had designed for Mrs. Thornton Hastings, but
a quiet, elegant affair, just suited to a clergyman who
was marrying a Ruthven.

11. CHAPTER XI.
THE LETTER RECEIVED.

ARTHUR had been spending the evening at
prospect hill. The Hethertons were there
now, and would remain till after the 15th;
and since they came the rector had found it even pleasanter
calling there than it had been before with only his
bride-elect to entertain him. Sure of Mr. Bellamy,
Fanny had laid aside her sharpness and was exceedingly
witty and brilliant, while, now that it was settled, the
colonel was too thorough a gentleman to be otherwise
than gracious to his future nephew, and Mrs. Hetherton
was always polite and ladylike, so that the rector looked
forward with a good deal of interest to the evenings he
usually gave to Lucy, who, though satisfied to have him
in her sight, still preferred the olden time when she had
him all to herself, and was not disquieted with the fear
that she was not learned enough for him, as she often
was when she heard him talking with Fanny and her
uncle of things she did not understand. This evening,
however, the family were away and she received him
alone, trying so hard to come up to his capacity, talking

so intelligibly of the books she had been reading, and
looking so lovely in her crimson winter dress, besides
being so sweetly affectionate and confiding that for once
since his engagement Arthur was more than content, and
returned her modest caresses with a warmth he had not
felt before. He was learning to love her very much, he
thought, and when at last he took his leave and she went
with him to the door there was an unwonted tenderness
in his manner as he pushed her gently back, for the first
snow of the season was falling and the large flakes
dropped upon her hair, from which he brushed them carefully
away.

“I cannot let my darling take cold,” he said, and
Lucy felt a strange thrill of joy, for never before had he
called her his darling, and sometimes she had feared that
the love she received was not as great as the love she
gave.

But she did not think so now, and in an ecstasy of joy
she stood in the deep recess of the bay-window watching
him as he went away through the moonlight and the
feathery cloud of snow, wondering why, when she was so
happy, there should cling to her a haunting presentiment
that she and Arthur would never meet again just as they
had parted. Arthur, on the contrary, was troubled with
no such presentiment. Of Anna he hardly thought, or,
if he did, the vision was obscured by the fair picture he
had seen standing in the door with the snow-flakes resting

on its hair like pearls in a golden cabinet. And Arthur
thanked his God that he was beginning at last to feel
right, that the solemn vows he was so soon to utter
would not be a mockery. It was Arthur's wish to teach
to others how dark and mysterious are the ways of Providence,
but he had not himself half learned that lesson
in all its strange reality; but the lesson was coming on
apace; each stride of his swift-footed beast brought him
nearer and nearer to the great shock waiting for him
upon his study-table, where his man had put it. He saw
it the first thing on entering the room, but he did not
take it up until the snow was brushed from his garments
and he had seated himself by the cheerful fire blazing on
the hearth. Then sitting in his easy-chair and moving
the lamp nearer to him, he took Mrs. Meredith's letter
and broke the seal, starting as if a serpent had stung
him when in the note enclosed he recognized his own
handwriting, the same he had sent to Anna when his
heart was as full of hope as the brown stalks, now beating
against his windows with a dismal sound, were full
of fragrant blossoms. Both had died since then, the
roses and his hopes, and Arthur almost wished that he,
too, were dead when he read Mrs. Meredith's letter and
saw the gulf he was treading. Like the waves of the
sea his love for Anna came rolling back upon him, augmented
and intensified by all that he had suffered, and
by the terrible conviction that it could not be, although,
alas, “it might have been.” He repeated these words
over and over again, as, stupefied with pain, he sat gazing
at vacancy, thinking how true was the couplet:

