West Lawn, and The rector of St. Mark's

by Mary Jane Holmes

THE RECTOR OF ST. MARK’S.

CHAPTER I.
FRIDAY AFTERNOON.

The Sunday sermon was finished, and the young rector of St. Mark’s turned gladly from his study-table to the pleasant south window where the June roses were peeping in, and abandoned himself for a few moments to the feeling of relief he always experienced when his week’s work was done. To say that no secular thoughts had intruded themselves upon the rector’s mind, as he planned and wrote his sermon, would not be true, for, though morbidly conscientious on many points and earnestly striving to be a faithful shepherd of the souls committed to his care, Arthur Leighton had all a man’s capacity to love and to be loved, and though he fought and prayed against it, he had seldom brought a sermon to the people of St. Mark’s in which there was not a thought of Anna Ruthven’s soft, brown eyes, and the way they would look at him across the heads of the congregation. Anna led the village choir, and the rector was painfully conscious that far too much of earth was mingled with his devotional feelings during the moments when, the singing over, he walked from his chair to the pulpit, and heard the rustle of the crimson curtain in the organ-loft as it was drawn back, disclosing to view five heads, of which Anna’s was the centre. It was very wrong he knew, and on the day when our story opens he had prayed earnestly for pardon, when, after choosing his text, “Simon, Simon, lovest thou me?” instead of plunging at once into his subject, he had, without a thought of what he was doing, idly written upon a scrap of paper lying near, “Anna, Anna, lovest thou me more than these?” the these referring to the wealthy Thornton Hastings, his old classmate in college, who was going to Saratoga this very summer for the purpose of meeting Anna Ruthven, and deciding if she would do to become Mrs. Thornton Hastings, and mistress of the house on Madison Square. With a bitter groan for the enormity of his sin, and a fervent prayer for forgiveness, the rector had torn the slips of paper in shreds and given himself so completely to his work, that his sermon was done a full hour earlier than usual, and he was free to indulge in reveries of Anna for as long a time as he pleased.

“I wonder if Mrs. Meredith has come,” he thought, as, with his feet upon the window-sill, he sat looking across the meadow to where the chimneys and gable roof of Captain Humphreys’ house were visible, for Captain Humphreys was Anna Ruthven’s grandfather, and it was there she had lived since she was three years old.

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

“Are you going anywhere this summer? Of course not, for so long as there is an unbaptized child, or a bedridden old woman in the parish, you must stay at home, even if you do grow as rusty as did Professor Cobden’s coat before we boys made him a present of a new one. I say, Arthur, there was a capital fellow spoiled when you took to the ministry, with your splendid talents, and rare gift for making people like and believe in you.

“Now, I suppose you will reply that for this denial of self you look for your reward in heaven, and I suppose you are right; but as I have no reason to think I have stock in that region, I go in for a good time here, and this summer I take Saratoga, where I expect to meet one of your lambs. I hear you have in your flock forty in all, their ages varying from sixteen to fifty. But this particular lamb, Miss Anna Ruthven, is, I think, the fairest of them all, and as I used to make you my father confessor in the days when I was rusticated out in Winsted, and fell so desperately in love with the six Miss Larkins, each old enough to be my mother, so now I confide to you the programme as marked out by Mrs. Julia Meredith, the general who brings the lovely Anna in the field.

“We, that is, Mrs. Meredith and myself, are on the best of terms. I lunch with her, dine with her, lounge in her parlors, drive her to the park, take her to operas, concerts, and plays, and compliment her good looks, which are wonderfully well-preserved for a woman of forty-five. I am twenty-six, you know, and so no one ever associates us together in any kind of gossip. She is the very quintessence of fashion, and I am one of the danglers whose own light is made brighter by the reflection of her rays. Do you see the point? Well, then, in return for my attentions, she takes a very sisterly interest in my future wife, and has adroitly managed to let me know of her niece, a certain Anna Ruthven, who, inasmuch as I am tired of city belles, will undoubtedly suit my fancy, said Anna being very fresh, very artless, and very beautiful withal. She is also niece to Mrs. Meredith, whose only brother married very far beneath him, when he took to wife the daughter of a certain old-fashioned Captain Humphreys, a pillar, no doubt, in your church. This young Ruthven was drowned, or hung, or something, and the sister considers it as another proof of his wife’s lack of refinement and discretion, that at her death, which happened when Anna was three years old, she left her child to the charge of her parents, Captain Humphreys and spouse, rather than to Mrs. Meredith’s care, and that, too, in the very face of the lady’s having stood as sponsor for the infant, an act which you will acknowledge as very unnatural and ungrateful in Mrs. Ruthven, to say the least of it.

“You see I am telling you all this, just as if you did not know Miss Anna’s antecedents even better than myself; but possibly you do not know that, having arrived at a suitable age, she is this summer to be introduced into society at Saratoga, while I am expected to fall in love with her at once, and make her Mrs. Hastings before another winter. Now, in your straightforward way of putting things, don’t imagine that Mrs. Meredith has deliberately told me all this, for she has not; but I understand her perfectly, and know exactly what she expects me to do. Whether I do it or not depends partly upon how I like Miss Anna, partly upon how she likes me, and partly upon yourself.

“You know I was always famous for presentiments or fancies, as you termed them, and the latest of these is that you like Anna Ruthven. Do you? Tell me, honor bright, and by the memory of the many scrapes you got me out of, and the many more you kept me from getting into, I will treat Miss Anna as gingerly and brotherly as if she were already your wife. I like her picture, which I have seen, and believe I shall like the girl, but if you say that by looking at her with longing eyes I shall be guilty of breaking some one of the ten commandments,—I don’t know which,—why, then, hands off at once. That’s fair, and will prove to you that, although not a parson like yourself, there is still a spark of honor, if not of goodness, in the breast of

“Yours truly,

“Thornton Hastings.

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

“T. H.”

There was a half-amused smile on the face of the rector as he finished the letter, so like its thoughtless, light-hearted writer, and wondered what the Widow Rider, across the way, would say of a clergyman who smoked cigars, and rode after a race-horse with such a gay scapegrace as Thornton Hastings. Then the amused look passed away, and was succeeded by a shadow of pain, as the rector remembered the real import of Thornton’s letter, and felt that he had no right to say, “I have a claim on Anna Ruthven; you must not interfere.” For he had no claim on her, though half his parishioners had long ago given her to him, while he had loved her, as only natures like his can love, since that week before Christmas, when their hands had met with a strange, tremulous flutter, as together they fastened the wreaths of evergreen upon the wall, he holding them up, and she driving the refractory tacks, which would keep falling, so that his hand went often from the carpet or basin to hers, and once accidentally closed almost entirely over the little soft white thing, which felt so warm to his touch.

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

“It must,” he suddenly exclaimed. “The matter shall be settled before she leaves Hanover with Mrs. Meredith. My claim is superior to Thornton’s, and he shall not take her from me. I’ll write what I lack the courage to tell her, and to-morrow I will call and deliver it myself.”

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

CHAPTER II.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Nonsense, child. You don’t know what you are saying,” Mrs. Meredith retorted, feeling intuitively that she must change her tactics and keep her real intentions concealed if she would lead her niece into the snare laid for her.

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

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

“You have not told me yet. Is there any one in Hanover whom you think worthy of you?” Mrs. Meredith asked, just as a footstep was heard, and the rector of St. Mark’s came round the rock where they were sitting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Awhile they talked together in the Glen, and then walked back to the farm-house, where the rector bade them good-evening, after casually saying to Anna:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER III.
SUNDAY.

