But the respite from that most depressing of all suffering; mental trouble, had given her a chance, and her healthful nature began to recover.

She was a girl of too much force and character to succumb long to any misfortune; and, as she said to her aunt, she meant to fight this battle out to some kind of solution.

To the surprise of every one, she appeared at the breakfast table, very pale, but quiet, and perfectly self-possessed. Her bearing, however, had a dignity and a decision which would make even Mrs. Marchmont hesitate before she "meddled" again. De Forrest was half afraid of her, and began to realize that she was not the girl he had brought to the country but a few weeks since.

After breakfast, she dismissed Bel by saying plainly that she wished to be alone, and then sat down, and, for the first time, tried to clearly understand the situation. It grew more and more evident how desperately against her were appearances. She had been false at first, and, in a certain sense, must appear false to the last, in that she had not told him the truth. Besides, just when and how she had become in earnest she could not remember. The poor girl was greatly discouraged, and again gave way to tears, as if her heart would break.

But in the midst of her sore trouble, like a flash of genial light came the thought, "If Mr. Hemstead will never look at me again, there is One who will"; and she sprang up, and, having found a Bible, turned again to its shortest text, remembering, with a quick sob, how she had first discovered it. With almost the distinctness and reality of actual presence, there rose up before her mind One who, with bowed head, wept with men for men. Every tear of sympathy appeared to fall on her bruised heart; and hope, that she believed dead, began to revive. She just clung to one simple thought: "He feels sorry for me"; and it comforted her.

Then she began to turn the leaves back and forth to find places where Jesus showed kindness and forgave, and she soon found that this was His life,—His work in which He never wearied,—kindness to all, forgiveness for all. Then the thought stole into her heart, like the dove bringing the "olive leaf" from across a dreary waste, "If Mr. Hemstead is like his Master he will forgive me." Hope now grew strong and steadily, and the impulsive, demonstrative girl kissed the little Book, pressed it to her heart, and caressed it as if it were a thing of life. She got out her portfolio and wrote:

"Mr. Hemstead, I sincerely ask your forgiveness for my folly, which you cannot condemn as severely as I do. Though unworthy, indeed, of your friendship and esteem, can you believe that I am not now the weak, wicked creature that I was when we first met? But I have not the courage to plead my own cause. I know that both facts and appearances are against me. I can only ask you, Who told His disciples to forgive each other, 'seventy times seven'?

"Yours, in sorrow and regret,

"LOTTIE MARSDEN."

"I have now done the best I can," she said. "The issue is in God's hands."

At the dinner-table she again perplexed the mystified household. They, in their narrow worldliness, had no key to such a problem as Lottie Marsden had become. She was gentleness itself. The mystic tears falling from Divine eyes had melted away all coldness and hardness, and the touch of her words and manner, if we may so speak, had in it a kindliness and a regard for others to which even the most callous respond. Patient self-forgetfulness is the most God-like and the most winning of all the graces.

After dinner, Mr. Dimmerly shuffled away by himself, with a sound between a sniffle and his old chuckle, muttering, "I don't believe it's 'stopped,' after all. Anyway, I wish she were going to be a home missionary in my home."

Lottie went with Dan again to the pond, and then to the "fallen tree"; but she found no other tryst there than memories, that, in view of what had happened, were very painful.

After her return, she no longer shunned the others, but sat down and talked quietly with them, as multitudes of men and women are doing daily, giving no sign that in the mean time they are patiently watching at the sepulchre of a buried hope, which may, or may not, rise again.

As with Lottie at first, so with Hemstead, the word false seemed to have the malignant power to quench hope and happiness. If it is faith that saves, it would seem that it is its opposite—distrust—that most quickly destroys. In no way can we deal more fatal and ruinous blows than to deceive those who trust us.

And Hemstead felt, at first, that he had been deceived and trifled with in all that was sacred. For hours both faith and reason reeled in passion, that grew and raged in the strong man's breast like a tropical storm. He plunged into the streets, crowded with his unknowing, uncaring fellow-creatures, as he would lose himself in the depths of a lonely forest, and walked hour after hour, he knew not and cared not whither.

Two thoughts pursued him like goading phantoms,—she was false—he was deceived.

At last, when the frenzy left him, weak and exhausted, he found himself near a large hotel, and he went in and slept almost as the dead sleep.

In his case also sleep proved "nature's sweet restorer." In the morning faith and reason sat together on their throne, and he recognized his duty to act the part of a man and a Christian, whatever the truth might be.

He sat down at last and calmly tried to disentangle the web. Second thoughts brought wiser judgment, for, after going over every day and hour of his acquaintance with Lottie, he could scarcely resist the conclusion that if she had begun in falsehood she was ending in truth. If she, in all her words and manner, had been only acting, he could never trust his senses again, or be able to distinguish between the hollow and the real.

Hour after hour he sat and thought. He held a solemn assize within his own breast, and marshalled all he could remember as witnesses for and against her. Much in her conduct that at first had puzzled him now grew clear in view of her purpose to victimize him, and, even as late as Christmas eve, he remembered how her use of the word "comedy" had jarred unpleasantly upon his ear. But on the other hand there seemed even more conclusive evidence that she had gradually grown sincere, and come to mean all she said and did. Could the color that came and went like light from an inner flame,—could tears that seemed to come more from her heart than from her eyes,—could words that had sounded so true and womanly, and that had often dwelt on the most sacred themes, be only simulated?

"If so," he groaned, "then there are only two in the wide universe that I can ever trust,—God and mother."

Moreover, in her trial, Lottie had an eloquent advocate to whom even deliberate reason appeared only too ready to lend an attentive ear,—the student's heart.

Therefore she finally received a better vindication than the Scotch verdict "not proven," and the young man began to condemn himself bitterly for having left so hastily, and before Lottie had time to explain and defend herself.

His first impulse was to go back at once and give her another hearing. But, almost before he was aware, he found a new culprit brought to the bar for judgment,—himself.

If the trial, just completed, had failed to prove Lottie's guilt, it had most conclusively shown him his love. He saw how it had developed while he was blind to its existence. He saw that his wild agony of the preceding day was not over falsehood and deception in the abstract, but over the supposed falsehood of a woman whom he had come to love as his own soul. And even now he was exulting in the hope that she might have passed, as unconsciously as himself, into like sweet thraldom. In the belief of her truthfulness, how else could he interpret her glances, tones, actions, and even plainly-spoken words?

But the flame of hope, that had burned higher and brighter, gradually sank again as he recalled his aunt's words, "How is all this sentiment to end?—in only sentiment?"

He remembered his chosen calling. Could he ask this child of luxury to go with him to the far West and share his life of toilsome privation? He had long felt that the work of a missionary was his vocation. She had never had any such feeling. He recalled her words, spoken but yesterday, it seemed: "Do you imagine that any nice girl will go out with you among the border ruffians?"

That is the way it appeared to her then. If such a thing were possible, that she had become attached to him, would it not be an unfair and almost a mean thing to take advantage of her affection, and, by means of it, commit her to a life for which she was unfitted, and which might become almost a martyrdom? The change from her luxurious home to frontier-life would be too great. If she had felt called of God to such a work,—if she had laid herself as a sacrifice upon the Divine Altar, that would be very different, for the Master would give no task without imparting strength and patience for its fulfilment. Besides, He had Heaven to give in return.

But Frank Hemstead's unselfish manhood told him plainly that he had no right to ask any such sacrifice.

Incidentally, Lottie had mentioned the number of her residence, and he hastily went up Fifth Avenue, and saw her palace of a home. Every stone in the stately abode seemed part of the barrier between them.

An elegant carriage with liveried coachman and footman came around to the entrance, and a lady who had Lottie's features, except that they had grown rigid with pride and age, entered it, and was driven away. As he saw her stately bearing, and the pomp and show of her life, he could almost believe his aunt,—that this proud woman of the world would rather bury the daughter of whom she expected so much than marry her to an obscure home missionary.

His heart grew heavy as lead, and he groaned, "Even if she loves me I have lost her."

Then came the supreme temptation of his life. Why must he be a home missionary? Who was there to compel such a sacrifice of himself? He might come to this city, and win a place as high as hers, as many poorer and more friendless than himself had done. He might even seek some well-situated Eastern church. He might aim to be one of the great popular preachers of the day; and so be able to come to the door of that proud home and ask what it would be no condescension to grant.