He could not pray at first, his brain was so confused;
but when the white, quivering lips could move and the
poor aching heart could pray, he only whispered: “God
help me to do right,” and by that prayer he knew that
for a single instant there had crept across his mind the
possibility of sacrificing Lucy, the girl who loved and
trusted him so much; but only for an instant. He
would not cast her from him, though to take her now,
knowing what he did, was almost death itself. “But
God can help me, and he will,” he cried,—then falling
upon his knees, with his face bowed to the floor, the
rector of St. Mark's prayed as he had never prayed before,
first for himself, whose need was greatest, then for
Lucy, that she might never know what making her happy
had cost him, and then for Anna, whose name he could
not speak. “That other one,” he called her, and his
heart kept swelling in his throat and preventing his
utterance so that the words he would say never reached
his lips. But God heard them just the same, and knew
his child was asking that Anna might forget him, if to
remember him was pain,—that she might learn to love

another far worthier than he had ever been. He did
not think of Mrs. Meredith; he had no feeling of resentment
then; he was too wholly crushed to care how his
ruin had been brought about, and long after the wood-fire
on the hearth had turned to cold, gray ashes, he knelt
upon the floor and battled with his grief; and when the
morning broke it found him still in the cheerless room,
where he had passed the entire night and from which he
went forth strengthened as he hoped to do what he fully
believed to be his duty.

This was on Saturday, and the Sunday following there
was no service at St. Mark's. The rector was sick, the
sexton said, hard sick, too, he had heard, and the Hetherton
carriage with Lucy in it drove swiftly to the parsonage,
where the quiet and solitude awed and frightened
her as she entered the house and asked the housekeeper
how Mr. Leighton was.

“It is very sudden,” she said. “He was perfectly well
when he left me on Friday night. Please tell him I am
here.”

The housekeeper shook her head. Her master's orders
were that no one but the doctor should be admitted, she
said, repeating what Arthur had told her in anticipation
of just such an infliction as this. But Lucy was not to
be denied; Arthur was hers; his sickness was hers; his
suffering was hers, and see him she would.

“He surely did not mean me, when he asked that no

one should be admitted. Tell him it is I; it is Lucy,”
she said, with an air of authority, which in one so small,
so pretty, and so childish only amused Mrs. Brown, who
departed with the message, while Lucy sat down with her
feet upon the stove and looked around the sitting-room,
thinking that it was smaller and poorer than the one at
Prospect Hill, and how she would remodel it when she
was mistress there.

“He says you can come,” was the word Mrs. Brown
brought back, and with a gleam of triumph in her eye and
a toss of the head which said, “I told you so,” Lucy
went softly into the darkened room and shut the door behind
her.

Arthur had half expected this and had nerved himself to
meet it, but the cold sweat stood on his face and his heart
throbbed painfully as Lucy bent over him and said, “Poor,
dear Arthur, I am so sorry for you, and if I could I'd
bear the pain so willingly.”

He knew she would; she was just as loving and unselfish
as that, and he wound his arms around her and
drew her closer to him, while he whispered, “My poor
little Lucy, my poor little Lucy. I don't deserve this
from you.”

She did not know what he meant, and she only answered
him with kisses, while her hands moved caressingly
across his forehead, just as they had moved years ago in
Rome when she soothed the pain away. There certainly

was a mesmeric influence emanating from those hands,
and Arthur felt its power, growing very quiet and at last
falling away to sleep while the passes went on, and Lucy
held her breath lest she should waken him. She was a
famous nurse, the physician said, when he came, and he
constituted her his coadjutor and gave his patient's medicine
into her care.

It was hardly proper for her niece to stay at the rectory,
Mrs. Hetherton thought, but Lucy was one who
could trample down proprieties, and it was finally arranged
that, in order to avoid all comment, Fanny should
stay with her.

So, while Fanny went to bed and slept Lucy sat all
night in the sick-room with Mrs. Brown, and when the
next morning came she was looking very pale, and languid,
but very beautiful withal. At least such was the
mental compliment paid her by Thornton Hastings, who
was passing through Hanover and stopped over a train to
see his old college friend and perhaps tell him what he
began to feel it was his duty to tell him in spite of his
promise to Anna. She was nearly well now and had
driven with him twice to the park, but he could not be
insensible to what she suffered, or how she shrank from
hearing the proposed wedding discussed, and in his intense
pity for her he had half resolved to break his word
and tell Arthur what he knew. But he changed his mind
when he had been in Hanover a few hours and watched

the little fairy, who, like some ministering angel, glided
about the sick-room, showing herself every whit a woman,
and making him repent that he had ever called her frivolous
or silly. She was not either, he said, and with a
magnanimity for which he thought himself entitled to a
good deal of praise, he felt that it was very possible for
Arthur to love the gentle little girl who smoothed his pillowsso
tenderly, and whose fingers threaded so lovingly the
dark brown locks when she thought he—Thornton—was
not looking on. She was very coy of him, and very distant
towards him, for she had not forgotten his sin, and she
treated him at first with a reserve for which he could not
account. But as the days went on and Arthur grew so
sick that his parishioners began to tremble for their young
minister's life, and to think it perfectly right for Lucy to
stay with him even if she was assisted in her labor of love
by the stranger from New York, the reserve all disappeared,
and on the most perfect terms of amity she and
Thornton Hastings watched together by Arthur's side.