There was an unnatural flush on the rector’s face, and his lips were very white, when he came before his people that Sunday morning, for he felt that he was approaching the crisis of his fate; that he had only to look across the row of heads, up to where Anna sat, and he should know the truth. Such thoughts savored far too much of the world which he had renounced, he knew, and he had striven to banish them from his mind; but they were there still, and would be there until he had glanced once at Anna, who was occupying her accustomed seat, and quietly turning to the chant she was so soon to sing: “Oh, come, let us sing unto the Lord; let us heartily rejoice in the strength of His salvation.” The words echoed through the house, filling it with rare melody, for Anna was in perfect tone that morning, and the rector, listening to her with hands folded upon his prayer-book, felt that she could not thus “heartily rejoice,” meaning all the while to darken his whole life, as she surely would if she told him “no.” He was looking at her now, and she met his eyes at last, but quickly dropped her own, while he was sure that the roses burned a little brighter on her cheek, and that her voice trembled just enough to give him hope, and help him in his fierce struggle to cast her from his mind, and think only of the solemn services in which he was engaging. He could not guess that the proud woman who had sailed so majestically into church, and followed so reverently every prescribed form, bowing in the creed far lower than ever bow was made before in Hanover, had played him false, and was the dark shadow in his path.

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

It was the Hethertons, from Prospect Hill, whose arrival in town had been so long expected. There was Mrs. Hetherton, who, more years ago than she cared to remember, was born in Hanover, but who had lived most of her life either in Paris, New York, or New Orleans, and who this year had decided to fit up her father’s old place, and honor it with her presence for a few weeks at least; also, Fanny Hetherton, a brilliant brunette, into whose intensely black eyes no one could long look, they were so bright, so piercing, and seemed so thoroughly to read one’s inmost thoughts; also, Colonel Hetherton, who had served in the Mexican war, and retiring on the glory of having once led a forlorn hope, now spent his time in acting as attendant on his fashionable wife and daughter; also, young Simon Bellamy, who, while obedient to the flashing of Miss Fanny’s black eyes, still found stolen opportunities for glancing at the fifth and last remaining member of the party, filing up the aisle to the large, square pew, where old Judge Howard used to sit, and which was still owned by his daughter. Mrs. Hetherton liked being late at church, and, notwithstanding that the colonel had worked himself into a tempest of excitement, had tied and untied her bonnet-strings half a dozen times, changed her rich basquine for a thread lace mantilla, and then, just as the bell from St. Mark’s gave forth its last note, and her husband’s impatience was oozing out in sundry little oaths, sworn under his breath, she produced and fitted on her fat, white hands a new pair of Alexanders, keeping herself as cool, and quiet, and ladylike as if outside upon the gravelled walk there was no wrathful husband threatening to drive off and leave her, if she did not “quit her cussed vanity, and come along.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I shall say Arthur, for he told me I might when we were in Rome. I could not like him as well if I called him Mr. Leighton. Isn’t he splendid though in his gown, and wasn’t his sermon grand?”

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

Quick as a flash of lightning the hot blood mounted to his face, while Fanny cast upon him a searching glance as if she would read him through. Fanny Hetherton would have given much to know the answer which Mr. Simon Bellamy mentally gave to that question, put by one whom he had known but little more than three months. It was not fair for Lucy to steal away all Fanny’s beaux, as she surely had been doing ever since her feet touched the soil of the New World, and truth to tell Fanny had borne it very well, until young Mr. Bellamy showed signs of desertion. Then the spirit of resistance was roused, and she watched her lover narrowly, gnashing her teeth sometimes when she saw his ill-concealed admiration for her sprightly little cousin, who could say and do with perfect impunity so many things which in another would have been improper to the last degree. She was a tolerably correct reader of human nature, and from the moment she witnessed the meeting between Lucy and the rector of St. Mark’s she took courage, for she readily guessed the channel in which her cousin’s preference ran. The rector, however, she could not read so well; but few men she knew could withstand the fascinations of her cousin, backed as they were by the glamour of half a million; and though her mother, and possibly her father too, would be shocked at the mésalliance and throw obstacles in its way, she was capable of removing them all, and she would do it, too, sooner than lose the only man she had ever cared for. These were Fanny’s thoughts as she rode home from church that Sunday afternoon, and by the time Prospect Hill was reached Lucy Harcourt could not have desired a more powerful ally than she possessed in the person of her resolute, strong-willed cousin.

CHAPTER IV.
BLUE MONDAY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time and absence and Anna Ruthven had obliterated all such thoughts till now, when Lucy herself had brought them back again with her winsome ways, and her evident intention to begin just where they had left off.

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

This he opened first, reading as follows:

“Prospect Hill, June —.”

“Mr. Leighton.—Dear Sir:—Cousin Fanny is to have a picnic down in the west woods to-morrow afternoon, and she requests the pleasure of your presence. Mrs. Meredith and Miss Ruthven are to be invited. Do come.

“Yours truly,

“Lucy.”

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

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

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

Mrs. Meredith’s note was as follows:

“My Dear Mr. Leighton:—It is my niece’s wish that I answer the letter you were so kind as to enclose in the book left for her last Saturday. She desires me to say that though she has a very great regard for you as her clergyman and friend, she cannot be your wife, and she regrets exceedingly if she has in any way led you to construe the interest she has always manifested in you into a deeper feeling.

“She begs me to say that it gives her great pain to refuse one as noble and good as she knows you to be, and she only does it because she cannot find in her heart the love without which no marriage can be happy.

“She is really very wretched about it, because she fears she may lose your friendship, which she prizes so much; and, as a proof that she will not, she asks that the subject may never, in any way, be alluded to; that when you meet it may be exactly as heretofore, without a word or sign on your part that you ever offered her the highest honor a man can offer a woman.

“And I am sure, my dear Mr. Leighton, that you will accede to her wishes. I am very sorry it has occurred, sorry for you both, and especially sorry for you; but believe me, you will get over it in time, and come to see that my niece is not a proper person to be a clergyman’s wife.

“Come and see us as usual. You will find Anna appearing very natural.

“Yours cordially and sincerely,

“Julie Meredith.”

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

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

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

“It’s more than I can bear.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Dear Thorne:—I am suffering from one of those horrid headaches which used to make me as weak and helpless as a woman, but I will write just enough to say that I have no claim on Anna Ruthven, and you are free to press your suit as urgently as you please. She is a noble girl, worthy even to be Mrs. Thornton Hastings, and if I cannot have her, I would rather give her to you than any one I know. Only don’t ask me to perform the ceremony.

“There, I’ve let the secret out, but no matter, I have always confided in you, and so I may as well confess that I have offered myself and been refused.

“Yours truly,

“Arthur Leighton.”

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

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

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

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

St. Mark’s was his first parish, and though he could have chosen one nearer to New York, where the society was more congenial to his taste, he had accepted of what God offered to him, and had been very happy there since Anna Ruthven came home from Troy and made such havoc with his heart. He did not believe he should ever be quite so happy again, but he would try to do his work, and take thankfully whatever of good might come to him.

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

CHAPTER V.
TUESDAY.

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

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

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

She was too much interested and too eagerly expectant of what the afternoon would bring, and so she perched herself upon the fence where nothing but ants could molest her, and finished the bouquets which Fanny hung upon the trees until the lower limbs seemed one mass of blossoms and the air was filled with the sweet perfume.

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

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

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

“Do you ever meet Arthur there? Oh, here he comes,” and with a bound, Lucy darted away from Anna towards the spot where the rector stood receiving Mrs. and Miss Hetherton’s greeting.

