He bowed politely, and walked away, while Mrs. Meredith almost trod on air as she climbed the three flights of 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 toward 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 enough 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 might contain.

There was a quivering of the eyelids, a paling of the lips as she glanced at the first few lines, then with a 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.

"Dear Thornton," Arthur wrote, "you will be surprised, no doubt, to hear that your old college chum is at last engaged—positively engaged—but not to one of the fifty lambs about whom you once jocosely wrote. The shepherd has wandered from his flock, and is about to take into his bosom a little, stray ewe-lamb—Lucy Harcourt by name—"

"The deuce he is," was Thornton's ejaculation, and then he read on.

"She is an acquaintance of yours, I believe, so I need not describe her, except to say that she is somewhat changed from the gay butterfly of fashion she used to be, and in time will make as demure a little Quakeress as one could wish to see. She visits constantly among my poor, who love her almost as well as they once loved Anna Ruthven.

"Don't ask me, Thorne, in your blunt, straightforward manner if I have so soon forgotten Anna. That is a matter with which you've nothing to do. Let it suffice that I am engaged to another, and mean to make a kind and faithful husband to her. Lucy would have suited you better, perhaps, than she does me; that is, the world would think so, but the world does not always know, and if I am satisfied, surely it ought to be. Yours truly, "A. LEIGHTON."

"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.



CHAPTER VIII.

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 till 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 meant to stay there, feeling 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 Dr. 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 so one morning in July she saw the family depart to their summer gayeties without a single feeling of regret that she was not of their number. She had 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 poured out like water, till even Arthur had remonstrated with her and read her a long lecture on the subject of misplaced charity. Then, there was Widow Hobbs, waiting for the jelly Lucy had promised, and for the chapter which Lucy 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 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 there and hear her as she read to the poor woman, 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 sometimes lingered while she played or talked to him, or brought the luscious fruits with which the garden abounded.

This was Lucy's life, the one 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 a little rather she had gone when the Hethertons went, 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 Anna, 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 co-worker 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, 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 own will into perfect subjection to his, until she scarcely could 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; the rector went oftener to Prospect Hill, while the carriage from Prospect Hill stood daily at the gate of the rectory, and people said it was a settled thing, or ought to be, gossiping about it until old Captain Humphreys, Anna's grandfather, conceived it 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 winced 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 sp'ilt 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, gallyvantin' after her, as I must say you've been after this one for the last few weeks. She's a pretty little creature, 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 orter have—excuse my plainness. I'm an old man who likes my minister, and don't want him to go wrong, and then I feel for her, left alone by all her folks—more's the shame to them, and more's the harm for you to tangle up her affections, as you are doing, if you are not in earnest; and 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 rectory, 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 guiltless in the matter, that if he did not mean to marry Lucy Harcourt he must 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, shutting himself up among his books, and not even making a pastoral call on Lucy when he heard that she was sick. And so Lucy came to him, looking dangerously charming in her green riding-habit—with the scarlet feather sweeping from her hat. Very prettily she pouted, too, chiding him for his neglect, and asking why he had not been to see her, nor anybody. There was the Widow Hobbs, and Mrs. Briggs and those miserable Donelsons—he had not been near them for a fortnight. What was 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 grave expression on 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 silken lashes. Leaning back in his chair, with his hands clasped behind his head, a position he always 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 so prettily 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 most any man who had never known Anna Ruthven would be glad to gather that bright creature in his own 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 old housekeeper 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?" and she tossed her head pettishly.

"None, perhaps," Arthur replied, "if one could keep his 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, send her 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 haughtily:

"And so, for fear I shall fall in love with you, and be ruined, perhaps, you are sacrificing both comfort and freedom, shutting yourself up here among 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 dress, so that when she rose 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 while she said to him:

"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 will say aught against it."

Arthur's voice trembled a little now, for the mention of Captain Humphreys had brought a thought of Anna, whose brown eyes seemed for an instant to look reproachfully upon that wooing. But Arthur had gone too far to retract—he had committed himself, and now 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, hiding her face in his bosom, and telling him brokenly how unworthy she was, how foolish and how unsuited to the place, but promising to do the best she could do not to bring him into disgrace on account of her shortcomings.

"With the acknowledgment 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 in 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 half-lifeless one he should render in return, the heart where scarcely a pulse of joy was beating, even though he held his promised wife, and she as fair and beautiful as ever promised wife could be.

"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 brown eyes which still seemed looking at him as if 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 sudden start, and Lucy's face was as pale as ashes, while her hand went quickly to her side, where the heart beats were so visible, warning Arthur to be careful how he startled her, 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, but Lucy forgot the omission and asked:

"Was she young and pretty?"