Again he was out in the storm; again he was in the thick of the battle;—passionate longings and love on one hand; stern, steady conscience on the other. In painful pre-occupation he again walked unknown distances. His aimless steps took him away from the mansions of the rich down among the abodes of the poor. As he was crossing a street his troubled eyes rested upon a plain cross over a lowly chapel door. He stopped before it like a superstitious Romanist,—not reverencing the emblem, however, but in vivid remembrance of Him who suffered thereon. He recalled His self-sacrifice and His words, "Whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple."

He bowed his head a moment, then turned quietly, and went back to his hotel.

The conflict was over,—the temptation passed,—and he was loyal.



CHAPTER XXXV.

MR. DIMMERLY CONCLUDES TO "MEDDLE."



Hemstead found some solace, during the next two days, in the selection of books for his library. He did not expect to visit the East again for many years, and made all his arrangements accordingly. He wrote Mr. and Miss Martell a letter, which they regarded as a model in its expression of delicate appreciation and manly modesty.

Towards the end of the week he returned to Mrs. Marchmont's, by no means sure whether he would find Lottie there or not, and quite certain that the less he saw of her the better.

He walked from the depot, and went around by the way of the pond. His resolution almost failed him, as he looked at the "fallen tree," especially as he believed he saw evidence, from traces in the snow, that Lottie had visited the place in his absence.

Lottie looked forward with a strange blending of hope and fear to the meeting with him, and had portrayed to herself every possible way in which she imagined it could take place. But it happened, as such things usually do, after the most prosaic fashion possible. They were all sitting in the parlor, after dinner, and Hemstead opened the door and walked in.

Her face became scarlet, but his was so pale as to remind her of the time when he had carried Miss Martell into that room. It was, indeed, the pallor of one who was making a desperate moral effort. But he was successful, and spoke to her, giving his hand, in almost the same manner as to his aunt. His bearing towards even De Forrest was most courteous. He then sat down composedly, and began to talk on ordinary topics.

Lottie's heart failed her. This was entirely different from what she had expected. His manner was not in the least cold or resentful, but his words seemed to come from a great distance, and his eyes no longer sought her face, as if she only had for him the true sunlight. Their old, quick, subtile interchange of sympathy and thought appeared lost as completely as if a thick wall rose between them. The warm-hearted girl could not act his part. She was silent, and her head bent low over her work.

Mrs. Marchmont and Bel were greatly pleased, and gave Hemstead credit for being a "very sensible young man, who, having been shown his folly, could act like a gentleman and not make a fuss."

Even De Forrest looked at the student approvingly, especially as he had been to a city tailor and was clothed in taste and harmony with his manly proportions. No amount of grace and virtue could find recognition in De Forrest's eyes, unless dressed in the latest mode.

Mr. Dimmerly, from behind his newspaper, stared for a long time at Lottie and his nephew, and then snarled abruptly: "It's getting deuced cold. The brook will stop running down hill to-night, I'm a-thinking,—freeze up"; and he stirred the fire as if he had a spite against it.

Lottie's head bent lower. She was beginning to understand her crotchety uncle. She, too, thought that it was getting very "cold."

After a while Hemstead quietly left them, went to his room, and did not appear again till they were all at supper. He then, with a simple, yet quiet, high-bred ease,—the bearing of a natural gentleman,—gave sketches of what he had seen in New York, and the latest literary gossip. His manner towards Lottie was, as nearly as possible, the same as towards Bel and his cousin. He so completely ignored all that had happened—all that had passed between them—that Lottie almost feared to give him the note she had written. She could not rally, but grew more and more depressed and silent, a fact which De Forrest and her aunt marked uneasily.

After supper he remarked that he would go over and say good-by to Mr. and Miss Martell and Harcourt.

With what a foreboding chill Lottie heard that word "good-by"! Would he, indeed, go away without giving her a chance to say one word of explanation? She could endure it no longer. In accordance with her impulsive nature, she went straight to him, and said in a low tone, "Mr. Hemstead, will you please read that?"

He trembled, but took the note, and said, after a moment, "Certainly," and was gone.

An hour passed, and another; still he did not return. Lottie's head bent lower and lower over her work. Mr. Dimmerly never played a more wretched game of whist. At last he quite startled them all by throwing down the cards and saying, in the most snappish of tones, "I wish the blockhead would come home."

"Why, brother, what is the matter?" asked Mrs. Marchmont, in a tone of surprise.

"I want to lock up," said the old gentleman, in some confusion.

"It's not late, yet."

"Well, it ought to be. I never knew such an eternally long evening. The clocks are all wrong, and everything is wrong."

"There, there, you have had bad luck over your whist."

Lottie, however, knew what was the matter, and she gave him a shy, grateful look. But the old man was still more incensed when he saw that there were tears in her eyes, and he shuffled away, muttering something that sounded a little profane.

Lottie, soon after, left the room also, but as she was passing through the hall she met Hemstead, who had come in at a side door. He took her hand in both of his, and said, gently, "I do forgive you, fully and completely, and I have your forgiveness to ask for my hasty judgment."

"And will you be my friend again?" she asked, timidly, and in a way that taxed his resolution sorely.

"You have no truer friend," he said, after a moment.

"I think it was a little cruel, in so true a friend, to leave me all this desperately long evening."

"You are mistaken," he said, abruptly, and passed hastily up to his room. She did not see him again that night.

What could he mean? Had he recognized her love, and, not being able to return it fully, did he thus avoid her and hasten through his visit? The bare thought crimsoned her cheek. But she felt that this could not be true. She knew he had loved her, and he could not have changed so soon. It was more probable that he believed her to be totally unfit to share in his sacred work,—that he feared she would be a hindrance,—and, therefore, he was shunning, and seeking to escape from one who might dim the lustre of his spiritual life and work. In some respects she had grown very humble of late, and feared that he might be correct, and that she was indeed utterly unfit to share in his high calling.

"But if he only knew how hard I would try!" she said, with a touch of pathos in her tone which would have settled matters if he had heard it.

That he was sacrificing himself rather than ask her to share in his life's privation, did not occur to her.

Restless and unhappy, she wandered into the dining-room, where she found Mr. Dimmerly standing on the hearth-rug, and staring at the fire in a fit of the deepest abstraction. Lottie was so depressed as to feel that even a little comfort from him would be welcome; so she stole to his side and took his arm. He stroked her head with a gentleness quite unusual with him. Finally he said, in a voice that he meant to be very harsh and matter of fact, "Hasn't that nephew of mine got home yet? I feel as if I could break his head."

"And I feel," said Lottie, hiding her face on his shoulder, "as if he would break my heart, and you are the only one in the house who understands me or cares."

"Well, well," said the old gentleman, after a little, "others have been meddling; I think I will meddle a little."

Lottie started up in a way that surprised him, and with eyes flashing through her tears said, "Not a word to him, as you value my love."

"Hold on," said the little man, half breathlessly. "What's the matter? You go off like a keg of powder."

"I wouldn't sue for the hand of a king," said Lottie, heroically.

"Bless you, child, he isn't a king. He's only Frank Hemstead, my nephew,—bound to be a forlorn home missionary, he says."

"Well, then," she said, drawing a long breath, "if he can't see for himself, let him marry a pious Western giantess, who will go with him for the sake of the cause instead of himself."

"In the mean time," suggested Mr. Dimmerly, "we will go back to New York and have a good time as before."

This speech brought to the warm-hearted girl another revulsion of feeling, and, again hiding her face on her uncle's shoulder, she sobbed, "I would rather be his slave on a desert island than marry the richest man in New York."

"And my wise and prudent sister thought it could be 'stopped,'" chuckled Mr. Dimmerly.

"But remember, uncle, not a word of this to him, or I will refuse him though my heart break a thousand times. If he does not love me well enough to ask me of his own accord, or if he does not think I am fit to go with him, I would rather die than thrust myself upon him."

"Bless me, what a queer compound a woman is! It won't do for you to go West. You will set the prairies on fire. There, there, now don't be afraid. If you think I can say anything to my nephew—the thick-headed blunderbuss—which will prevent his getting down on his knees to ask for what he'll never deserve, you don't know the Dimmerly blood. Trust to the wisdom of my gray hairs and go to bed."

"But, uncle, I would rather you wouldn't say anything at all," persisted Lottie.

"Well, I won't, about you," said her uncle, in assumed irritability. "I can get the big ostrich to pull his head out of the sand and speak for himself, I suppose. He's my nephew, and I'm going to have a talk with him before he leaves for the West. So be off; I'm getting cross."

But Lottie gave him a kiss that stirred even his withered old heart.

"O, good gracious!" he groaned after she was gone, "why was I ever 'stopped'?"

The next morning Hemstead appeared at breakfast as calm, pale, and resolute as ever. His manner seemed to say plainly to Lottie, "Our old folly is at an end. I have remembered the nature of my calling, and I know only too well that you are unfitted to share in it."