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

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

“What does she mean?” the rector thought. “Is she trying to tantalize me? I expected her to be natural, as her aunt laid great stress on that, but she need not overdo the matter by showing me how little she cares for having hurt me so.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anna was talking blindly, her thoughts upon one subject, while the rector’s were upon another, and matters were getting somewhat mixed when, “Arthur, Arthur, where are you?” came ringing through the woods, and Lucy Harcourt appeared, telling them that the refreshments were ready. “We are only waiting for you two, wondering where you had gone, but never dreaming that you had stolen away to make love,” she said playfully, adding more earnestly as she saw the traces of agitation visible in Anna’s face, “and I do believe you were. If so, I beg pardon for my intrusion.”

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

Very curiously Lucy looked at Anna, and then at Mr. Leighton, who, fully appreciating the feelings of the latter, said, by way of explanation, “You see she has not quite finished that chaplet which I suspect is intended for you. I think we had better leave her,” and drawing Lucy’s arm under his own, he walked away, leaving Anna, more stunned and pained than she had ever been before. Surely if love had ever spoken in voice and manner, it had spoken when Mr. Leighton was kneeling on the grass, holding her hands in his. “Anna, O Anna;” how she had thrilled at the sound of those words and waited for what might follow next. Why had his manner changed so suddenly, and why had he been so glad to be interrupted. Had he really no intention of making love to her; and if so, why did he rouse her hopes so suddenly and then cruelly dash them to the ground? Was it that he loved Lucy best, and that the sight of her froze the words upon his lips?

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

Mr. Leighton was flirting terribly with Lucy when she joined the party assembled around the table, and he never once looked at Anna, though he saw that her plate was well supplied with the best of everything, and when at one draught she drained her glass of ice-water, he quietly placed another within her reach, standing a little before her and trying evidently to shield her from too critical observation. There were two at least who were glad when the picnic was over, and various were the private opinions of the company with regard to the entertainment. Mr. Bellamy, who had been repeatedly foiled in his attempts to be especially attentive to Lucy Harcourt, pronounced the whole thing “a bore,” Fanny, who had been highly displeased with his deportment, came to the conclusion that the enjoyment did not compensate for all the trouble; and while the rector thought he had never spent a more thoroughly wretched day, and Anna would have given worlds if she had stayed at home, Lucy declared that never in her life had she had so perfectly delightful a time, always excepting, of course, “that moon light sail in Venice.”

CHAPTER VI.
WEDNESDAY.

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

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

“I’ll take her to see the Widow Hobbs. That will give her some idea of the duties which will devolve upon her as a rector’s wife. I can go directly there from Prospect Hill, where, I suppose, I must call with Aunt Meredith.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No, no, I am not good,” and Anna’s hands pressed hard upon the girlish head lying in her lap. “I am wicked beyond what you can guess. I led you this rough way when I might have chosen a smooth though longer road, and walked so fast on purpose to worry you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Thank you, Lucy; I think I must constitute you my deaconess when Miss Ruthven is gone. Your very presence has a subduing effect upon the little savages. I never knew them so quiet before so long a time,” Arthur said to Lucy in a low tone, which, low as it was, reached Anna’s ear, but brought no pang of jealousy or sharp regret for what she felt was lost forever.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No, darling, Arthur never did, and never will, but some time he will ask you to be his wife. I can see it coming so plain.”

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

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

“I do believe you,” Anna replied, inexpressibly glad that the gathering darkness hid her white face from view as the childlike, unsuspecting girl went on: “The world, I know, would say that a poor clergyman was not a good match for me, but I do not care for that. Cousin Fanny favors it, I am sure, and Uncle Hetherton would not oppose me when he saw I was in earnest. Once the world, which is a very meddlesome thing, picked out Thornton Hastings, of New York, for me; but my! he was too proud and lofty even to talk to me much, and I would not speak to him after I heard of his saying that ‘I was a pretty little plaything, but far too frivolous for a sensible man to make his wife.’ Oh, wasn’t I angry though, and don’t I hope that when he gets a wife she will be exactly such a frivolous thing as I am.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER VII.
AT NEWPORT.

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

Mrs. Meredith was not naturally lavish of her money, except where her own interests were concerned, as they were in Anna’s case. Conscious of having come between her niece and the man she loved, she determined that in the procuring of a substitute for this man, no advantages which dress could afford should be lacking. Besides, Thornton Hastings was a perfect connoisseur in everything pertaining to a lady’s toilet, and it was with him and his preference before her mind that Mrs. Meredith opened her purse so widely and bought so extensively. There were sun hats and round hats, and hats à la cavalier,—there were bonnets and veils, and dresses, and shawls of every color and kind, with the lesser matters of sashes, and gloves, and slippers, and fans, the whole making an array such as Anna had never seen before, and from which she had at first shrank back appalled and dismayed. But she was not now quite so much of a novice as when she first reached New York, the Saturday following the picnic at Prospect Hill. She had passed successfully and safely through the hands of mantua-makers, milliners, and hair-dressers since then. She had laid aside every article brought from home. She wore her hair in puffs and waterfalls, and her dresses in the latest mode. She had seen the fashionable world as represented at Saratoga, and sickening at the sight, had gladly acquiesced in her aunt’s proposal to go on to Newport, where the air was purer, and the hotels not so densely packed. She had been called a beauty and a belle, but her heart was longing still for the leafy woods and fresh, green fields of Hanover; and Newport, she fancied, would be more like the country than sultry, crowded Saratoga, and never since leaving home had she looked so bright and pretty as the evening after her arrival at the Ocean House, when, invigorated by the bath she had taken in the morning, and gladdened by sight of the glorious sea and the soothing tones it murmured in her ear, she came down to the parlor, clad in simple white, with only a bunch of violets in her hair, and no other ornament than the handsome pearls her aunt had given to her. Standing at the open window, with the drapery of the lace curtain sweeping gracefully behind her, she did not look much like the Anna who led the choir in Hanover and visited the Widow Hobbs, nor yet much like the picture which Thornton Hastings had formed of the girl who he knew was there for his inspection. He had been absent the entire day, and had not seen Mrs. Meredith, when she arrived early in the morning, but he found her card in his room, and a smile curled his lip as he said:

“And so I have not escaped her.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The next day brought the Hetherton party, all but Lucy Harcourt, who, Fanny laughingly said, was just now suffering from clergyman on the brain, and, as a certain cure for the disease, had turned my Lady Bountiful, and was playing the pretty patroness to all Mr. Leighton’s parishioners, especially a Widow Hobbs, whom she had actually taken to ride in the carriage, and to whose ragged children she had sent a bundle of cast-off party dresses; and the tears ran down Fanny’s cheeks as she described the appearance of the elder Hobbs, who came to church with a soiled pink silk skirt, her black, tattered petticoat hanging down below, and one of Lucy’s opera hoods upon her head.

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

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

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

“Yes; we were in college together, and I esteem him so highly that, had I a sister, there is no man living to whom I would so readily give her as to him.”

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

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

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

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

And yet matrimony, as concerned himself, was very far from Thornton Hastings’ thoughts that afternoon, when, because he saw that it pleased Anna to have him do so, he talked to her of Arthur, hoping, in his unselfish heart, that what he said in his praise might influence her to reconsider her decision and give him a different answer. This was the second day of Thornton Hastings’ acquaintance with Anna Ruthven, but as time went on, bringing the usual routine of life at Newport, the drives, the rides, the pleasant piazza talks, and the quiet moonlight rambles, when Anna was always his companion, Thornton Hastings came to feel an unwillingness to surrender even to Arthur Leighton the beautiful girl who pleased him better than any one he had known.