Thornton Hastings learned more lessons than one in
that sick-room where Arthur's faith in God triumphed
over the terrors of the grave which at one time seemed
so near, while the timid Lucy, whom he had only known
as a gay butterfly of fashion, dared before him to pray
that God would spare her promised husband, or give her
grace to say “Thy will be done.” Thornton could hardly
say that he was skeptical before, but any doubts he might

have had touching the great fundamental truths on which
a true religion rests were gone forever, and he left Hanover
a changed man in more respects than one.

Arthur did not die, and on the Sunday preceding the
week when the Christmas decorations were to commence
he came again before his people, his face very pale and
worn, and wearing upon it a look which told of a new
baptism,—an added amount of faith which had helped to
lift him above the fleeting cares of this present life. And
yet there was much of earth clinging to him still, and it
made itself felt in the rapid beatings of his heart when he
glanced towards the pew where Lucy knelt and knew that
she was giving thanks for him resotred again.

Once in the earlier stages of his convalescence he had
almost betrayed his secret by asking her which she would
rather do, bury him from her sight, feeling that he loved
her to the last, or give him to another now that she knew
he would recover.

There was a frightened look in Lucy's eyes as she replied:

“I would ten thousand times rather see you dead, and
know that even in death you were my own, than to lose
you that other way. O Arthur, you have no thought of
leaving me now?”

“No, darling, I have not. I am yours always,” he
said, feeling that the compact was sealed forever, and that
God blessed the sealing.

He had written to Mrs. Meredith, granting her his forgiveness,
and asking that if Anna did not already know
of the deception she might never be enlightened. And
Mrs. Meredith had answered that Anna had only heard
a rumor that an offer had been made her, but that she
regarded it as a mistake, and was fast recovering both her
health and spirits. Mrs. Meredith did not add her surprise
at Arthur's conscientiousness in adhering to his engagement,
nor hint that her attack of conscience was so
safely over; she was glad of it, for she still had hope of that
house on Madison Square; but Arthur guessed at it and
dismissed her from his mind, and waited with a trusting
heart for whatever the future might bring.

12. CHAPTER XII.
VALENCIA.

VERY extensive preparations were making at Prospect
Hill for the double wedding to occur on the
15th of January. After much debate and consultation,
Fanny had decided to take Mr. Bellamy then,
and thus she, too, shared largely in the general interest
and excitement which pervaded everything. Both brides-elect
were very happy, but in a widely different way, for
while Fanny was quiet and undemonstrative Lucy seemed
wild with joy and danced gayly about the house, now in
the kitchen, where the cake was made, now in the chamber,
where the plain sewing was done, and then flitting to
her own room in quest of Valencia, who was sent on
divers errands of mercy, the little lady thinking that as
the time for her marriage was so near it would be proper
for her to stop in-doors and not show herself in public
quite so freely as she had been in the habit of doing.
So she remained at home, and they missed her in the back
streets and by-lanes, and the Widow Hobbs, who was still
an invalid, pined for a sight of her bright face, and was
only half consoled for its absence by the charities which