She was all the more desponding as she remembered how conscientious he was.

"If he thinks it's wrong, there's no hope," she thought, drearily.

After breakfast Mr. Dimmerly said, "Nephew, I wish you would do a little writing for me; my hand isn't as steady as it was"; and he took the student off to his private study.

After the writing was finished, Mr. Dimmerly gave a few awkward preliminary ahems, and then said, "So you go West next Monday?"

"Yes. I wish to get off on the first train."

"You seem very anxious to get away."

"I am sorry, now, I ever came," the young man said, in tones of the deepest sadness.

"Thank you."

"O, it's no fault of yours. You and aunt have been very kind, but—"

"But you are thinking of the 'noblest and most beautiful being in existence,' as you once said, referring to my pretty little niece. You have evidently changed your mind. Did you see some one in New York you liked better?"

"I have not changed my mind. I have only learned too well what my mind is. I wish that I had learned it sooner. There is one thing that troubles me greatly, uncle. I cannot speak of it to aunt, because—Well, I can't. Do you think that Miss Marsden cares much for me? She will surely forget me, will she not, in the excitement of her city life? I do hope she has no such feeling as I have."

Mr. Dimmerly stared at his nephew as if he thought him demented.

"Well," said he, "I think you have been 'enchanted, and are no longer yourself.' You now out-Bottom old Bottom himself. Do you mean to say that you love such a gem of a girl as Lottie, and yet hope she does not love you, and will soon forget you?"

"Certainly I do. If I had my will, she would not have another unhappy hour in her life."

"Well, if you have the faintest notion that she has any regard for you, why don't you get down on your marrow-bones and plead for a chance to make her happy? If I were in your place, and there was half a chance to win a Lottie Marsden, I would sigh like a dozen furnaces, and swear more oaths than were heard in Flanders, if it would help matters along any."

"But would you ask her to leave a home of luxury, her kindred, and every surrounding of culture and refinement, to go out on a rude frontier, and to share in the sternest poverty and the most wearing of work?"

"O—h—h, that is the hitch, is it?"

"Yes. Before I was aware, I had learned to love her. I trust she will never know how deeply; for if she had half a woman's heart, she would be sad from very pity. If, unconsciously to herself, some regard for me has grown during our visit, it would be a mean and unmanly thing to take advantage of it to inveigle her into a life that would be a painful contrast to all that she had known before. It would be like a soldier asking a woman to share all the hardships and dangers of a campaign."

Mr. Dimmerly stroked his chin thoughtfully, while he regarded his nephew with a shrewd, sidelong glance. "Well," said he, suggestively, "there is force in what you say. But is there any necessity of your being a home missionary, and living out among the 'border ruffians,' as Lottie used to call them? There are plenty of churches at the East. Dr. Beams is old and sick: there may be a vacancy here before long."

"No, uncle," said Hemstead, firmly, "I fought that fight out in New York, and it was a hard one. I have felt for years that I must be a missionary, and shall be true to my vocation. It's duty"; and he brought his clenched hand down heavily on the table.

"My good gracious!" ejaculated Mr. Dimmerly, giving a nervous hop in the air. "Between the two, what will become of me? Yes, yes; I see. You are like your mother. If she took it into her head that anything was 'duty,' all the world couldn't change her. So, rather than give up being a missionary, you will sacrifice yourself and Lottie too?"

"I should have no hesitation in making the sacrifice myself, but it would more than double my pain if I knew she suffered. And it is this that troubles me. But I must obey my orders, whatever happens."

"Well," said Mr. Dimmerly, dryly, and with a queer little twinkle in his eyes, "I cannot give you much aid and comfort. I never meddle in such matters. A third party never can. Of course you can sacrifice yourself and your own happiness if you choose. That is your own affair. But when it comes to sacrificing another, that is very different. Lottie is a warm-hearted girl with all her faults, and if she ever does love, it will be no half-way business with her. So be careful what you do. Sacrificing her happiness is a very different thing from sacrificing your own."

"But do you think there is any danger of such a thing?" asked Hemstead, in a tone of the deepest distress.

"Bless me, boy! how should I know?" said his uncle, in seeming irritability. "Do you think that I am a go-between for you two? Why don't you go and ask her, like a man? How do you know but she has a vocation to be a missionary as well as yourself?"

Hemstead strode up and down the room, the picture of perplexity. "Was ever a man placed in so cruel a position?" he groaned. But after a moment he became quiet and said, "When a thing is settled, let it stay settled; my course is the only right and manly one"; and he left the room saying he would be out for a walk till dinner.

But as he entered the hall Addie cried, "Frank, you must go; we won't take no for an answer."

"Go where?"

"To West Point. It's a glorious day. We want one more sleigh-ride before we break up,—one that shall exceed all the others. There is going to be a cadet hop over there this afternoon, in the dancing-hall, and a friend has sent for us to come. I've set my heart on going, and so have Bel and Lottie. Mother says that we can go, if you will go with us and drive, for the coachman is ill. You will see lots of grand scenery, and all that kind of thing, which you like so much."

"And have you set your heart on the 'cadet hop' also?" asked Hemstead of Lottie.

"I think I should appreciate scenery more at present," she said, with a quick blush.

"You'll go; say you'll go. He'll go, mother. It's all settled. Let us have some lunch, and we'll start at once;" and the spoiled little beauty already anticipated the conquest of a cadet or two as a holiday episode.

So, in a single breezy moment, it was arranged, Hemstead scarcely having a voice in the matter. As he mounted to his room, reason told him that this long drive in the society of the one whom he believed he should avoid, for her sake as well as his own, was anything but wise. But he tried to satisfy himself with the thought that at no time would he be alone with her; and his heart craved this one more day of companionship, before a lifetime of separation.

As Lottie was about to ascend the stairs, she heard, for the first time since that wretched Monday, Mr. Dimmerly's odd, chuckling laugh. She looked into the parlor, and, seeing that he was alone, went straight to him, and said, "Now! what do you mean by that queer little laugh of yours?"

"Why do you think I mean anything?" he said, staring at the ceiling.

"Because I haven't heard it since that dreadful Monday, and before I always heard it when something nice had happened between me and—and—"

"Some one told me last night to mind my own business."

"Now, uncle, you know something."

"I should hope so, at my years,—enough not to meddle." And he still stared high over her head.

"There," said Lottie with tears in her eyes, "everybody in the house is against me now."

The old man's eyes dropped to her flushed, disappointed face, and his features became almost noble in their expression of tender sympathy. In a grave, gentle tone, such as she never had heard him use before, he said, "Lottie, come to my private study, before you go."

While the others were at lunch, she glided, unseen, to the little study, that she might receive some comfort to sustain her fainting heart. Her uncle's first words, however, seemed prosaic, indeed, and very different from what she had expected.

"How old are you, Lottie?"

"I was twenty-one last June," she said, a little proudly.

"So you are a June blossom, eh? Well, you look like it." But he puzzled her by his long, searching glance into her face.

"Why do you ask?" she said.

"I want to be sure that you are old and mature enough to decide a very important question."

"Well," said Lottie, her breath coming quick, "I intend to decide all questions which relate to my own life and well-being."

"Be careful, young woman. You had better follow the advice of old and wise heads like your aunt's and mother's."

"Uncle, what do you mean?" said she, impatiently.

"Well," said Mr. Dimmerly, deliberately, looking searchingly into her face all the time, "I have sounded that thick-headed nephew of mine—there, you needn't start so: do you suppose a Dimmerly would betray a woman's secret?—and what do you think he most dreads to discover as true?—that you love him a little."

"It's something he never shall discover," said Lottie, almost harshly, springing up with flashing eyes and scarlet face. "I will not go on this ride, and he shall have no trouble in escaping my society."

"Hold on, now," expostulated Mr. Dimmerly. "Nitroglycerine doesn't go off half so quick as you of late. I haven't told you why he is afraid you love him."

"What other reason can he have save that he doesn't love me, or thinks I am unfit to be a clergyman's wife?"

"He has another reason,—one that will devolve upon you the necessity of deciding some very important questions. Are you old and mature enough?"

"O uncle!" exclaimed Lottie, impatiently tapping the floor with her foot. "You ought to be made Grand Inquisitor General. You have kept me upon the rack of suspense—it seems an hour."