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

There was witchery in the hour, and Thornton felt its spell, speaking out at last, and asking Anna if she would be his wife. He would shield her so tenderly, he said, protecting her from every care, and making her as happy as love and money could make her. Then he told her of his home in the far-off city, which needed only her presence to make it a paradise, and then he waited for her answer, watching anxiously the limp, white hands, which, when he first began to talk, had fallen helplessly upon her lap, and then had crept up to her face, which was turned away from him, so that he could not see its expression, or guess at the struggle going on in Anna’s mind. She was not wholly surprised, for she could not mistake the nature of the interest which, for the last two weeks, Thornton Hastings had manifested in her. But now that the moment had come, it seemed to her that she had never expected it, and she sat silent for a time, dreading so much to speak the words which she knew would inflict pain on one whom she respected so highly, but whom she could not marry.

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

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

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

“It has not been wretched to me. It has been a very happy summer, since I knew you at least,” Mr. Hastings said, and then he asked again that she should reconsider her decision. He could not take it as her final one. He had loved her too much, had thought too much of making her his own, to give her up so easily, he said, urging so many reasons why she should think again, that Anna said to him, at last:

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

She did not finish the sentence, for she could not say “Because you are Arthur’s friend.” That would have betrayed the miserable secret tugging at her heart, and prompting her to refuse Thornton Hastings, who had also thought of Arthur Leighton, wondering if it were thus that she rejected him, and if in the background there was another love standing between her and the two men to win whom many a woman would almost have given her right hand. To say that Thornton was not piqued at her refusal would be false. He had not expected it, accustomed as he was to adulation; but he tried to put that feeling down, and his manner was even more kind and considerate than ever as he walked back to the hotel, where Mrs. Meredith was waiting for them, her practised eye detecting at once that something was amiss. Thornton Hastings knew Mrs. Meredith thoroughly, and, wishing to shield Anna from her displeasure, he preferred stating the facts himself to having them wrung from the pale, agitated girl, who, bidding him good-night, went quickly to her room; so, when she was gone, and he stood for a moment alone with Mrs. Meredith, he said:

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

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

“I found this on my table,” he said, holding up a dainty little missive, on the corner of which was written “In haste,” as if its contents were of the utmost importance. “The boy must have made a mistake, or else he thought it well to begin at once bringing your letters to me,” he continued with a smile, as he handed Anna the letter from Lucy Harcourt. “I have one, too, from Arthur, which I will read while you are devouring yours, and then, perhaps, you will take a little ride. The September air is very bracing this morning,” he said, walking away to the far end of the piazza while Anna broke the seal of the envelope, hesitating a moment ere taking the letter from it, and trembling as if she guessed what it contained.

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

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

“Dear Thornton,” Arthur wrote, “you will be surprised, no doubt, to hear that your old college chum is at last 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.
SHOWING HOW IT HAPPENED.

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

Fanny was glad to leave her dangerous cousin at home, especially after Mr. Bellamy decided to join their party at Saratoga; and as she carried great weight with both her parents it was finally decided to let Lucy remain at Prospect Hill in peace, and one morning in July she saw the family depart without a single feeling of regret that she was not of their number. She had far too much on her hands to spend her time in regretting anything: there was the parish school to visit, and a class of children to hear, children who were no longer ragged, for Lucy’s money had been expended till even Arthur had remonstrated with her, and read her a long lecture on the subject of misapplied charity. Then there was Widow Hobbs waiting for the jelly which Lucy had promised, and for the chapter which Lucy now read to her, sitting where she could watch the road and see just who turned the corner, her voice always sounding a little more serious and good when the footsteps belonged to Arthur Leighton, and her eyes always glancing at the bit of a cracked mirror on the wall, to see that her dress and hair and ribbons were right before Arthur came in. It was a very pretty sight to see her thus and hear her as she read to the poor, whose surroundings she had so greatly improved; and Arthur always smiled gratefully upon her, and then walked back with her to Prospect Hill, where he lingered while she played or talked to him, or brought the luscious fruits with which the garden abounded.

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

“You have none?” he said, fixing his mild eyes reproachfully upon his clergyman, who recoiled a little beneath the gaze. “Then, if you have no intentions, my advice to you is that you quit it and let the gal alone, or you’ll ruin her, if she ain’t spoilt already, as some of the women folks say she is. It don’t do no gal any good to have a chap, and ’specially a minister, gallivantin’ after her, as I must say you’ve been after this one for the last few weeks. She’s a pretty little creeter, and I don’t blame you for liking her. It makes my old blood stir faster when she comes purring around me, with her soft ways and winsome face, and so I don’t wonder at you, but when you say you’ve no intentions, I blame you greatly. You or’to have. Excuse my plainness; I’m an old man, and I like my minister, and don’t want him to go wrong; and then I feel for her, left all alone by all her folks; more’s the shame to them, and more’s the harm to you, to tangle up her affections as you are doing if you are not in earnest; and so I speak for her just as I should want some one to speak for Anna!”

The old man’s voice trembled a little here, for it had been a wish of his that Anna should occupy the parsonage, and he had at first felt a little resentment against the gay young creature who seemed to have supplanted her, but he was over that now, and in all honesty of heart he spoke both for Lucy’s interest and that of his clergyman. And Arthur listened to him respectfully, feeling when he was gone that he merited the rebuke,—that he had not been guiltless in the matter,—that if he did not mean to marry Lucy Harcourt he should let her alone. And he would, he said,—he would not go to Prospect Hill again for two whole weeks, nor visit at the cottages where he was sure to find her; he would keep himself at home; and he did, and shut himself up among his books, not even going to make a pastoral call on Lucy when he heard that she was sick. And so Lucy came to him, looking dangerously charming in her blue riding-habit with the white feather streaming from her hat. Very prettily she pouted, too, as she chided him for his neglect, and asked why he had not been to see her nor anybody;—there was the Widow Hobbs, and Mrs. Briggs, and those miserable Donelsons, whom he had not been near for a fortnight.

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

Her voice had in it the grieved tones of a little child, and her eyes were very bright with the tears quivering on her long eyelashes. Leaning back in his chair, with his hands clasped behind his head, a position he usually assumed when puzzled and perplexed, the rector looked at her a moment before he spoke. He could not define to himself the nature of the interest he took in Lucy Harcourt. He admired her greatly, and the self-denials and generous exertions she had made to be of use to him since Anna went away, had touched a tender chord and made her seem very near to him. Habit with him was everything, and the past two weeks’ isolation had shown him how necessary she had become to him. She did not satisfy his higher wants as Anna Ruthven had done. No one could ever do that, but she amused and soothed and rested him, and made his duties lighter by taking half of them upon herself. That she was more attached to him than he could wish he greatly feared, for since Captain Humphreys’ visit he had seen matters differently from what he saw them before, and had unsparingly questioned himself as to how far he would be answerable for her future weal or woe.

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

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

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

“Well, let them talk; who cares?” Lucy replied, with a good deal of asperity of manner for her, for that very morning the 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?”

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

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

“And so for fear I shall fall in love with you, you are sacrificing both comfort and freedom, and shutting yourself up with your books and studies to the neglect of other duties. But it need be so no longer. The necessity for it, if it existed once, certainly does not now. I will not be in your way; forgive me that I ever have been.”