Valencia brought, the smart waiting-maid putting on a
great many airs and making Mrs. Hobbs feel keenly how
greatly she thought herself demeaned by coming to such
a heathenish place. The Hanoverians, too, missed her
in the streets, but for this they made ample amends by
discussing the preparations at Prospect Hill and commenting
upon the bridal trousseau, which was sent from
New York the week before Christmas, thus affording a
most fruitful theme of comment for the women and maids
engaged in trimming the church. There were dresses of
every conceivable fashion, it was said, but none were
quite so grand as the wedding-dress itself,—a heavy
white silk which “could stand alone,” and trailed a full
yard behind. It was also whispered that, not content
with seeing the effect of her bridal robes as they lay upon
the bed, Miss Lucy Harcourt had actually tried them on,
wreath, veil, and all, and stood before the glass until Miss
Fanny had laughed at her for being so vain and foolish,
and said she was a pretty specimen for a sober clergyman's
wife. For all this gossip the villagers were indebted
mostly to Valencia Le Barre, who, ever since her
arrival at Prospect Hill, had been growing somewhat dissatisfied
with the young mistress she had expected to rule
even more completely than she had ruled Mrs. Meredith.
But in this she was mistaken, and it did not improve her
never very amiable temper to find that she could not with
safety appropriate more than half her mistress' handkerchiefs,
collars, cuffs, and gloves, to say nothing of perfumery
and pomades; and as this was a new state of
things with Valencia, she chafed at the administration
under which she had so willingly put herself, and told
things of her mistress which no sensible servant would
ever have reported. And Lucy gave her plenty to tell.
Frank and outspoken as a child, she acted as she felt and
did try on the bridal dress, did scream with delight when
Valencia fastened the veil and let its fleecy folds fall
gracefully around her.

“I wonder what Arthur will think. I so wish he was
here,” she had said, ordering a glass brought, that she
might see herself from behind, and know just how much
her dress trailed, and how it looked beneath the costly
veil.

She was very beautiful in her bridal robes, and she
kept them on till Fanny began to chide her for her vanity,
and even then she lingered before the mirror as if loth
to take them off.

“I don't believe in presentiments,” she said, “but do
you know it seems to me just as if I should never wear
this again,” and she smoothed thoughtfully the folds of
the heavy silk she had just laid upon the bed. “I don't
know what can happen to prevent it, unless Arthur
should die. He was so pale last Sunday, and seemed so
weak that I shuddered every time I looked at him. I
mean to drive round there this afternoon,” she continued.

“I suppose it is too cold for him to venture out, and he
has no carriage, either.”

Accordingly she went to the rectory that afternoon,
and the women in the church saw her as she drove by,
the gorgeous colors of her carriage-blanket flashing in the
wintry sunshine, and the long white feather in her hat
waving up and down as she nodded to them. There was
a little too much of the lady patroness about her to suit
the plain Hanoverians, especially those who were neither
high enough nor low enough to be honored with her notice;
and as they returned to their wreath-making and
gossip, they wondered under their breath if it would not
on the whole have been better if their clergyman had
married Anna Ruthven, instead of the fine city girl with
her Parisian manners. As they said this, a gleam of intelligence
shot from the gray eyes of Valencia Le Barre,
who was there at work in a most unamiable mood.

“She did not like to stain her hands with the nasty
hemlock, more than other folks,” she had said, when, after
the trying on of the bridal dress, Lucy had remonstrated
with her for some duty neglected, and then bidden her go
to the church and help if she was needed.

“I must certainly dismiss you unless you improve,”
Lucy had said to the insolent girl, who went unwillingly
to the church, where she sat tying wreaths when the
carriage went by.

She had thought many times of the letter she had read,

and more than once when particularly angry it had been
upon her lips to tell her mistress that she was not Mr.
Leighton's first choice, if indeed she was his choice at all;
but there was something in Lucy's manner which held
her back, besides which she was rather unwilling to confess
to her own meanness in reading the stolen letter.

“I could tell them something if I would,” she thought,
as she bent over the hemlock boughs, and listened to the
remarks; but for that time she kept her secret and worked
on moodily, while the unsuspecting Lucy went her way,
and was soon alighting at the parsonage-gate.

Arthur saw her as she came up the walk, and went out
to meet her. He was looking very pale and miserable,
and his clothes hung loosely upon him, but he welcomed
her kindly, and lead her in to the fire, and tried to believe
that he was glad to see her sitting there with her
little high-heeled boots upon the fender, and the bright
hues of her balmoral just showing beneath her dress of
blue merino. She went all over the house as she usually
did, suggesting alterations and improvements, and greatly
confusing good Mrs. Brown, who trudged obediently after
her, wondering what she and her master were ever to do
with the gay-plumaged bird, whose ways were so unlike
their own.

“You must drive with me to the church,” she said at
last to Arthur. “Fresh air will do you good, and you
stay moped up too much. I wanted you to-day at Prospect

Hill, for this morning the express from New York
brought—” she stood up on tiptoe to whisper the great
news to him, but his pulses did not quicken in the least,
even when she told him how charming was the bridal-dress.