"Hold on, little firebrand. Questions concerning a lifetime should not be decided in a moment. You had better take a few years—certainly, a few months—to think over what I am going to tell you. Frank worships the ground you tread on. He does not give you the little remnant of a heart that has been left after dozens of flirtations with other girls. You have the whole of his big, unworldly heart, and from what I know of him, or, rather, his mother, you always will; but he is so unselfish—so unlike the rest of us—that he won't ask you to exchange your life of wealth and luxury for his life of toil, poverty, and comparative exile. So, while I believe he will idolize your memory all his days, he is hoping that you won't suffer any, but will soon be able to forget him. Of course I feigned profound ignorance as to your feelings, and left him in a pitiable state of distress. But he finally concluded that, even if you did love him a little, it would be very unmanly to take advantage of your feelings to get you into the awful scrape of a home missionary's life."

As Mr. Dimmerly proceeded in this last speech, joy came into Lottie's face like the dawn of a June morning. Tears gathered slowly in her eyes, but their source was happiness, not sorrow. By the time he concluded, she had buried her burning face in her hands.

"Well," said her uncle, after a moment, "what's to be done I hardly know. He is just like his mother. If he thinks it isn't right to speak, tortures could not wring a word out of him. I don't see but you will have to propose yourself—"

"Propose myself! Never," said she, springing to her feet.

"What will you do, then?—sit and look at each other, and fade away like two dying swans?"

"No, indeed," said Lottie, dancing about the room, and brushing the tears from her face, like spray. "He shall propose to me, and very humbly, too. I have the key to the problem, now. My hand is now on the helm of this big ship of war, and you shall see how I will manage. He shall do just what I want him to, without knowing it. He shall—"

"But, hold on," said Mr. Dimmerly, breathlessly. "You look like a rainbow run wild. Listen to reason. O my good gracious! the idea of her being a home missionary!"

"That is just what I am going to be,—a home missionary, in his home; and all the principalities and powers of earth shall not prevent it. And now, you dear, precious, old meddler, good-by. You shall, one day, sit in the snuggest corner of as cosy a little home in the West as was ever made in the East;" and she vanished, leaving the old gentleman chuckling to himself, "It doesn't look as if it would be 'stopped' after all. Perhaps sister will find out that I know how to meddle a trifle better than she does."



CHAPTER XXXVI.

A NIGHT IN THE SNOW.



"Where have you been?" exclaimed Addie, as Lottie came down dressed warmly, but plainly. "We are all through lunch, and ready to start."

"I will not detain you, but will wrap up some lunch and take it with me. May I sit with you?" she said to Hemstead, a little later, as she came out where he was standing on the piazza,

"You will be very much exposed to the cold on the driver's seat, Miss Marsden," he said, hesitatingly; but she saw well enough what he wished, though conscience was condemning him all the time.

"So will you," she answered.

"Yes, but I am a man."

"And I am a woman," she said, with something of her old piquant style. "I do not like your implied assertion of superiority, sir. I have as good a right to expose myself to the cold as a man."

"I was not disputing your right, Miss Marsden, but—"

"O, I understand. You are of those who think so poorly of women as to regard them merely as men's pets,—the weaker sex, you would call us,—who prefer to wait till everything is made nice and comfortable, and then languidly step forward. In your reading of history, I think you must have skipped several chapters."

"You do me injustice," said Hemstead, warmly, and falling blindly into her trap. "If I had skipped all the chapters which treat of woman's heroism, in doing and suffering, I should, indeed, know little of history. She has proved herself the equal, and at times the superior of man."

"Pardon me," said Lottie, in a hurt and injured tone; "I shall reach the unwelcome truth at last: it is not woman in general who is weak, but Lottie Marsden in particular. I am very sorry that you have so poor an opinion of me, and I shall try to change it somewhat by enduring, on this drive, all the exposure and cold that you can."

As the sleigh just then came up, she settled the question by springing in and taking her place on the driver's seat.

Hemstead was perfectly nonplussed, and Mr. Dimmerly, who had stood in the door and heard what had been said, retreated rapidly, as he broke out into the most irrepressible chuckle in which he had yet indulged.

"Now, Miss Lottie," whined De Forrest, coming out muffled to his eyes, "are you going to sit there?"

"Certainly. You have Addie and Bel to talk to. Did you suppose that Mr. Hemstead was to be treated like a coachman because he kindly consented to drive us over?"

"Let me drive, then."

"No, indeed," cried Bel and Addie in chorus; "we won't trust to your driving." So De Forrest, with very poor grace, took his seat with them, and with his back to those whom he would gladly have watched most suspiciously. He had grown desperately jealous of Hemstead, and yet his vanity would not permit him to believe it possible that Lottie Marsden, of all others, could be won to such a life as the predestined missionary would lead. Like the narrow rationalists of this world, he was ever underrating the power of that kind of truth with which Hemstead was identified. To all of his class, the apparent self-sacrifice caused by love to God, and its kindred flame, love (not a passion) for some human object, has ever appeared both stupid and irrational. He did not understand Lottie, and could only curse the wretched visit, and wish it over every moment. When she returned to her accustomed life in New York, she would, he believed, soon be her old self.

Since he could not watch Lottie and Hemstead, he tried to use his ears as far as possible, but the noisy bells drowned their voices, so that he could catch but few words. He was somewhat comforted in the fact that at first they did not appear to have very much to say to each other.

Hemstead tried to introduce various topics remote from the thoughts that were weighing upon both their hearts, but Lottie did not sustain his effort. She maintained her hurt and injured air, until at last he could no longer endure her grieved, sad face, and said, in a low tone, "And could you imagine that I regard you, of all others, as weak and un-womanly?"

"What else could I think from your words? I admit I have given you cause to think very poorly of me indeed. Still it's anything but pleasant to be so regarded by those whose esteem we value."

"But I do not think poorly of you, at all," said Hemstead, half desperately. "How little you understand me!"

"I understand you better than you do me. You are a man. You have high aims, and have chosen a noble calling. But you have virtually said that I am only a woman, and a very ordinary one at that, not capable of emulating the lives of my heroic sisters. I must be shielded from the rough wind, while you, in your superiority, can face it as a matter of Course. And your later words intimate that so, figuratively, it will always be, in MY CASE,—weak, womanly, shrinking, and cowering, ever shielded by something or somebody. History, to be sure, records what women MAY do, but that is a very different thing from what Miss Marsden WILL do."

"You go to extremes, Miss Marsden, and infer far more than the occasion warrants," Hemstead replied, in great perplexity. "Was it unnatural that I wished you to be shielded from the cold?"

"And was it unnatural," she answered, "that since one of our party must be exposed to the cold, I should be willing to share in the exposure? But it is to your later words that I refer, and not the trifling incident that led to them. They, with your manner, revealed, perhaps, more than you intended. You once said I was 'capable of the noblest things.' I knew that was not true then, and to my lasting regret, and I proved the fact to you. But I think I have changed somewhat since that time. At least, I hope I am no longer capable of the meanest things."

"Miss Marsden," he said, impetuously, "you now give me credit for knowing you better than at that time—"

"Yes; and you have evidently revised your opinion very materially. But, as I said before, I can scarcely complain, when I remember my own action. But you will never know how bitterly I have repented of my folly. When that terrible charge was made against me last Monday—it came, when I was so happy and hopeful, like a sudden thunderbolt—I thought I should lose my reason. I felt that you had gone away believing I was utterly false and had been insincere in everything from first to last. I was like one who had fallen from a great height, and I scarcely spoke or moved for two days. I was not like some girls, who imagine they can find a remedy for their troubles in wealth and luxury and attention from others. I have had these things all my life, and know how little they are worth—how little they can do for one at such times. No one will ever know what I suffered. At first, when you thought so well of me, I deserved your harshest condemnation. But it did seem cruel, hard, when I was honestly trying to be better—when, at last, my life had become real and true—to be cast aside as a false thing, that must, of necessity, be despised. I dreaded, last night, that you were going away without giving me any chance to explain and correct my folly. I did mean that Monday to tell you the truth, and should have done so, if you had given me a chance. I should have condemned myself then, and I do now, more severely than even you could, who had such just cause for anger. But, Mr. Hemstead, I have changed. In all sincerity I say it, I wish to become a good, Christian girl, and would do so, if I only knew how. I was not deceiving you when I said last Christmas eve that I hoped I had become a Christian. I still think I have, though for two days I was in thick darkness. At any rate, I love my Saviour, and He has helped and comforted me in this greatest trial and sorrow of my life. I was ted to hope that you would forgive me, because He seemed so ready to forgive. There! I have now done what I have been most anxious to do—I have told you the truth. I have said all that I can, justly, in self-defence. If I have not raised your opinion of me very greatly, I cannot help it, for henceforth I intend to be honest, whatever happens."