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

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

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

“Please let me go, sir.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But he did not kiss her again; he could not for the eyes, which still seemed looking at him and asking what he did. There was a strange spell about those phantom eyes, and they made him say to Lucy, who was now sitting demurely at his side:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I wonder you never fell in love with Anna yourself. I am sure, if I were you I should prefer her to me. She knows something and I do not, but I am going to study; there are piles of books in the library at Prospect Hill, and you shall see what a famous student I will become. If I get puzzled will you help me?”

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

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

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

Lucy was far down the road ere Arthur recovered from the shock her last words had given him. What did it mean, and why had Anna said he never proposed? Was there some mistake, and he the victim of it? There was a blinding mist before the young man’s eyes, and a gnawing pain at his heart as he returned to his study and went over again with all the incidents of Anna’s refusal, even to the reading of the letter which, he already knew by heart. Then, as the thought came over him that possibly Mrs. Meredith played him false in some way, he groaned aloud, and the great sweat-drops fell upon the table where he leaned his head. But this could not be, he reasoned. Lucy was mistaken. She had not heard aright. Somebody surely was mistaken, or he had committed a fatal error.

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

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

And that was how it happened.

CHAPTER IX.
ANNA.

Through the rich curtains which shaded the windows of a room looking out on Fifth Avenue the late October sun was shining; and as its red light played among the flowers on the carpet, a pale young girl sat watching it and thinking of the Hanover hills, now decked in their autumnal glory, and of the ivy on St. Mark’s, growing so bright and beautiful beneath the autumnal frosts. Anna had been very sick since that morning in September when she sat on the piazza at the Ocean House and read Lucy Harcourt’s letter. The faint was a precursor of fever, the physician said when summoned to her aid; and in a tremor of fear and distress Mrs. Meredith had had her removed at once to New York, and that was the last Anna remembered. From the moment her aching head had touched the soft pillows in Aunt Meredith’s home, all consciousness had fled, and for weeks she had hovered so near to death that the telegraph-wires bore daily messages to Hanover, where the aged couple who had cared for her since her childhood wept, and prayed, and watched for tidings from their darling. They could not go to her, for Grandpa Humphreys had broken his leg, and his wife could not leave him; so they waited with what patience they could for the daily bulletins which Mrs. Meredith sent, appreciating their anxiety, and feeling glad withal of anything which kept them from New York.

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

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

Then they murmured faintly: “Yes,—Arthur,—I remember him, and the Christmas song, and the gathering in the church. But that was long ago; there’s much happened since then.”

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

That was near the middle of October; now it was the last, and Anna was so much better that she 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 heeding the kindly voice of Thornton Hastings, who more than once had stood by her pillow with his hand on her feverish brow, and tokens of whose thoughtfulness were visible in the choice bouquets he sent each day, with notes of anxious inquiry when he did not come himself. Anna had not seen him yet since her convalescence. She would rather not see any one until strong enough to talk, she said. And so Thornton waited patiently for the interview she had promised him when she should be stronger, but every day he sent her fruit, and flowers, and books which he thought would interest her, and which always made her cheeks grow hot and her heart beat regretfully, for she knew of the answer she must give him when he came, and she shrank from wounding him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He brought her smelling-salts; he gave her ice-water to drink, and then, kneeling beside her, he fanned her gently, while he continued: “There surely is a mistake, and, I fear, a great wrong, too, somewhere. Were all your servants trusty? Was there no one who would withhold a letter if he had written? Were you always at home when he called?”

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

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

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

For an instant there swept over Anna a feeling of unutterable joy as she thought what the end might be; then, as she remembered Lucy, her heart seemed to stop its beating, and with a moan she stretched her hands towards Thornton, who had risen as if to leave her.

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

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

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

“Your niece will never be my wife, and I am satisfied to have it so,” he said; then, as he saw the lowering of her brow, he continued, “I have long suspected that she loved another, and my suspicions are confirmed, though there’s something I cannot understand,” and fixing his eyes searchingly upon Mrs. Meredith, he told what Arthur had written and of Anna’s denial of the same. “Somebody played her false,” he said, rather enjoying the look of terror and shame which crept into the haughty woman’s eyes, as she tried to appear natural and express her own surprise at what she heard.

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

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

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

The cold, hard woman, who had brought this grief upon her niece, could only answer that it did not matter. She was not very sorry, although she had wanted her to marry Mr. Hastings, but she must not fret about that now, or about anything. She would be better by and by, and forget that she ever cared for Arthur Leighton.

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

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

It was appointed for the 15th of January, that being the day when Lucy came of age, and the very afternoon succeeding Anna’s interview with Mr. Hastings the little lady came down to New York to direct about her bridal trousseau making, in the city. She was brimming over with happiness and her face was a perfect gleam of sunshine, when she came next day to Anna’s room, and throwing off her wrappings plunged at once into the subject uppermost in her thoughts, telling first how she and Arthur had quarrelled,—“not quarrelled as uncle and aunt Hetherton and lots of people do, but differed so seriously that I cried and had to give up, too,” she said. “I wanted you for bridesmaid, and do you think, he objected; not objected to you, but to bridesmaids generally, and he carried his point, so that we are just to stand up stiff and straight alone, except as you’ll all be round me in the aisle. You’ll be well by that time, and I want you very near to me,” Lucy said, squeezing the icy hand, whose coldness made her start and exclaim, “Why, Anna, how cold you are, and how pale you are looking. You have been so sick, and I am so well; it don’t seem quite right, does it? And Arthur, too, is so thin that I have coaxed him to raise whiskers to cover the hollows in his cheeks. He looks a heap better now, though he was always handsome. I do so wonder that you two never fell in love, and I tell him so most every time I see him, for I always think of you then.”

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER X.
MRS. MEREDITH’S CONSCIENCE.

She had one years before, but since the summer day when she sent from her the white-faced man, whose heart she knew she had broken, it had been hardening,—searing over with a stiff crust which nothing, it seemed, could penetrate. And yet there were times when she was softened and wished that much which she had done might be blotted out from the great book in which even she believed. There was many a misdeed recorded there against her, she knew, and occasionally there stole over her a strange disquietude as to how she should confront them when they all came up before her. Usually she could cast such thoughts aside by a drive down gay Broadway, or at most by a call at Stewart’s, but the sight of Anna’s white face and the knowing what made it so white were a constant reproach, and conscience gradually wakened from its torpor, enough to whisper of the only restitution in her power, that of confession to Arthur. But from this she shrank nervously. She could not humble herself thus to any one, and she would not either, she said. Then came the fear lest by another than herself her guilt should come to light. What if Thornton Hastings should find her out? She was half afraid he suspected her now, and that gave her the heaviest pang of all, for she respected Thornton highly, and it would cost her much to lose his good opinion. She had lost him for her niece, but she could not spare him from herself, and so in sad perplexity, which wore upon her visibly, the autumn days went on until at last she sat one morning in her dressing-room and read in a foreign paper:

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

That was all, but the paper dropped from the trembling hands, and the proud woman of the world bowed her head upon the cold marble of the table and wept aloud. She was not Mrs. Meredith now, she was Julia Ruthven again, and she stood with Edward Coleman out in the grassy orchard where the apple-blossoms were dropping from the trees, and the air was full of the insects’ hum and the song of mating birds. Many years had passed since then. She was the wealthy Mrs. Meredith now, and he was dead in Strasburg. He had been true to her to the last, for he had never married, and those who had met him abroad had brought back the same report of a “white-haired man, old before his time, and with a tired, sad look on his face.” That look she had written there, and she wept on as she recalled the past and murmured softly: “Poor Edward, I loved you all the while, but I sold myself for gold, and it turned your brown locks snowy white,—poor darling,—” and her hands moved up and down the folds of her cashmere robe as if it were the brown locks they were smoothing just as they used to do. Then came a thought of Anna, whose face wore much the look which Edward’s did when he went slowly from the orchard and left her there alone with the apple-blossoms dropping on her head, and the hum of the bees in her ear.