He was standing before the mirror, and glancing at
himself, he said half laughingly, half sadly, “I am a pitiful-looking
bridegroom to go with all that finery. I
should not think you would want me, Lucy.”

“But I do,” she answered, holding his hand and leading
him to the carriage, which took him swiftly to the
church.

He had not intended going there as long as there was an
excuse for staying away, and he felt himself grow sick and
faint when he stood amid the Christmas decorations, and
remembered the last year, when he and Anna had fastened
the wreaths upon the wall. They were trimming the
church very elaborately in honor of him and his bride-elect,
and white artificial flowers, so natural that they
could not be detected from the real, were mixed with
scarlet leaves and placed among the mass of green. The
effect was very fine, and Arthur tried to praise it, but his
face belied his words, and after he was gone, the disappointed
girls declared that he looked more like a man
about to be hung, than one so soon to be married.

It was very late that night when Lucy summoned
Valencia to comb out her long, thick curls, and Valencia

was tired and cross and sleepy, and handled the brush so
awkwardly, and snarled her mistress's hair so often, that
Lucy expostulated with her sharply, and this awoke the
slumbering demon, which, bursting into full life, could
no longer be restrained, and in amazement which kept
her silent, Lucy listened, while Valencia vulgarly taunted
her with “standing in Anna Ruthven's shoes,” and told
all she knew of the letter stolen by Mrs. Meredith, and
the one she carried to Arthur. But Valencia's anger
quickly cooled, and she trembled with fear when she saw
how deathly white her mistress grew, and even heard the
loud beating of the heart which seemed trying to burst
from its prison, and fall bleeding at the feet of the poor,
wretched girl, around whose lips the white foam gathered
as she motioned Valencia to stop, and whispered “I am
dying.”

She was not dying, but the fainting-fit which ensued
was more like death than that which had come upon
Anna when she heard that Arthur was lost. Once they
really thought her dead, and in an agony of remorse
Valencia hung over her, accusing herself as a murderess,
but giving no other explanation to those around her than:

“I was combing her hair when the white froth spirted
all over her wrapper, and she said that she was dying.”

And that was all the family knew of the strange attack
which lasted till the dawn of day, and left upon Lucy's
face a look as if years and years of anguish had passed

over her young head, and left its footprints behind.
Early in the morning she asked to see Valencia alone,
and the repentant girl went to her, prepared to take back
all she had said, and declare the whole a lie. But something
in Lucy's manner wrung the truth from her, and
she repeated the story again so clearly, that Lucy had no
longer a doubt that Anna was preferred to herself, and
sending Valencia away, she moaned piteously:

“Oh, what shall I do? What is my duty?”

The part which hurt her most of all was the terrible
certainty that Arthur did not love her, as he loved Anna
Ruthven. She seemed intuitively to understand it all,
and see how in an unguarded moment he had offered
himself to save her good name from gossip, and how ever
since his life had been a constant struggle to do his duty
by her.

“Poor Arthur,” she sobbed, “yours has been a hard
lot, trying to act the love you did not feel; but it shall be
so no longer, for I will set you free.”

This was her final decision, but she did not reach it till
a day and night had passed, during which she lay with
her face turned to the wall, saying she wanted nothing
except to be left alone.

“When I can, I'll tell you,” she had said to Fanny and
her aunt, who insisted upon knowing the cause of her
distress. “When I can, I'll tell you all about it. Leave
me alone till then.”

So they ceased to worry her, but Fanny sat constantly
in the room watching the motionless figure, which took
whatever she offered, but otherwise gave no sign of life
until the morning of the second day, when it turned
slowly towards her, and the livid lips quivered piteously
and made an attempt to smile as they said:

“I can tell you now. I have made up my mind.”

Fanny's eyes were dim with the truest tears she had
ever shed when Lucy's story was ended, and her voice
was very low as she asked:

“And you mean to give him up at this late hour?”

“Yes, I mean to give him up. I have been over the
entire ground many times, even to the deep humiliation
of what people will say, and I have come each time to
the same conclusion. It is right that Arthur should be
released, and I shall release him.”

“And what will you do?” Fanny asked, gazing in
wonder and awe at the young girl, who answered: “I do
not know; I have not thought. I guess God will take
care of that.”