"Young and pretty both, but not as beautiful as you," Arthur replied, his fingers softly parting 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 it would please her, and partly make amends for the tender words which he could not speak for the phantom eyes haunting him so strangely. And Lucy, who took all things for granted, was more than content, only 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 scores 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 much attentions as made her drive round 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 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 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 you who your first love was, but I 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 for 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—dressed 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 speculations as to why he did not love Anna Ruthven.

But Lucy was not done yet, and Arthur felt as if the earth were giving way beneath his feet when, as he lifted her into the saddle and took her hand at parting, she said, "Now, remember, I am not going to be jealous of that other love. 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' 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 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 forbid the wrong I have done in asking Lucy to be my wife when my heart belonged to Anna. 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! oh, Anna!"

It was a despairing cry, such as a newly-engaged man should never have sent after another than his affianced bride. Arthur thought so, too, fighting back his first love with an iron will, and, after that first 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, trying so hard to be satisfied that, when, at a late hour, he returned to the rectory, he was more than content; and, by way of fortifying himself still further, wrote the letter which Thornton Hastings read at Newport.

And that was how it happened.



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 at once removed 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 house 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 had 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 pew where Lucy sat sounding louder and heartier than all the rest, and having in it a sound of the tears which fell so fast on Lucy's book as she asked that Anna 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 testaments 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, offered her services to Lucy, and was at once accepted.

That was near the middle of October; now it was towards the last, and Anna was so much better that she sat 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 even heeding the kindly voice of Thornton Hastings, who, more than once, had stood by her pillow with his hand on her feverish brow, and whose thoughtfulness was 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 was stronger, but every day he sent her fruit and flowers, and books of prints which he thought would interest her, and which always made her cheeks grow hot and her heart beat regretfully, for she thought 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 said, 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 told him she could not be his wife, simply because she did not love him as he ought to be loved.

"It is nothing personal," she said, working nervously at the heavy fringe of her shawl. "I respect you more than any man I ever knew, but 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 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 the reason 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. Once, I was foolish enough to think he was going to, but he did not. There is some great 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 now lost to her forever.

He brought her smelling salts, he gave her ice-water to drink, and then, kneeling beside her, he fanned her gently, while he said: "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 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 wished it to be."

If Thornton had previously 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 of what the end might be; then, as she remembered Lucy, her heart seemed to stop its beating, and, with a moan, she stretched her hand toward 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 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 for a moment, wondering what his duty was. Anna had told him plainly what it was. He must leave Arthur and Lucy alone. She insisted upon having it so, and he promised her at least 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 her 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 had 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 now confess it to you, I did love Arthur so much; and once 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 wished her to marry Mr. Hastings, but she must not fret about that, 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 would seem to prove as much."

Mrs. Meredith felt that her secret was comparatively safe, and, with her spirits lightened, she kissed her niece lovingly and told her of a trip to Europe which she had in view, promising that if she went 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 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 quarreled.

"Not quarreled 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 unless Fanny is married at the same time, as, perhaps, she will be, 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 fondly 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 well. It don't seem quite right, does it? And Arthur, too, is looking thin and worn—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."

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 in her lap, 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 new-born hope that she was better than she used to be, that daily interviews with Arthur had not been without their effect, and now, she trusted, she tried to do right, from a higher motive than just the pleasing of 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 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 blessing, praying silently that she might never know a shadow of the pain which she was suffering.



CHAPTER X.

MRS. MEREDITH HAS A CONSCIENCE.

She had one, years before, but, since the summer day when she sent from her the white-faced man whose heart she had broken, it had been hardening over with a stony crust which nothing, it seemed, could break. 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 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 could confront them when they all came up against her.

Usually, she could cast such thoughts aside by a drive down gay Broadway, or, at most, a call at Stewart's; but the sight of Anna's white face and the knowing what made it so white was 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. 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 keenest 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 Strasburgh, August 31st, Edward Coleman, 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 insects' hum and the song of matin birds. She was the wealthy Mrs. Meredith now, and he was dead in Strasburgh. True to her he had been 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, with a tired, sad look upon 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 wild bees' hum 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 rolling 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 somewhat like Arthur Leighton."

And so, with the dead man in Strasburgh 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 the 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 thought only 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 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.



CHAPTER XI.

THE LETTER RECEIVED.