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

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

“I know from Anna’s own lips how much she has always loved you,” she wrote in conclusion, “but she does not know of the stolen letter, and I leave you to make such use of the knowledge as you shall think proper.”

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

CHAPTER XI.
THE LETTER RECEIVED.

Arthur had been spending the evening at Prospect hill. The Hethertons were there now, and would remain till after the 15th; and since they came the rector had found it even pleasanter calling there than it had been before with only his bride-elect to entertain him. Sure of Mr. Bellamy, Fanny had laid aside her sharpness and was exceedingly witty and brilliant, while, now that it was settled, the colonel was too thorough a gentleman to be otherwise than gracious to his future nephew, and Mrs. Hetherton was always polite and ladylike, so that the rector looked forward with a good deal of interest to the evenings he usually gave to Lucy, who, though satisfied to have him in her sight, still preferred the olden time when she had him all to herself, and was not disquieted with the fear that she was not learned enough for him, as she often was when she heard him talking with Fanny and her uncle of things she did not understand. This evening, however, the family were away and she received him alone, trying so hard to come up to his capacity, talking so intelligibly of the books she had been reading, and looking so lovely in her crimson winter dress, besides being so sweetly affectionate and confiding that for once since his engagement Arthur was more than content, and returned her modest caresses with a warmth he had not felt before. He was learning to love her very much, he thought, and when at last he took his leave and she went with him to the door there was an unwonted tenderness in his manner as he pushed her gently back, for the first snow of the season was falling and the large flakes dropped upon her hair, from which he brushed them carefully away.

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

But she did not think so now, and in an ecstasy of joy she stood in the deep recess of the bay-window watching him as he went away through the moonlight and the feathery cloud of snow, wondering why, when she was so happy, there should cling to her a haunting presentiment that she and Arthur would never meet again just as they had parted. Arthur, on the contrary, was troubled with no such presentiment. Of Anna he hardly thought, or, if he did, the vision was obscured by the fair picture he had seen standing in the door with the snow-flakes resting on its hair like pearls in a golden cabinet. And Arthur thanked his God that he was beginning at last to feel right, that the solemn vows he was so soon to utter would not be a mockery. It was Arthur’s wish to teach to others how dark and mysterious are the ways of Providence, but he had not himself half learned that lesson in all its strange reality; but the lesson was coming on apace; each stride of his swift-footed beast brought him nearer and nearer to the great shock waiting for him upon his study-table, where his man had put it. He saw it the first thing on entering the room, but he did not take it up until the snow was brushed from his garments and he had seated himself by the cheerful fire blazing on the hearth. Then sitting in his easy-chair and moving the lamp nearer to him, he took Mrs. Meredith’s letter and broke the seal, starting as if a serpent had stung him when in the note enclosed he recognized his own handwriting, the same he had sent to Anna when his heart was as full of hope as the brown stalks, now beating against his windows with a dismal sound, were full of fragrant blossoms. Both had died since then, the roses and his hopes, and Arthur almost wished that he, too, were dead when he read Mrs. Meredith’s letter and saw the gulf he was treading. Like the waves of the sea his love for Anna came rolling back upon him, augmented and intensified by all that he had suffered, and by the terrible conviction that it could not be, although, alas, “it might have been.” He repeated these words over and over again, as, stupefied with pain, he sat gazing at vacancy, thinking how true was the couplet:

“Of all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these,—it might have been.”

He could not pray at first, his brain was so confused; but when the white, quivering lips could move and the poor aching heart could pray, he only whispered: “God help me to do right,” and by that prayer he knew that for a single instant there had crept across his mind the possibility of sacrificing Lucy, the girl who loved and trusted him so much; but only for an instant. He would not cast her from him, though to take her now, knowing what he did, was almost death itself. “But God can help me, and he will,” he cried,—then falling upon his knees, with his face bowed to the floor, the rector of St. Mark’s prayed as he had never prayed before, first for himself, whose need was greatest, then for Lucy, that she might never know what making her happy had cost him, and then for Anna, whose name he could not speak. “That other one,” he called her, and his heart kept swelling in his throat and preventing his utterance so that the words he would say never reached his lips. But God heard them just the same, and knew his child was asking that Anna might forget him, if to remember him was pain,—that she might learn to love another far worthier than he had ever been. He did not think of Mrs. Meredith; he had no feeling of resentment then; he was too wholly crushed to care how his ruin had been brought about, and long after the wood-fire on the hearth had turned to cold, gray ashes, he knelt upon the floor and battled with his grief; and when the morning broke it found him still in the cheerless room, where he had passed the entire night and from which he went forth strengthened as he hoped to do what he fully believed to be his duty.

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

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

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

“He surely did not mean me, when he asked that no one should be admitted. Tell him it is I; it is Lucy,” she said, with an air of authority, which in one so small, so pretty, and so childish only amused Mrs. Brown, who departed with the message, while Lucy sat down with her feet upon the stove and looked around the sitting-room, thinking that it was smaller and poorer than the one at Prospect Hill, and how she would remodel it when she was mistress there.

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

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

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

She did not know what he meant, and she only answered him with kisses, while her hands moved caressingly across his forehead, just as they had moved years ago in Rome when she soothed the pain away. There certainly was a mesmeric influence emanating from those hands, and Arthur felt its power, growing very quiet and at last falling away to sleep while the passes went on, and Lucy held her breath lest she should waken him. She was a famous nurse, the physician said, when he came, and he constituted her his coadjutor and gave his patient’s medicine into her care.

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

So, while Fanny went to bed and slept Lucy sat all night in the sick-room with Mrs. Brown, and when the next morning came she was looking very pale, and languid, but very beautiful withal. At least such was the mental compliment paid her by Thornton Hastings, who was passing through Hanover and stopped over a train to see his old college friend and perhaps tell him what he began to feel it was his duty to tell him in spite of his promise to Anna. She was nearly well now and had driven with him twice to the park, but he could not be insensible to what she suffered, or how she shrank from hearing the proposed wedding discussed, and in his intense pity for her he had half resolved to break his word and tell Arthur what he knew. But he changed his mind when he had been in Hanover a few hours and watched the little fairy, who, like some ministering angel, glided about the sick-room, showing herself every whit a woman, and making him repent that he had ever called her frivolous or silly. She was not either, he said, and with a magnanimity for which he thought himself entitled to a good deal of praise, he felt that it was very possible for Arthur to love the gentle little girl who smoothed his pillows so tenderly, and whose fingers threaded so lovingly the dark brown locks when she thought he—Thornton—was not looking on. She was very coy of him, and very distant towards him, for she had not forgotten his sin, and she treated him at first with a reserve for which he could not account. But as the days went on and Arthur grew so sick that his parishioners began to tremble for their young minister’s life, and to think it perfectly right for Lucy to stay with him even if she was assisted in her labor of love by the stranger from New York, the reserve all disappeared, and on the most perfect terms of amity she and Thornton Hastings watched together by Arthur’s side.

Thornton Hastings learned more lessons than one in that sick-room where Arthur’s faith in God triumphed over the terrors of the grave which at one time seemed so near, while the timid Lucy, whom he had only known as a gay butterfly of fashion, dared before him to pray that God would spare her promised husband, or give her grace to say “Thy will be done.” Thornton could hardly say that he was skeptical before, but any doubts he might have had touching the great fundamental truths on which a true religion rests were gone forever, and he left Hanover a changed man in more respects than one.