Lottie had said the words she so wished to speak in a low tone, but with almost passionate earnestness, and no one could have doubted their truth a moment. The horses had been trotting briskly over the level ground at the foot of the steep mountain slope, and the noisy bells that made musical accompaniment to her words, as heard by Hemstead, disguised them from De Forrest and the others. The student received each one as if it were a pearl of great price.

But now the horses, mounting the steep ascent, had come to a walk, and the chime of the bells was not sufficient to drown his words. If he had answered as his feelings dictated, the attention of the others would have been gained in a most embarrassing way. He could only say in a very low voice, "I believe and trust you fully."

But Lottie heard and welcomed the assurance.

The light of the sun, that had been too brilliant upon the snow, was now becoming softened by an increasing haze. The air was growing milder, and the branches of bowed evergreens by the wayside suddenly lifted themselves as the hold of the fleecy burdens was loosened, and the miniature avalanches dropped away. At times they reached points from which the magnificent and broadening landscape could be seen to the best advantage, and as Hemstead stopped the horses at such places to rest, even Bel and Addie abounded in exclamations of delight. The river had become a vast, white plain, and stretched far away to the north. The scene was one that would have filled Hemstead with delight upon any other occasion, but Lottie was now well pleased to note that he gave to it hurried glances and little thought.

His face was a study, and, more clearly than he realized, betrayed the perplexity and trouble of his mind. How could he give up the lovely girl at his side, whose very imperfection and need won more upon him than any display of conscious strength and advanced spirituality? Her frankness, her humility and severe self-condemnation, appealed to every generous trait of his large, charitable nature. He now believed, as never before, that she was "capable of the noblest things," and he began to suffer from the torturing thought that his course was a mistaken one, and that he wronged her by acting upon the supposition that her old surroundings of luxury and culture were essential to her happiness. Might it not be true that, in a nature like hers, something far more profound was needed to create and sustain true serenity of heart? Had she not in effect plainly said that she had fathomed the shallow depths of luxury, wealth, and general flattering attention? Had she not unconsciously given him a severe rebuke? What right had he to assume that he was any more capable of heroic self-sacrifice than she? Only the certainty that he was sacrificing himself for her happiness enabled him to make the sacrifice at all, and now he began to think that his course might be a wretched blunder which would blight them both. The very possibility of making such a mistake was agony. To have come so near happiness, and then to miss it by as great a wrong to her as to himself, would be more than fortitude itself could endure. His uncle's words were ever present: "If Lottie loved, it would be no half-way business. He had no right to sacrifice her happiness." It was her happiness that he was thinking of, and if he could secure it best by consummating his own at the same time, it seemed to him that heaven would begin at once.

A trivial circumstance had enabled Lottie to intimate plainly to him that he had virtually asserted, "I am a man, and can do that of which only the noblest and most unselfish natures are capable. You are not only a woman, but you cannot rise to the level of many of your sisters, who have left on history's page the heroic record of their triumphs over the supposed weakness of their sex." What he had not meant, but still had appeared to hint from his language, was he not, in fact, practically acting upon as true? While he had taken his course in the spirit of the most generous self-sacrifice, might he not, at the same time, be ignoring the fact that she was as capable of self-sacrifice and noble consecration to a sacred cause as himself?

If she had been sincere in her religious experiences, and in all her words and actions in that direction, how could he help believing that she was equally sincere in the language of tone and eye, which had revealed her heart so plainly that even he, who was the last in the world to presume, had come to think that she loved him? And yet he was about to make his life, and perhaps hers also, one long regret, because he had quietly assumed that she was one of those women whose life depends on surroundings, and to whose souls mere things can minister more than love and the consciousness of an heroic devotion to a sacred cause. Lottie had skilfully and clearly given the impression she sought to convey; and this impression, uniting with the student's love, formed a combination whose assaults caused his supposed inflexible purpose to waver.

Lottie's quick intuition enabled her to see that she had led him far enough at present, while they were in such close proximity to jealous, observant eyes and attentive ears, and so, with equal tact, she led his thoughts to more tranquillizing topics. She was employing all the skill and finesse of which she had been mistress in the days of her insincerity and heartless coquetry. These gifts were still hers, as much as ever. But now they were under the control of conscience, and would henceforth be used to secure and promote happiness, not to destroy it.

And she felt that she had need of tact and skill. The situation was not so very peculiar. Many had passed through just such experiences before, but have all passed on to lives of consummated happiness? She loved the man at her side devotedly, and was perfectly aware of his love for her, and yet woman's silence was upon her lips. They were soon to separate, not to meet again for many years, if ever. She could not speak. If from any motive, even the noblest, he did not speak, how could she meet the long, lonely future, in which every day would make more clear the dreary truth that she had missed her true life and happiness?—missed it through no necessity that might in the end bring resignation, but through a mistake,—the unselfish blundering of a man who wrongly supposed she could be happier without than with him. It was her delicate task to show him, without abating one jot of woman's jealous reserve, that she was capable of all the self-sacrifice to which he looked forward, and that, as his uncle had told him, he had no right to sacrifice her happiness.

He was one of those single-hearted, resolute fellows, who have the greatest faculty for persistently blundering under an honest but wrong impression. But, in this case, his impression was natural, and he was wrong, only because Lottie was "capable of noble things,"—only because she did belong to that class of women to whom the love of their heart counts for infinitely more than all externals. If he had fallen in love with a very goodish sort of girl of the Bel Parton type, the course he had marked out would have been the wisest and best, eventually, for both, even though it involved, at first, a good deal of suffering.

When a wife assures her husband, by word or manner, "You took advantage of my love and inexperience to commit me to a life and condition that are distasteful or revolting, and you have thereby inflicted an irreparable injury," the man, if he be fine-fibred and sensitive, can only look forward to a painful and aggravated form of martyrdom. One had better live alone as long as Methuselah than induce a small-souled woman to enter with him on a life involving continual sacrifice. With such women, some men can be tolerably happy, if they have the means to carry out the "gilded cage" principle; but woe to them both if the gilded cage is broken or lost, and they have to go out into the great world and build their nest wherever they can.

Providence had given to Lottie the chance to live the life of ideal womanhood,—the life of love and devotion,—and she did not mean to lose it. While her high spirit would often chafe with a little wholesome friction, it would yet grow sweeter and more patient under the trials of the hardest lot, if they could only be endured at his side to whom, by some mystic necessity of her being, she had given her heart.

Therefore, with unmingled satisfaction she saw that she was sapping the student's ctern resolution not to speak. She would, by a witchery as innocent as subtile, beguile him into just the opposite of what he had proposed. As she had declared to her uncle, he should ask her, in a very humble manner, to become a home missionary, and she, under the circumstances, was more ready to comply than to become Empress of all the Russias.

But, during the remainder of the ride, she made the time pass all too quickly, as she led him to speak of his student life, his Western home, and especially of his mother; and Lottie smiled appreciatively over the enthusiasm and affection which he manifested for one concerning whom she had ever heard Mrs. Marchmont speak a little slightingly. The genuine interest which she took in all that related to Mrs. Hemstead touched the young man very closely, and his whole nature was getting under arms against what his heart was beginning to characterize as a most unnatural and stupid resolution.

De Forrest was greatly relieved as he heard Hemstead describing his humble, farm-house home and toiling mother; for the student softened none of the hard outlines of their comparative poverty.

"The great fool!" thought the exquisite. "Even if Lottie were inclined to care for him somewhat, he has repelled her now by revealing his common and poverty-stricken surroundings."

But as Lottie became satisfied that Hemstead would not be able to go away in silence, a new cause of trouble and perplexity claimed her attention. Not that she had not thought of it often since she had realized how irrevocably she had given her love, but other and more immediate questions had occupied her mind. How was she to reconcile her fashionable mother and worldly father to her choice? She clearly recognized that what to her seemed the most natural—indeed, the only thing in life left for her—would appear to one simply monstrous, and to the other the baldest folly.

She loved her parents sincerely, for, with all her faults, she had never been cold-hearted; and, while she proposed to be resolute, it was with the deepest anxiety and regret that she foresaw the inevitable conflict.

But when she was at a loss to think of anything that could be said to soften the blow, or make her course appear right or reasonable, as they would look at it, a circumstance occurred which led, as she then believed, to the solution of the problem.

After driving between two and three hours, they reached West Point in safety, and, as they were passing along by the officers' quarters, Lottie recognized a young lady who was one of her most intimate city friends, and who, she soon learned, was making a visit in the country, like herself. Lottie told Bel and Addie to go on to the dancing-hall, while she called on her friend, adding, "I will soon join you."

The relations between Lottie and her friend were rather confidential, and the latter soon bubbled over with her secret. She was engaged to a cadet, who would graduate in the following June.