Arthur had been spending the evening at Prospect Hill. The Hethertons had returned and would remain till after the fifteenth, and since they had come the rector found it even pleasanter calling there than it had been before, with only his bride-elect to entertain him. Sure of Dr. Bellamy, Fanny had laid aside her sharpness, and was exceedingly witty and brilliant, while, now that it was settled, the colonel was too thoroughly a gentleman to be otherwise than gracious to his future nephew; and Mrs. Hetherton was always polite and lady-like, 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 did not know 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 books she had been reading and looking so lovely in her winter crimson 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 did love her, he said to himself, or, at least, he was learning to love her very much; 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 golden 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 thought 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 could cling to her a haunted 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 snowflakes resting in her hair like pearls in a golden coronet. And Arthur thanked his God that he was beginning at last to feel right—that the solemn vows that he was so soon to utter would be more than a mockery.

It was Arthur's work to teach 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 to the great shock waiting for him upon the study table, where Thomas, 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 warmed 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 inclosed, he recognized his own handwriting, the same he had sent to Anna when his heart was so 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 his feet were 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 the words over and over again, as stupified with pain, he sat gazing at vacancy, thinking how true was the couplet—

"Of all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, it might have been."

He could not even pray at once, his brain was so confused, but when, at last, 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, who loved and trusted him so much. But only for an instant. He could not cast her from him, though to take her now, knowing what he did, were almost death itself.

"But God can help me to bear it," 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, and 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 believed to be his duty. This was on Saturday, and on 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 rectory, where the quiet and solitude awed and frightened Lucy 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 child-like, 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 Lucy's tears fell on his face while she took his feverish hands in hers and murmured softly, "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 down close to him while he whispered, "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 little hands moved caressingly across his forehead just as they had done 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 soft passes went on, and Lucy held her breath lest she would waken him.

"She was a famous nurse," the physician said when he came, constituting her his coadjutor and making her tread wild with joy and importance when he gave his patient's medicine into her hands.

"It was hardly proper for her niece to stay," Mrs. Hetherton thought, but Lucy was one who could trample down proprieties, and it was finally arranged that 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 had stopped over one 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 having the projected 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 even felt that it was very possible for Arthur to love the gentle little girl who smoothed his pillows so tenderly and whose fingers threaded so lovingly the damp, brown locks when she thought he, Thornton, was not looking on. She was very coy of him and very distant towards him, too, 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 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 usual 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 beating of his heart when he glanced towards the square pew where Lucy knelt and knew that she was giving thanks for him restored 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. Oh, 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 generosity in adhering to his engagement, nor hint that, now her attack of conscience was so safely over, she was glad he did so, having hope yet of that house on Madison Square; but Arthur guessed at it and dismissed her from his mind just as he tried to dismiss every unpleasant thought, waiting with a trusting heart for whatever the future might bring.



CHAPTER XII.

VALENCIA.

Very extensive preparations were making at Prospect Hill for the double wedding to occur on the 15th. After much debate and consultation, Fanny had decided to take the doctor then; and thus she, too, shared largely in the general interest and excitement which pervaded everything.

Both brides elect seemed very happy, but in a very 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 making; 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, the little lady thinking that, now the time was so near, it would be proper for her to remain indoors and not show herself in public quite as freely as she had been in the habit of doing.

So she remained at home, while they missed her in the back streets and bylanes, the Widow Hobbs, who was still an invalid, pining for a sight of her bright face, and only half compensated for its absence by the charities which Valencia brought; the smart waiting-maid putting on innumerable airs and making Mrs. Hobbs feel keenly how greatly she thought herself demeaned by coming to such a heathenish place as that.

The Hanoverians, too, missed her in the street, but for this they made ample amends by discussing the doings at Prospect Hill and commenting upon the bridal trousseau which was sent up from New York the very week before Christmas, thus affording a most fruitful theme for conversation for the women and girls engaged in trimming the church.

There were dresses of every conceivable fabric, they said, but none were quite so grand as the wedding-dress itself—the heavy white silk which could "stand alone," and trailed "a full half-yard behind."

It was also whispered round 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 Miss Valencia Le Barre, who, ever since her arrival at Prospect Hill, had been growing somewhat disenchanted 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, screaming with pleased delight when Valencia fastened the veil and let its fleecy folds fall gracefully around her.

"I wonder what Arthur will think, I do so wish he was here," she had said, ordering a hand-glass brought that she might see herself from behind and know just how much her dress did trail, 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 loath to take them off.

"I don't believe in presentiments," she said to Fanny; "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 as far as here, and he has no carriage, either."

She went to the parsonage 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 just as the diamonds flashed upon the hand she waved gayly towards them.