Arthur did not die, and on the Sunday preceding the week when the Christmas decorations were to commence he came again before his people, his face very pale and worn, and wearing upon it a look which told of a new baptism,—an added amount of faith which had helped to lift him above the fleeting cares of this present life. And yet there was much of earth clinging to him still, and it made itself felt in the rapid beatings of his heart when he glanced towards the pew where Lucy knelt and knew that she was giving thanks for him 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. O Arthur, you have no thought of leaving me now?”

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

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

CHAPTER XII.
VALENCIA.

Very extensive preparations were making at Prospect Hill for the double wedding to occur on the 15th of January. After much debate and consultation, Fanny had decided to take Mr. Bellamy then, and thus she, too, shared largely in the general interest and excitement which pervaded everything. Both brides-elect were very happy, but in a widely different way, for while Fanny was quiet and undemonstrative Lucy seemed wild with joy and danced gayly about the house, now in the kitchen, where the cake was made, now in the chamber, where the plain sewing was done, and then flitting to her own room in quest of Valencia, who was sent on divers errands of mercy, the little lady thinking that as the time for her marriage was so near it would be proper for her to stop in-doors and not show herself in public quite so freely as she had been in the habit of doing. So she remained at home, and they missed her in the back streets and by-lanes, and the Widow Hobbs, who was still an invalid, pined for a sight of her bright face, and was only half consoled for its absence by the charities which Valencia brought, the smart waiting-maid putting on a great many airs and making Mrs. Hobbs feel keenly how greatly she thought herself demeaned by coming to such a heathenish place. The Hanoverians, too, missed her in the streets, but for this they made ample amends by discussing the preparations at Prospect Hill and commenting upon the bridal trousseau, which was sent from New York the week before Christmas, thus affording a most fruitful theme of comment for the women and maids engaged in trimming the church. There were dresses of every conceivable fashion, it was said, but none were quite so grand as the wedding-dress itself,—a heavy white silk which “could stand alone,” and trailed a full yard behind. It was also whispered that, not content with seeing the effect of her bridal robes as they lay upon the bed, Miss Lucy Harcourt had actually tried them on, wreath, veil, and all, and stood before the glass until Miss Fanny had laughed at her for being so vain and foolish, and said she was a pretty specimen for a sober clergyman’s wife. For all this gossip the villagers were indebted mostly to Valencia Le Barre, who, ever since her arrival at Prospect Hill, had been growing somewhat dissatisfied with the young mistress she had expected to rule even more completely than she had ruled Mrs. Meredith. But in this she was mistaken, and it did not improve her never very amiable temper to find that she could not with safety appropriate more than half her mistress’ handkerchiefs, collars, cuffs, and gloves, to say nothing of perfumery and pomades; and as this was a new state of things with Valencia, she chafed at the administration under which she had so willingly put herself, and told things of her mistress which no sensible servant would ever have reported. And Lucy gave her plenty to tell. Frank and outspoken as a child, she acted as she felt and did try on the bridal dress, did scream with delight when Valencia fastened the veil and let its fleecy folds fall gracefully around her.

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

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

“I don’t believe in presentiments,” she said, “but do you know it seems to me just as if I should never wear this again,” and she smoothed thoughtfully the folds of the heavy silk she had just laid upon the bed. “I don’t know what can happen to prevent it, unless Arthur should die. He was so pale last Sunday, and seemed so weak that I shuddered every time I looked at him. I mean to drive round there this afternoon,” she continued. “I suppose it is too cold for him to venture out, and he has no carriage, either.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You must drive with me to the church,” she said at last to Arthur. “Fresh air will do you good, and you stay moped up too much. I wanted you to-day at Prospect Hill, for this morning the express from New York brought—” she stood up on tiptoe to whisper the great news to him, but his pulses did not quicken in the least, even when she told him how charming was the bridal dress.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that was all the family know of the strange attack which lasted till the dawn of day, and left upon Lucy’s face a look as if years and years of roguish had passed over her young head, and left its footprints behind. Early in the morning she asked to see Valencia alone, and the repentant girl went to her, prepared to take back all she had said, and declare the whole a lie. But something in Lucy’s manner wrung the truth from her, and she repeated the story again so clearly, that Lucy had no longer a doubt that Anna was preferred to herself, and sending Valencia away, she moaned piteously:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And God did take care of that, and inclined the Hetherton family to be very kind and tender towards her, and kept Arthur from the house until the Christmas decorations were completed and the Christmas festival was held. Many were the inquiries made for Lucy on Christmas Eve, and many thanks and wishes for her speedy restoration were sent to her by those whom she had so bountifully remembered. Thornton Hastings, too, who had come to town and was present at the church on Christmas Eve, asked for her with almost as much interest as Arthur, who bade Fanny tell her that he should call on her on the morrow after the morning service.

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

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

CHAPTER XIII.
CHRISTMAS DAY.

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

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

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

But Lucy was not cold, and would rather go at once to Arthur’s room. So Mrs. Brown made no objection, though she wondered if the girl was crazy as she went back to her fowls and Christmas pudding, and left Lucy to find her way alone to Arthur’s study, which looked so like its owner, with his dressing-gown across the lounge just where he had thrown it, his slippers on the rug, and his arm-chair standing near the table, where he had sat when he asked Lucy to be his wife, and where she now sat down, panting heavily for breath and gazing drearily around with the look of a frightened bird when seeking for some avenue of escape from an appalling danger. There was no escape, and with a moan she laid her head upon the writing-table, and prayed that Arthur might come quickly while she had sense and strength to tell him. She heard his step at last, and rose up to meet him, smiling a little at his sudden start when he saw her there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was a ghastly hue upon her face, and her features looked pinched and rigid, but the terrible heartbeats were not there. God in His great mercy kept them back, else she had surely died under that strong excitement. Thornton thought she was fainting, and going hastily to her side, passed his arm around her and put her in the chair; then standing by her, he said just what first came into his mind to say. It was a delicate matter in which to interfere, but he handled it carefully, telling frankly what had passed between himself and Anna, and giving as his opinion, that she loved Arthur to-day just as well as before she left Hanover.

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

---

There was a great wedding at Prospect Hill on the night of the 15th, but neither Lucy nor Arthur were there. He lay sick again at the St. Denis, in New York, and she was alone in her chamber fighting back her tears, and praying that now the worst was over she might be withheld from looking back and wishing the work undone. She went with the bridal party to New York, where she tarried for a few days, but saw no one but Anna, for whom she sent at once. The interview lasted more than an hour, and Anna’s eyes were swollen with weeping when at last it ended; but Lucy’s face, though white as snow, was very calm and quiet, and wore a peaceful, placid look which made it like the face of an angel. Two weeks later, and the steamer Java bore her away across the water, where she hoped to outlive the storm which had beaten so piteously upon her. Thornton Hastings and Anna went with her on board the ship, and for their sakes she tried to appear natural, succeeding so well that it was a very pleasant picture, which Thornton kept in his mind, of a frail little figure standing upon the deck, holding its water-proof together with one hand, and with the other waving a smiling adieu to Anna and himself.

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

“There was a wedding at St. Mark’s in Hanover just before I left. Can you guess who the happy couple were?”