"But he is away down towards the end of his class, and so, of course, will have to go out upon the Plains," she said, with a little sigh.

"What will you do then?" asked Lottie, quickly, a bright thought striking her. "You surely will not exchange your elegant city home for barracks in some remote fort, where you may be scalped any night?"

"I surely will," said the vivacious young lady; "and if you ever become half as much in love as I am, it won't seem a bit strange."

"But what do your parents say to all this?"

"O, well, of course they would much prefer that I should marry and settle in New York. But then, you know, mother always had a great admiration for the army, and it's quite the thing, in fashionable life, to marry into the army and navy. Why, bless you, Lottie, nearly all the ladies on the post have seen the roughest times imaginable on the frontier, and they come from as good families, and very many of them have left as good homes as mine."

"But how are you going to live on a lieutenant's pay? I have known you to spend more than that on your own dress in a single year."

"What are dresses compared with Lieutenant Ransom? I can learn to economize as well as the rest of them. You can't have everything, Lottie. You know what an officer's rank is. It gives him the entree into the best society of the land, and often opens the way for the most brilliant career. These things reconcile father and mother to it, but I look at the man himself. He's just splendid! Come, we'll go over to the hall, and I will introduce you, and let you dance with him once,—only once, you incorrigible flirt, or you will steal him away from me after all. By the way, who was that handsome man who drove? I fear you bewitched him coming over the mountain, from the way his eyes followed you."

"How does he compare with your Lieutenant Ransom?" asked Lottie.

"No one can compare with him. But why do you ask? Is there anything serious?"

"Will you think so when I tell you that he enters, next summer, on the life of a home missionary on the Western frontier?"

"O, how dismal!" exclaimed the young lady. "No, indeed! no danger of your giving him serious thoughts. But you ought not to flirt with such a man, Lottie."

"I do not intend to, nor with any one else, any more. But why do you say 'How dismal'? Your lieutenant will have as rough a frontier life as Mr. Hemstead, and, surely, the calling of the ministry is second to none."

"Well, it seems very different. Nobody thinks much of a home missionary. Why, Lottie, none of our set ever married a home missionary, while several have married into the army and navy. So, for heaven's sake, don't let your head become turned by one who looks forward to such a forlorn life. But here we are, and I will make you envious in a moment."

"Miss Marsden," said Hemstead, stepping forward as they were entering, "I do not like to hasten you, but there is every appearance of a storm, and the wind is rising. I wish you could induce Addie to start soon. I will go to the Trophy room for a little while, and then will drive around."

"You may rest assured I will do my best," said Lottie. "I am ready to start now."

"Beware of that man," said her friend; "his eyes tell the same story that I see in Lieutenant Ransom's."

"You have become a little lady of one idea," said Lottie, laughing and blushing, "and all the world is in love, in your estimation."

When Hemstead drove to the door, the snow-flakes were beginning to fly, and the wind had increased in force. But Bel was not ready, and Addie would not hear of their going till the hours set apart for dancing were over. Even then she permitted her cadet friends to detain her several minutes longer.

As the others were, in a certain sense, her guests, they were delicate about urging her departure. Thus it happened that the early December twilight was coming on, and the air was full of wildly-flying snow, as the last words were said, and the horses dashed off for the mountains.

But the storm increased in violence every moment, and the air was so filled with flakes that the young people could not see twenty feet before them. What caused Hemstead uneasiness was the fact that the sheltered road that led from the Point along the southern base of the mountains, for a long distance before coming to any great ascent, was already somewhat clogged with drifts. Above, on the mountain's crest, he heard a sound as if the north wind were blowing strongly.

He grew very anxious, and finally said, as they reached the point where the road began to rise rapidly, that he thought the attempt to cross that night involved much risk. But Addie would not hear of their returning. Her mother would go wild about them, and would never let her come again.

"It has not snowed very much yet, and if we wait till to-morrow it may be very deep."

"The drifts are what I fear," said Hemstead.

"There were no bad drifts this afternoon," said Addie, "and surely they cannot be deep yet."

Since the following day was Sunday, and New Year's also, it was agreed that they should push on. To return would involve much that was disagreeable to the party, and create great alarm at Mrs. Marchmont's.

"It will just result in their sending after us, this dreadful night," said Addie. "I don't see why it must storm just when one most wishes it wouldn't."

"We ought to have started sooner," said Bel. "I knew the delay was very wrong, but we were having such a good time."

De Forrest, having vainly sought to get Lottie to sit with him, had sulkily taken his seat just behind her and Hemstead, where he was the most sheltered of the party, and, not supposing there was any real danger, had muffled himself up so that he was almost past speaking or hearing. He had nearly resolved with some sullenness to let matters take their course until the "cursed visit was over." New York, and not the barbarous, dreary country, was the place where he shone; and when there once more, he would soon regain his old ascendency over Lottie, and she, of course, would forget this Western monster. He noticed, during the first mile, that Hemstead and Lottie scarcely spoke to each other; and, as the storm increased, he concluded there was no danger of their making love when, if they opened their mouths to speak, the wind would fill them with snow.

But Hemstead and Lottie scarcely needed language. The old, subtile interchange of thought and sympathy had been regained. Every moment she bravely sat with him facing the storm that wild night seemed an assurance that she was both able and willing to face every storm of life at his side.

But as the wind grew more violent, and drove the sharp crystals into their faces with stinging force, he, out of regard for her comfort, said: "Miss Marsden, it is both brave and kind of you to sit here so patiently, but really the wind is growing too severe. Even if I had had the impression which you were so mistaken as to charge me with, long before this it would have been banished forever by your words and action. If you will take the next seat, and sit with your back to the wind, you will not feel it half so much."

"Will you do the same?" she asked.

"I cannot."

"Then neither can I. I shall keep my word, Mr. Hemstead."

"You are a brave girl, Miss Marsden."

"Well, that is nothing. Why have I not as good a right to be a brave girl as you to be a brave man?"

"You also appear to have the ability."

"O, I don't deserve any credit. I'm not a bit afraid. Indeed, I rather enjoy it. I've plenty of warm blood, and can make as good a fight against the north wind as yourself. This isn't half as hard as facing evil and unhappy thoughts before a blazing fire, and I have had too much of that to do of late to complain of this."

"But it seems a miracle to me that one with your antecedents can regard the situation in any way save with unqualified disgust."

"Do you regard the situation with 'unqualified disgust'?"

"Well, to tell the truth, were it not for my anxiety about getting you all home safely, I was never in a situation to enjoy myself more."

"What precious fools we two must be, in the world's estimation! We both have admitted that we are enjoying ourselves under circumstances in which only Mark Tapley, I think, could be 'jolly';" and the gale bore away her mirthful laugh like a shred from a silver flag.

"O dear!" whined Bel and Addie; "it's perfectly awful."

And awful, indeed, it became, a few minutes later; for, having passed over a steep but sheltered section of the road, they came to a point where the north-east wind struck them strongly. At the same moment the storm appeared to develop into tenfold intensity, and to equal those terrible tempests on the prairies in which Hemstead remembered, with a shudder, that strong men and horses had perished within a few yards of shelter. They, alas! were now a long way from any house, and in the midst of the lonely mountains. It had also become so dark that he had to leave the choice of the road mainly to the horses.

At first these sagacious animals stopped, and refused to go any farther. Hemstead waited a few moments, in hope that the gust or gale would expend itself, and, in the mean time, instinctively put his arm around Lottie, to keep her from being blown off the seat.

"Miss Marsden," he said, close to her ear, "pardon me, but I fear this tempest will carry you away. The horrible thought crossed my mind that you might be caught in a sort of whirlwind and spirited off in this thick darkness where I could not find you."

"Would it trouble you very much if you could not find me?"

"O, don't speak of it! I would give years of my life if you were safe at home."

"Don't be so reckless with your years. I am very well content to be where I am."

"But there is danger."

"There is no more danger for me than for you."

"Are you not afraid?"

"I am just about as much afraid as you are"; and, to his amazement, he found her laughing.

"Well," he exclaimed, "if you can laugh under these circumstances, you exceed any woman I ever read or heard of. We are in twice as much danger as when I went out in the boat the other night."

"Are you now satisfied that Lottie Marsden, in particular, is not weak and cowardly, as compared with her braver sisters?"

Before he could answer, De Forrest growled, "Why don't you go on?"

Addie and Bel were cowering in the bottom of the sleigh, and supposed he was merely giving the horses a rest.

Just then there appeared a momentary lull in the gale; so he merely said: "Forgive me for even seeming to hint to the contrary," and then urged the horses forward.