And God did take care of that, and inclined the Hetherton
family to be very kind and tender towards her,
and kept Arthur from the house until the Christmas decorations
were completed and the Christmas festival was
held. Many were the inquiries made for Lucy on
Christmas Eve, and many thanks and wishes for her
speedy restoration were sent to her by those whom she

had so bountifully remembered. Thornton Hastings,
too, who had come to town and was present at the
church on Christmas Eve, asked for her with almost as
much interest as Arthur, who bade Fanny tell her that
he should call on her on the morrow after the morning
service.

“Oh, I cannot see him here! I must tell him at the
rectory in the very room where he asked me to be his
wife,” Lucy said, when Fanny reported Arthur's message.
“I am able to ride there, and it will be fine
sleighing to-morrow. See, the snow is falling now,” and
pushing back the curtain Lucy looked drearily out upon
the fast-whitening ground, sighing as she remembered the
night when the first snow-flakes were falling, and she
stood watching them with Arthur at her side.

Fanny did not oppose her cousin, and with a kiss
upon the blue-veined forehead, she went to her own
room and left her to think for the hundredth time what
she should say to Arthur.

13. CHAPTER XIII.
CHRISTMAS DAY.

THE worshippers at St. Mark's on Christmas
morning heard the music of the bells as the
Hetherton sleigh dashed by, but none of them
knew whither it was bound or dreamed of the scene
which awaited the rector when after the services were over
he started towards home. Lucy had kept to her resolution,
and just as Mrs. Brown was looking at the clock to see
if it was time to put her fowls to bake, she heard the
hall door open softly, and almost dropped her dripping-pan
in her surprise at the sight of Lucy Harcourt, who
looked so mournfully at her as she said:

“I want to go to Arthur's room,—the library, I
mean.”

“Why, child, what is the matter? I heard you was
sick, but did not s'spose 'twas anything very bad. You
are paler than a ghost,” Mrs. Brown exclaimed, as she
tried to unfasten Lucy's hood and cloak and lead her to
the fire.

But Lucy was not cold, and would rather go at once
to Arthur's room. So Mrs. Brown made no objection,

though she wondered if the girl was crazy as she went
back to her fowls and Christmas pudding, and left Lucy
to find her way alone to Arthur's study, which looked so
like its owner, with his dressing-gown across the lounge
just where he had thrown it, his slippers on the rug, and
his arm-chair standing near the table, where he had sat
when he asked Lucy to be his wife, and where she now
sat down, panting heavily for breath and gazing drearily
around with the look of a frightened bird when seeking
for some avenue of escape from an appalling danger.
There was no escape, and with a moan she laid her head
upon the writing-table, and prayed that Arthur might
come quickly while she had sense and strength to tell
him. She heard his step at last, and rose up to meet
him, smiling a little at his sudden start when he saw her
there.

“It's only I,” she said, shedding back the curls from
her pallid face and grasping the chair to steady herself
and keep from falling. “I am not here to frighten or
worry you. I've come to do you good,—to set you free.
O Arthur, you do not know how terribly you have
been wronged, and I did not know it either till a few
days ago! She never received your letter,—Anna never
did. If she had she would have answered yes and been
in my place now; but she is going to be there. I give
you up to Anna. I'm here to tell you so. But O
Arthur, it hurts,—it hurts—”

He knew it hurt by the agonized expression of her
face, but he could not go near her for a moment, so great
was his surprise at what he saw and heard. But when
the first shock for them both was past, and he could
listen to her more rational account of what she knew and
what she was there to do, he refused to listen. He
knew it all before, and he would not be free; he would
keep his word, he said. Matters had gone too far to be
so suddenly ended; he held her to her promise, and she
must be his wife.

“Can you tell me truly that you love me more than
Anna?” Lucy asked, a ray of hope dawning for an instant
upon her heart, but fading into utter darkness as
Arthur hesitated to answer her.

He did love Anna best, though never had Lucy been
so near supplanting her as at that moment when she
stood before him and told him he was free. There was
something in the magnitude of her generosity which
touched him closely, and made her dearer to him than
she had ever been.

“I can make you very happy,” he said at last, and
Lucy replied, “Yes, but how with yourself? Would you
be happy too? No, Arthur, you would not, and neither
should I, knowing what I do. It is best that we should
part, though it almost breaks my heart, for I have loved
you so much.”