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

A kiss was Arthur’s only answer, but Anna was satisfied, and there rested upon her face a look of perfect content as all that warm spring afternoon she walked in her pleasant garden, thinking of the newly married pair in Rome, and glancing occasionally at the open window of the library where Arthur was, busy with his sermon, his pen moving all the faster for the knowing that Anna was just within his call,—that by turning his head he could see her dear face, and that by and by, when his work was done, she would come in to him, and with her loving words and winsome ways make him forget how tired he was, and thank Heaven again for the great gift bestowed when it gave him Anna Ruthven.

THE END.

---

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ETHELYN’S MISTAKE	1 50
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ALONE	$1 50
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HUSBANDS AND HOMES	1 50
RUBY’S HUSBAND	1 50
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THE EMPTY HEART	1 50
TRUE AS STEEL (new)	1 50
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THE PICKWICK PAPERS	$1 50
OLIVER TWIST	1 50
DAVID COPPERFIELD	1 50
GREAT EXPECTATIONS	1 50
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BARNABY RUDGE	1 50
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY	1 50
OLD CURIOSITY SHOP	1 50
BLEAK HOUSE	1 50
LITTLE DORRIT	1 50
MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT	1 50
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND	1 50
TALE OF TWO CITIES	1 50
CHRISTMAS BOOKS	1 50
SKETCHES BY “BOZ”	1 50
HARD TIMES, etc.	1 50
UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER	1 50
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THE HABITS OF GOOD SOCIETY. The nice points of taste and good manners, and the art of making oneself agreeable	$1 75
THE ART OF CONVERSATION.—A sensible work for every one who wishes to be either an agreeable talker or listener	1 50
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A racy English college story—with numerous comic illustrations	$1 50
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OUR SATURDAY NIGHTS	1 50
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UP BROADWAY.—By Eleanor Kirk	1 50
MONTALBAN	1 75
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CHARLES DICKENS’ WORKS.

A New Edition.

Among the numerous editions of the works of this greatest of English Novelists, there has not been until now one that entirely satisfies the public demand.... Without exception, they each have some strong distinctive objection, ... either the shape and dimensions of the volumes are unhandy—or, the type is small and indistinct—or, the paper is thin and poor—or, the illustrations [if they have any] are unsatisfactory—or, the binding is bad—or, the price is too high.

A new edition is now, however, published by G. W. Carleton & Co. of New York, which, it is believed, will, in every respect, completely satisfy the popular demand.... It is known as

“Carleton’s New Illustrated Edition.”

The size and form is most convenient for holding, ... the type is entirely new, and of a clear and open character that has received the approval of the reading community in other popular works.

The illustrations are by the original artists chosen by Charles Dickens himself ... and the paper, printing, and binding are of the most attractive and substantial character.

The publication of this beautiful new edition was commenced in April, 1873, and will be completed in 20 volumes—one novel each month—at the extremely reasonable price of $1.50 per volume, as follows:—

1—THE PICKWICK PAPERS.

2—OLIVER TWIST.

3—DAVID COPPERFIELD.

4—GREAT EXPECTATIONS.

5—DOMBEY AND SON.

6—BARNABY RUDGE.

7—NICHOLAS NICKLEBY.

8—OLD CURIOSITY SHOP.

9—BLEAK HOUSE.

10—LITTLE DORRIT.

11—MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT.

12—OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.

13—TALE OF TWO CITIES.

14—CHRISTMAS BOOKS.

15—SKETCHES BY “BOZ.”

16—HARD TIMES, ETC.

17—PICTURES OF ITALY, ETC.

18—UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER.

19—EDWIN DROOD, ETC.

20—ENGLAND and CATALOGUE.

Being issued, month by month, at so reasonable a price, those who begin by subscribing for this work, will imperceptibly soon find themselves fortunate owners of an entire set of this best edition of Dickens’ Works, almost without having paid for it.

A Prospectus furnishing specimen of type, sized-page, and illustrations, will be sent to any one free on application—and specimen copies of the bound books will be forwarded by mail, postage free, on receipt of price, $1.50, by

G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers,

Madison Square, New York.

THREE VALUABLE BOOKS,

All Beautifully Printed and Elegantly Bound.

I.—The Art of Conversation,

With Directing for Self-Culture. An admirably conceived and entertaining work—sensible, instructive, and full of suggestions valuable to every one who desires to be either a good talker or listener, or who wishes to appear to advantage in good society. Every young and even old person should read it, study it over and over again, and follow those hints in it which lead them to break up bad habits and cultivate good ones. ⁂ Price $1.50. Among the contents will be found chapters upon—

Attention in Conversation.—Satire.—Puns.—Sarcasm.—Teasing.—Censure.—Fault-Finding.—Egotism.—Politeness.—Compliments.—Stories.—Anecdotes.—Questioning.—Liberties.—Impudence.—Staring.—Disagreeable Subjects.—Selfishness.—Argument.—Sacrifices.—Silent People.—Dinner Conversation.—Timidity.—Its Cure.—Modesty.—Correct Language.—Self-Instruction.—Miscellaneous Knowledge.—Languages.

II.—The Habits of Good Society.

A Handbook for Ladies and Gentlemen. With thoughts, hints, and anecdotes concerning social observances, nice points of taste and good manners, and the art of making oneself agreeable. The whole interspersed with humorous illustrations of social predicaments, remarks on fashion, etc. ⁂ Price $1.75. Among the contents will be found chapters upon—

Gentlemen’s Preface.

Ladies’ Preface.—Fashions.

Thoughts on Society.

Good Society.—Bad Society.

The Dressing-Room.

The Ladies’ Toilet.—Dress.

Feminine Accomplishments.

Manners and Habits.

Public and Private Etiquette.

Married and Unmarried Ladies.

Do Do Gentlemen.

Calling Etiquette.—Cards.

Visiting Etiquette.—Dinners.

Dinner Parties.

Ladies at Dinner.

Dinner Habits.—Carving.

Manners at Supper.—Balls.

Morning Parties.—Picnics.

Evening Parties.—Dances.

Private Theatricals.

Receptions.—Engagements.

Marriage Ceremonies.

Invitations.—Dresses.

Bridesmaids.—Presents.

Travelling Etiquette.

Public Promenade.

Country Visits.—City Visits.

III.—Arts of Writing, Reading, and Speaking.

An exceedingly fascinating work for teaching not only the beginner, but for perfecting every one in these three most desirable accomplishments. For youth this book is both interesting and valuable; and for adults, whether professionally or socially it is a book that they cannot dispense with. ⁂ Price $1.50. Among the contents will be found chapters upon—

Reading & Thinking.—Language.—Words, Sentences, & Construction.—What to Avoid.—Letter Writing.—Pronunciation.—Expression.—Tone.—Religious Readings.—The Bible.—Prayers.—Dramatic Readings.—The Actor & Reader.—Foundations for Oratory and Speaking.—What to Say.—What not to Say—How to Begin.—Cautions.—Delivery.—Writing a Speech.—First Lessons.—Public Speaking.—Delivery.—Action.—Oratory of the Pulpit.—Composition.—The Bar.—Reading of Wit & Humor.—The Platform.—Construction of a Speech.

These works are the most perfect of their kind ever published; fresh, sensible good-humored, entertaining, and readable. Every person of taste should possess them, and cannot be otherwise than delighted with them.

☞ A beautiful new miniature edition of these very popular books has just been published, entitled “The Diamond Edition,” three little volumes, elegantly printed on tinted paper, and handsomely bound in a box. Price $3.00.

⁂ These books are all sent by mail, postage free, on receipt of price, by

G. W. CARLETON & CO., Publishers, Madison Square, New York.

---

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.