The road now presented its side to the wind, and so was filled with drifts, while its lower side was a precipitous bank that shelved off into unknown depths. The horses plunged with difficulty through one drift, and the sleigh tipped dangerously. Addie and Bel screamed, and De Forrest began, in trepidation, to realize their situation.

The poor beasts were soon floundering through another drift. Suddenly there came a sharp crack, as if something had broken, and one of the horses appeared to have fallen. Worse still, the lower runner of the sleigh seemed sinking in the snow to that degree that a moment later they would be overturned into the darkness that yawned in the direction of the steep mountain slope.

Hemstead instantly sprang out on the lower side, with the purpose of preventing the accident. Lottie as quickly sprang out on the upper side, and cried: "You push, and I will hold"; and so it happened that she did quite as much as he in saving the party from disaster. Indeed, if the sleigh had gone over, it would have carried him who was on the lower side down with it.

The horses, in their wise instinct, keeping still, Hemstead first came round to where Lottie stood.

"Why, Miss Marsden!" he exclaimed, "you are up to your waist in the snow."

"Well, it won't drown me. This is a great deal better than rolling down the mountain."

"I could kneel at your feet," said the student, fervently.

"Ha, ha, ha," laughed Lottie. "You couldn't find them."

"This is no laughing matter," said De Forrest, at last aroused to their danger, and standing up for the first time.

"Then get out and do something, like Miss Marsden," said Hemstead. "Come, right up the sleigh while I look after the horses."

A little later he came back to Lottie, and said: "Miss Marsden, I scarcely dare tell you the truth. The tongue of the sleigh and some of the most important parts of the harness are broken. Besides, I have been up the road a short distance, and there are drifts that are up to the horses' necks. I fear we can go no farther. O God!" he added in agony, "what can I do for you? The idea of your perishing with cold in this horrible place to-night!"

Lottie laid her hand upon his arm, and said earnestly; "Mr. Hemstead, please let there be no more such talk. It's no worse for me than for you. Besides, if we will trust God and use our wits, there is no need of any one's perishing. If we were out of the wind it would not be so very cold. Why, there is enough warmth in the big bodies of those horses to keep us from freezing, if it comes to the worst."

"There!" he exclaimed, "you have given me hope and courage, and in a sentence. The coachman was captain on my former occasion of danger, and you shall be captain now. You have the clearest and best head of the party. I am at your service."

"Will you do as I bid you?"

"Yes"

"Take care of yourself somewhat, then."

"I can best do that by taking care of you."

"You can do nothing pleasing to me that will bring harm to yourself," she said. "We must get out of the wind, and if nothing better offers, must bury ourselves in the snow be-side the horses. I remember reading of such things. The sleigh robes and the warmth of their bodies would keep us from freezing; I'm not so very cold."

Addie and Bel were crying bitterly, while De Forrest was groaning and cursing from where he stood, behind the sleigh.

"Come," he shouted, "what's to be done?"

"I will go straight up the bank. I may find a ledge, or some rocks, under which we may cower," said Hemstead.

"Don't go far," said Lottie, eagerly. "I should, indeed, lose hope, if you became separated from us."

He soon returned with the joyful news that a little way up the bank was a high ledge, where they would be completely sheltered from the wind.

Soon he had them all under it, and the respite from the driving gale was welcomed by none more than by Lottie, who, in spite of her courage and sustaining excitement, was beginning to suffer greatly.

De Forrest, being a smoker, had matches; but, in his impatience to light a fire, destroyed most of them.

"Here, Julian, give them to me," said Lottie, most decisively.

Then, after all the dry material which could be collected, by groping round in the dark, was gathered in the most sheltered nook, she took from her pocket a delicate lace handkerchief, and, by means of that, lighted the sticks and leaves. Soon they were warming their numb hands and chilled bodies beside a cheerful blaze.

Hemstead watched Lottie with wondering and increasing admiration. In securing a fire, they escaped all immediate danger, and she became as cheery as if the disaster, which had threatened even a fatal termination, were only an episode, and the long, wintry bivouac, in that desolate place, but a picnic in the woods.

"You are the queerest girl I ever knew, Lottie," said Bel.

"She means by that, you are the best," Hemstead added.

"Come, this is no time for compliments, but for work," said Lottie, energetically, and she set De Forrest at it also.

The robes were brought from the sleigh, and after the snow had been trampled down and cleared away between the fire and the ledge, here they were spread. Addie and Bel were, at first, terror-stricken at the thought of spending the night in the mountains, but were made so comfortable that, at last, their tears ceased.

"Our best hope is this brandy," said De Forrest, drawing a flask from his pocket.

"Nonsense!" said Lottie. "Our best hope is keeping our senses and a good fire."

But Bel and Addie were ready enough to take the brandy, and were soon sleeping heavily from its effects, combined with their exposure to the cold wind. Lottie could not be prevailed upon to take any.

"I want the use of my senses to-night, if ever," she said. "We must take turns in keeping awake, and you shall have the first watch, Julian."

Hemstead, at this time, was down getting the horses out of the drift, that he might tie them near the fire and also under the ledge. De Forrest set to work very zealously under the stimulus of Lottie's words and the brandy combined, and gathered the brush-wood that lay near, and piled it on the fire. Everything seemed to promise well, and the wearied girl laid herself down by the side of Bel and Addie, and was soon sleeping as naturally and peacefully as if in her luxurious apartment at home.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

IN EARNEST.



When Lottie awoke the storm had passed away. The moon, in her last quarter, was rising in pale, unclouded light over eastern mountains, and bringing into dusky outline many intervening hills.

At first, bewildered, and not knowing where she was, she rose up hastily, but after a moment the events of the preceding evening came to her, and she remembered, with gratitude, how they had found partial shelter from the storm.

With something of a child's wonder and pleasure, she looked around upon a scene more wild and strange than any she had ever seen, even in pictures of gypsy encampments. Bel and Addie were sleeping by her side as soundly as if such a nightly bivouac were an ordinary experience. In like heavy stupor De Forrest lay near the fire, though the music of his dreams was by no means sweet. He had made his watch a very brief one, and, having piled the fire high with light brush-wood that would soon be consumed, and leaving no supply on hand, he had succumbed to the combined influence of the cold and the brandy; and now, with the flames lighting up his face, he looked like a handsome bandit.

The patient horses stood motionless and shadowy, a little at one side. Above her head rose high, rocky crags, from whose crevices clung bushes and stunted trees with their crest of snow. And snow, bright and gleaming near the fire, but growing pale and ghostly, dull and leaden, in the distance, stretched away before her, as far as she could see, while from this white surface rose shrubs, evergreens, and the gaunt outline of trees, in the hap-hazard grouping of the wilderness. Where, before, the storm had rushed, with moan and shriek, now brooded a quiet which only the crackling of the flames and De Forrest's resonant nasal organ disturbed.

But Hemstead was nowhere to be seen. She was becoming very solicitous, fearing that he had straggled off alone, in order to bring them relief, when a sound caught her attention, and she saw him coming with a load of cord-wood upon his shoulder.

She reclined again, that she might watch him a few moments unperceived. He threw his burden down, and put a stick or two of the heavy wood on the fire. Then Lottie noticed that the genial heat no longer came from the quickly-consumed brush, but from solid wood, of which there was a goodly store on hand.

The student stood a few moments looking at the fire; then his eyes drooped, and he swayed back and forth as if nearly overpowered by sleep and weariness. Then he would straighten himself up in a way that made Lottie feel like laughing and crying at the same time, so great was his effort to patiently maintain his watch. At last he tried the expedient of going to the horses and petting them, but, before he knew it, he was leaning on the neck of one of them half asleep. Then Lottie saw him come directly toward her, and half closed her eyes. The student looked long and fixedly at her face, as the firelight shone upon it; then drew himself up straight as a soldier, and marched back and forth like a sentinel on duty. But after a little while his steps grew irregular, and he was evidently almost asleep, even while he walked. Then she saw him turn off abruptly and disappear in the shadowy forest.

She sprang up, and, secreting herself behind an adjacent evergreen, waited for his return. Soon she saw him staggering back under another great load of cord-wood.

He at once noticed her absence, and was wide awake instantly. He seized a heavy stick for a club, as if he would pursue an enemy who might have carried her off, when her low laugh brought him to her side.

"Don't you hit me with that," she said, advancing to the fire.

"I thank you very cordially for waking me up so thoroughly," he said, delighted at finding her so bright and well, and in such good spirits, after all her exposure. "I admit, to my shame, that I was almost asleep two or three times."