She stopped for breath, and Arthur was wondering

what he should say next, when a cheery whistle sounded
near, and Thornton Hastings appeared in the door. He
had just returned from the post-office, whither he had
gone after church, and not knowing any one but Arthur
was in the library, had come there at once.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, when he saw Lucy; and
he was hurrying away, but Lucy called him back, feeling
that in him she would find a powerful ally to aid her in
her task.

Appealing to him as Arthur's friend, she repeated
Valencia's story rapidly, and then went on: “Anna
never knew of that letter,—or she would have answered
yes. I know she loves him, for I can remember a thou
sand things which prove it, and I know he has loved her
best all the time, even when trying so hard to love me.
Oh, how it hurts me to think he had to try to love me
who loved him so much. But that is all past now. I
give him up to Anna, and you must help me as if I were
your sister. Tell him it is best. He must not argue
against me, for I feel myself giving way through my
great love for him, and I know it is not right. Tell him,
Mr. Hastings; plead my cause for me; say what a true
woman ought to say, for, believe me, I am in earnest in
giving him to Anna.”

There was a ghastly hue upon her face, and her features
looked pinched and rigid, but the terrible heartbeats
were not there. God in His great mercy kept them

back, else she had surely died under that strong excitement.
Thornton thought she was fainting, and going
hastily to her side, passed his arm around her and put
her in the chair; then standing by her, he said just what
first came into his mind to say. It was a delicate matter
in which to interfere, but he handled it carefully, telling
frankly what had passed between himself and Anna, and
giving as his opinion, that she loved Arthur to-day just
as well as before she left Hanover.

“Then it is surely right for Arthur to marry her, and
he must!” Lucy exclaimed vehemently, while Thornton
laid his hand pityingly upon her head, and said, “And
only you be sacrificed.”

There was something wonderfully tender in the tone
of Thornton's voice, and Lucy glanced quickly at him
while her eyes filled with the first tears she had shed
since she came into the room.

“I am willing; I am ready; I have made up my
mind, and I shall never unmake it,” she answered, while
Arthur put in a feeble remonstrance.

But Thornton was on Lucy's side, and did with his
cooler judgment what she could not; and when at last the
interview was ended, there was no ring on Lucy's forefinger,
for Arthur held it in his hand, and their engagement was
at an end. Stunned with what he had passed through,
he stood motionless while Thornton drew Lucy's cloak
about her shoulders, fastened her fur, tied on her satin

hood, and took such care of her as a mother would take
of a suffering child.

“It is hardly safe to send her home alone,” he thought,
as he looked into her face and saw how weak she was.
“As a friend of both I ought to accompany her.”

She was indeed so weak that she could scarcely stand,
and Thornton took her in his arms and carried her to the
sleigh; then springing in beside her, he made her lean her
tired head upon his shoulder as they drove to Prospect
Hill. She did not seem frivolous to him now, but rather
the noblest type of womanhood he had ever met. Few
could have done what she had, and there was much of
warmth and fervor in the clasp of his hand as he bade
her good-by, and went back to the rectory.

Great was the consternation and surprise in Hanover
when it was known that there was to be but one bride
at Prospect Hill on the night of the 15th, and various
were the surmises as to the cause of the sudden change;
but strive as they might, the good people of the village
could not get at the truth, for Valencia held her peace,
while the Hethertons were far too proud to admit of
their being questioned, and Thornton Hastings stood a
bulwark of defence between the people and the clergyman,
and managed to have the pulpit at St. Mark's supplied for
a few weeks, while he took Arthur away, saying that his
health required the change.

“You have done nobly, darling,” Fanny Hetherton
had said to Lucy when she received her from Thornton's
hands and heard that all was over. Then, leading her
half-fainting cousin to her own cheerful room, she made
her lie down while she told her of the plan she had
formed when first she heard what Lucy's intentions were.
“I wrote to Mr. Bellamy asking if he would take a trip
to Europe, so that you could go with us, for I knew you
would not wish to stay here. To-day I have his answer
saying he will go; and what is better yet, father and
mother are going, too.”