There was a little too much of the lady patroness about her quite to suit the plain Hanoverians, especially those who were neither high enough or low enough to be honored with her notice, and they returned to their wreathmaking and gossip, wondering under their breath if it would not, on the whole, have been just as well if their clergyman had married Anna Ruthven instead of this fine city girl with her Parisian manners.

A gleam of intelligence shot from the gray eyes of Valencia, who was in a most unreasonable mood.

"She did not like to stain her hands with the nasty hemlock more than some 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 to go to the church and help if she were needed.

"I must certainly dismiss you," Lucy had said, wondering how Mrs. Meredith had borne so long with the insolent girl, who went unwillingly to the church, where she was at work when the carriage drove 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 the first whom Mr. Leighton had asked to be his wife, if, indeed, she was his choice at all; but there was something in Lucy's manner which held her back; besides which, she was, perhaps, 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 the secret and worked on moodily, while the unsuspecting Lucy went her way and was soon alighting at the rectory gate.

Arthur saw her as she came up the walk and went to meet her.

He was looking very pale and miserable, and his clothes hung loosely upon him; but he welcomed her kindly leading her in to the fire, and trying 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 that 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's 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 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, and white artificial flowers, so natural that they could not be detected, were mingled 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 acted 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, handling the brush so awkwardly and snarling 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 taunted her "with standing in Anna Ruthven's shoes," and told her 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 at first and heard the loud beating of her 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 longer and more like death than that which had come upon Anna when she heard that Arthur was lost. Twice they thought her heart had ceased to beat, and, in an agony of remorse, Valencia hung over her, accusing herself as her murderer, 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 the 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 Lucy 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 saw it now just as it was; 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. Lucy will set you free."

This was her final decision, but she did not reach it till a day and a night had passed, during which she lay with her white 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, when they insisted upon knowing the cause of her distress. "When I can I'll tell you. 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, the livid lips quivering piteously and making an attempt to smile as they said:

"Fanny, I can tell you now; I have made up my mind."

Fanny's black 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 do 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 you—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."

He would, indeed, take care of that just as he took care of her, inclining the Hetherton family to be so kind and tender towards her, and keeping Arthur from the house during the time when the Christmas decorations were completed and the Christmas festival was held.

Many were the inquiries made for her, and many the thanks and wishes for her speedy restoration sent 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, although the latter had hoped she was not seriously ill and expressed a regret that she was not there, saying he should call on her on the morrow after the morning service.

"Oh, I cannot see him here. I must tell him there, at the rectory, in the very room where he asked Anna and me both to be his wife," Lucy said when Fanny reported Arthur's message. "I am able to go there and I must. It will be fine sleighing to-morrow. See, the snow is falling now," and pushing back the curtain, Lucy looked dreamily out upon the fast whitening ground, sighing, as she remembered the night when the first snowflakes fell 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, leaving Lucy to think over for the hundredth time what she would say to Arthur.



CHAPTER XIII.

CHRISTMAS DAY.

The worshippers at St. Mark's on Christmas morning heard the music of the bells as the Hetherton sleigh passed by, but none of them knew whither it was bound, or the scene which awaited the rector, when, his services over, he started towards home.

Lucy had kept her word, 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, with her white face and great sunken blue eyes, which looked so mournfully at her as Lucy 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'pose 'twas anything like this. 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, she said. She would rather go at once to Arthur's room. Mrs. Brown made no objection, though she wondered if the girl was crazy as she went back to her fowls and Christmas pudding, leaving 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 under the table and his arm-chair standing near the table, where he sat when he asked Lucy to be his wife, and where she now sat down, panting for breath and gazing dreamily 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 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 clustering curls from her pallid face, and grasping the chair to steady herself and keep from falling. "I am not here to frighten you, I've come to do you good—to set you free. Oh, 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 have 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 oh, Arthur, it hurts—it hurts."

He knew it hurt by the agonizing expression of her face, but he could not go near her for a moment, so overwhelming was his surprise at what he saw and heard. But, when the first shock to 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 would not be free. He would keep his word, he said. Matters had gone too far to be suddenly ended. He held her to his 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.

He did love Anna best, though never had Lucy been so near supplanting even 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 a tender chord 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 yourself—how with yourself? Would you be happy, too? No, Arthur, you would not, and neither should I, knowing all 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 could say to persuade her, when a cheery whistle sounded near and Thornton Hastings appeared in the door. He had gone to the office after church, and not knowing that anyone 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 should find a powerful ally to aid her in her task.