"Here is another assertion of your masculine superiority," she replied, in mock severity. "I may sleep, as a matter of course; but you, as a man, are to rise superior, even to nature herself, and remain awake as long as your imperious will dictates."

"I am much afraid," he said, ruefully, "if you had not spoken to me, my imperious will would soon have tumbled helplessly off its throne, and you would have found your watchman and protector little better than one of these logs here."

"Who has decreed that you must watch all night, while the rest of us sleep? Come, it's my turn now, and I will watch and protect you for a little while."

"Do you mean for me to sleep while you sit here alone and watch?"

"Certainly."

"I'll put my hand in the fire first, if in no other way I can keep awake."

"Didn't you call me 'captain'? You will have to obey your orders."

"I'll mutiny in this case, rest assured. Besides, I'm not sleepy any more."

"Why, what's the matter?"

"Do you think I could sleep while you were awake and willing to talk to me?"

"I slept a long time while you were awake." She pulled out her watch, and exclaimed: "Mr. Hemstead! in ten minutes more we enter on a new year."

"How much may happen within a year, and even a few days of a year," he said, musingly. "It seems an age since I tossed my books aside, and yet, it was within this month. The whole world has changed to me since that day."

"I hope for the better," said Lottie, gently.

"Yes, for the better, whatever may be the future. That Sabbath afternoon, when you led me to the One whom I was misrepresenting and wronging, cannot fail to make me, and that little bit of the world which I can reach, the better. I feel that I shall owe to you my best Christian experience and usefulness."

"And I feel that I should never have been a Christian at all if I had not met you," she said, looking gratefully up. "Whatever may be the future, as you cay, I trust God will never permit me to be again the false, selfish creature that I was when I first took your hand in seeming kindness."

"I trust that God has been leading us both," said Hemstead, gravely and thoughtfully.

Lottie again took out her watch, and said, in the low tone which we use in the presence of the dying, "Mr. Hemstead, the old year is passing; there is but a moment left."

He uncovered his head, and, bowing reverently, said, "May God forgive us all the folly and evil of the past year, for the sake of His dear Son."

Lottie's head bowed as low and reverently as his and for several moments neither spoke.

Then he turned, and took her hand as he said: "Many have wished you a 'happy new year' before, but I can scarcely think that any one ever meant the words as I do. Miss Lottie, I would do anything, suffer anything, and give up anything, save honor and duty, to make you happy. You have often laughed at me because I carried my thoughts and feelings in my face. Therefore, you know well that I love you with all the truth and strength of which I am capable. But I have had a great dread lest my love might eventually make you unhappy. You know what my life will be, and duty will never permit me to change."

Her answer was very different from what he expected. Almost reproachfully she asked, "Mr. Hemstead, is earthly happiness the end and aim of your life?"

"No," he said, after a moment.

"What then?"

"Usefulness, I trust,—the doing faithfully the work that God gives me."

"And must I of necessity differ from you in this respect?"

"Miss Lottie, forgive me. I am not worthy of you. But can it be possible that you are willing to share in my humble, toilsome life? I fear you have no idea of the hardships and privations involved."

"I stood by you faithfully last night in the storm, did I not?" she said, with a shy, half-mischievous glance.

"It seems too good to be true," he said, in a low tone.

"Was there ever such a diffident, modest creature!" she said, brusquely. "Mr. Hemstead, you will never ENTER Heaven. The angels will have to pull you in."

"One angel has made a heaven of this dreary place already," he answered, seeking to draw her to him.

"Wait a moment; what do you mean, sir? I have made you no promises and given you no rights."

"But I have made you no end of promises, and given you absolute right over me. My every glance has said, 'Lottie Marsden, I am yours, body and soul, so far as a man with a conscience can be.'"

"All this counts for nothing," said Lottie, with a little impatient stamp of her foot. "I promised that dear old meddler, Uncle Dimmerly, that you, in deep humility and penitence for having arrogantly assumed that you could be a missionary and I couldn't, should ask me to be a home missionary; and you have wasted lots of precious time."

He caught her quaint humor, and, taking her hand and dropping on one knee, said: "Lottie Marsden, child of luxury, the prize which the proudest covet, will you leave your elegant home,—will you turn your back upon the world which is at your feet,—and go with me away to the far West, that you may become a poor, forlorn home missionary?"

"Yes, Frank, in your home; but never forlorn while I have you to laugh at, and never poor while I possess your big, unworldly heart."

"Have I any rights now?" he exclaimed; and, springing up, he exercised them to a degree that almost took away her breath.

"Here, behave yourself," she said. "The idea of one who had plumed himself on his heroic self-sacrifice acting so like an ordinary mortal! You have had more kisses now than you ought in a week. If we are to be so poor, we ought to begin practising economy at once."

"You are the most beautiful and spicy compound that nature ever fashioned," he exultingly replied, holding her off, devouring her with his eyes. "I plainly foresee that you can fill the poorest little home with light and music."

"Yes, I warn you, before it's too late, that I can never become a solemn, ghostly sort of a missionary."

"O, it's too late now, I assure you," he said: "my mind is made up."

"So is mine,—that you shall take a long nap, while I mount guard."

"Nap, indeed!" he said, indignantly. "When the gates of pearl bang after one with their musical clangor, and shut out forever the misery of earth, will one's first impulse on the threshold of heaven be to take a nap?"

"What extravagant language! You ministers talk much too familiarly of heaven, and such things."

"No, indeed, Lottie, dear! the more familiar the thought of heaven is to us, the better. You shall have a good home there, if a very humble one here. But do you realize how much you are giving up?"

"Yes," she said, ruefully, "the worst heartache I ever had. I don't believe you felt half so badly as I did."

"But when the hard and prosaic life comes, with its daily cares and weary burdens, are you sure that you will not regret your action?—are you sure that you will not wish yourself again the queenly belle, with the world at your feet?"

"Who with right claims the higher rank," Lottie answered, her lovely face growing noble with her thought,—"a queenly belle with a false, selfish heart, or a Christian woman? And what is that world which you say is at my feet? Where is it to-night? Where was it when the tempest made it doubtful whether we should ever see this new year? Here I am in the solemn midnight, and upon this desolate mountain. It is not the softness of a summer night to which we are exposed; it is midwinter. And yet I am certain that there is not a queen on the earth as happy as I am. But what part has that world to which you refer had in making me happy? I knew there was danger last night. I had read of people perishing in the snow almost at their own doors. I think I realized that death might be near, but my heart was so light and happy in the consciousness of your love and God's love, that I could look at the grim old fellow, and laugh in his face. But suppose that I had had nothing better then to think of than this vague world, about which you are making so much ado? Once before, when the world was at my feet, as you term it, I faced a sudden danger in your company. Thanks to God's mercy and your skill and strength, we were not dashed down into that ravine when the horses ran away. What did the world do for me then? Did it throw a ray of light into that black gulf of death, which yawned on every side? Oh, thank God," she said with passionate earnestness, "that I was not sent out of life that night, a shivering ghost, a homeless wanderer forever! But what could the world do to prevent it? I know all about that glittering world, Frank, to gain which so many are staking their all, and I know it's more of a phantom than a reality. It flattered me, excited and intoxicated me, but it never made me one-hundredth part as happy as I am tonight. And when I thought I had lost your respect and your love, I no more thought of turning to the world for solace and happiness, than I would look in a coal-bin for diamonds. I knew all about the world, and in the depths of my soul realized that it was a sham. How far away it is to-night, with these solemn mountains rising all around us; and yet how near seem God and heaven, and how sweet and satisfying the hopes they impart! I have thought it all out, Frank. The time is coming when illness or age, mortal pain and weakness, will shut me away, like these dark, wintry hills, even from your love,—much more from the uncaring, heartless world; but something in my heart tells me that my Saviour, who wept for sympathy when no one else would weep, will be my strong, faithful friend through it all, and not for all the worlds glittering there in yonder sky, much less for ray poor little gilt and tinsel world in New York, will I give up this assurance."

"I am satisfied," said Hemstead, in a tone of deep content; "God wills it."

They sat for a long time without speaking, in the unison of feeling that needed no words.

At last, in sudden transition to one of her mirthful, piquant expressions, Lottie turned to her companion and said: "Frank, you are on the mountain-top of exalted thought and sentiment: Your face is as rapt as if you saw a vision."

"Can you wonder?"

"Well, I'm going to give you an awful tumble,—worse than the one you feared last night when the sleigh tipped. I'm hungry as any wolf that ever howled in these mountains."

"What a comparison!" said the student, laughing heartily. Then, his face becoming all solicitude, he queried, "What shall I do?" and he was about to rise with the impression that he ought to do something.