“Oh I am so glad! I could not stay here now,” Lucy
replied, sobbing herself to sleep, while Fanny sat by and
watched, wondering at the strength which had upheld her
weak little cousin in the struggle she had been through,
and feeling, too, that it was just as well, for after all it
was a mésalliance for an heiress like her cousin to marry
a poor clergyman.

There was a great wedding at Prospect Hill on the
night of the 15th, but neither Lucy nor Arthur were
there. He lay sick again at the St. Denis, in New York,
and she was alone in her chamber fighting back her tears,
and praying that now the worst was over she might be
withheld from looking back and wishing the work undone.
She went with the bridal party to New York, where she
tarried for a few days, but saw no one but Anna, for

whom she sent at once. The interview lasted more than
an hour, and Anna's eyes were swollen with weeping
when at last it ended; but Lucy's face, though white as
snow, was very calm and quiet, and wore a peaceful, placid
look which made it like the face of an angel. Two weeks
later, and the steamer Java bore her away across the
water, where she hoped to outlive the storm which had
beaten so piteously upon her. Thornton Hastings and
Anna went with her on board the ship, and for their sakes
she tried to appear natural, succeeding so well that it was
a very pleasant picture, which Thornton kept in his mind,
of a frail little figure standing upon the deck, holding its
water-proof together with one hand, and with the other
waving a smiling adieu to Anna and himself.

More than a year later Thornton Hastings followed
that figure across the sea, and found it in beautiful
Venice, sailing again through the moonlit streets, and
listening to the music which came so oft from the passing
gondolas. It had recovered its former roundness, and
the face was even more beautiful than it had been before,
for the light frivolity was gone, and there was in its stead
a peaceful, subdued expression which made Lucy Harcourt
more attractive than she had ever been. At least
so Thornton Hastings thought, and he lingered at her
side, and felt glad that she gave no outward token of agitation
when he said to her:

“There was a wedding at St. Mark's in Hanover just

before I left. Can you guess who the happy couple
were?”

“Yes, Arthur and Anna. She wrote me they were to
be married on Christmas eve. I am so glad it has come
around at last.”

Then she questioned him of the bridal,—of Arthur,—
and even of Anna's dress, her manner evincing that the
old wound had healed, or was healing very fast, and that
soon only a scar would remain to tell where it had
been.

And so the days went on beneath the sunny Italian
skies, until one glorious night in Rome, when they sat together
amid the ruins of the Colosseum, and Thornton
spoke his mind, alluding to the time when each had loved
another, expressing himself as glad that in his case the
matter had ended as it did, and then asking Lucy if she
could conscientiously be his wife.

“What! You marry a frivolous plaything like me?”
Lucy asked, her woman's pride flashing up once more,
but this time playfully, as Thornton knew by the joyous
light in her eye.

She told him what she meant, and how she had hated
him for it, and then they laughed together, but Thornton's
kiss smothered the laugh on Lucy's lips, for he guessed
what her answer was, and that this, his second wooing,
was more successful than his first had been.

“Married, in Rome, on Thursday, April 10th, Thornton
Hastings, Esq., of New York City, to Miss Lucy
Harcourt, also of New York, and niece of Colonel
James Hetherton.”

Anna was out in the rectory garden bending over a
bed of hyacinths when Arthur brought her the paper
and pointed to the notice.

“Oh, I am so glad, so glad, so GLAD!” she exclaimed,
emphasizing each successive glad a little more, and setting
down her foot as if to give it force. “I have never
dared be quite as happy with you as I might,” she continued,
leaning lovingly against her husband, “for there
was always a thought of Lucy, and what a fearful price
she paid for our happiness. But now it is all as it should
be, and, Arthur, am I very vain in thinking that she is
better suited to Thornton Hastings than I ever was, and
that I do better as your wife than Lucy would have
done?”

A kiss was Arthur's only answer, but Anna was satisfied,
and there rested upon her face a look of perfect content
as all that warm spring afternoon she walked in
her pleasant garden, thinking of the newly married pair
in Rome, and glancing occasionally at the open window
of the library where Arthur was, busy with his sermon,
his pen moving all the faster for the knowing that Anna
was just within his call,—that by turning his head he
could see her dear face, and that by and by, when his

work was done, she would come in to him, and with her
loving words and winsome ways make him forget how
tired he was, and thank Heaven again for the great gift
bestowed when it gave him Anna Ruthven.