Appealing to him as Arthur's friend, she repeated the story rapidly, and then went on:

"Tell him it is best—he must not argue against me, for I feel myself giving way through my great love for him, and it is not right. Tell him so 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 heart-beats 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 protectingly by her, he said just what first came into his mind to say. It was a delicate matter in which to interfere, and he handled it carefully, telling frankly of what had passed between himself and Anna, and giving it as his opinion that she loved Arthur to-day just as well as before she left Hanover.

"Then, if that is so and Arthur loves her, as I know he does, it is surely right for them to marry, and they must," Lucy exclaimed, vehemently, while Thornton laid his hand pityingly upon her head and said:

"And only you be sacrificed?"

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

"I am willing—I am ready—I have made up my mind and I shall never revoke it," she answered, while Arthur again put in a feeble remonstrance.

But Thornton was on Lucy's side. He did with 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, Arthur stood motionless, while Thornton drew Lucy's cloak about her shoulders, fastened her fur himself, tied on her satin hood, taking 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, very weak, 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 do what she had done, 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, thinking how deceived he had been in Lucy Harcourt.

* * * * *

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 fifteenth, 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 being questioned, and Thornton Hastings stood a bulwark of defence between the people and their clergyman, adroitly managing 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 of the plan she had formed when first she heard what Lucy's intentions were.

"I wrote to the doctor, asking if he would take a trip to Europe, so that you could go with us, for I know 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, 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, now that it was over and the doctor safe from temptation, feeling that it was just as well; for, after all, it was a mesalliance for an heiress like her cousin to marry a poor clergyman.

* * * * *

There was a very quiet wedding at Prospect Hill on the night of the fifteenth, 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, seeing no one but Anna, for whom she sent at once. The interview had lasted more than an hour, and Anna's eyes were swollen with passionate weeping when at last it ended, but Lucy's face, though white as snow, was very calm and quiet, wearing a peaceful, placid look, which made it like the face of an angel. Two weeks later and the steamer 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 cherished in his mind of a frail little figure standing upon the deck, holding its waterproof together with one hand and with the other waving a smiling adieu to Anna and himself.

More than a year after, Thornton Hastings followed that figure across the sea, finding it in beautiful Venice, sailing again through the moon-lit 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 all gone and there was reigning in its stead a peaceful, subdued expression which made Lucy Harcourt very fair to look upon. At least, so thought Thornton Hastings, and he lingered at her side, feeling glad that she had given 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 round 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 and nothing but a sear remained to tell where it had been. And so the days went on beneath the sunny Italian skies, until one glorious night, when Thornton spoke his mind, alluding to the time when each 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.

* * * * *

"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 to 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 worked 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.

THE END.

* * * * *



AUNT HENRIETTA'S MISTAKE

BY FRANCES HENSHAW BADEN.

"Before thy soul, at this deep lottery, Draw forth her prize ordained by destiny, Know that there's no recanting a first choice; Choose then discreetly."

"Heigh-ho! This is Valentine's day. Oh, how I would like to get a valentine! Did you ever get one, aunty?" said little Etta Mayfield.

"Yes, many of them. But not when I was a child. In my day children were children. You get a valentine! I'm e'en a'most struck dumb with astonishment to hear you think of such things. Go, get your doll-baby, or your sampler, and look on that. Saints of Mercy! It seems only yesterday you were a baby in long clothes," answered Miss Henrietta Mayfield, a spinster of uncertain age; but the folks in the village, who always knew everything, declared she had not owned to a day over thirty-five for the last ten years. This, if true, was quite excusable, for Miss Henrietta's little toilette glass reflected a bright, pleasant, and remarkably youthful face.

"I'm almost seventeen, aunty, and I'm tired of being treated like a child," said Etta, with a pout of her rosy lips.

"Ten years to come will be plenty time enough for you to think of such things. A valentine, indeed! I'd like to know who is to send one to you, or to any one else. There are only three unmarried men in our village; which of them would you like for your valentine; Jake Spikes, the blind fiddler; Bill Bowen, the deaf mail-boy, or Squire Sloughman? If the squire sends a valentine, I rather guess it will be to me. Oh, I forgot! There's the handsome stranger that boarded last summer with Miss Plimpkins. I noticed him at church Sunday. Come down to make a little visit and bring Miss Plimpkins a nice present ag'in, I guess. He is mighty grateful to her for taking such good care of him while he was sick. A uncommon handsome man. But 'taint a bit likely he'll think of a baby like you. He is a man old enough to know better—near forty, likely. He was monstrous polite to me; always finding the hymns, and passing his book to me. And I noticed Sunday he looked amazing pleasing at me. Land! it's ten o'clock. You'd better run over to the office and get the paper. No, I'll go myself. I want to stop in the store, to get some yarn and a little tea."