HEART AND I.
BY MARY HELEN BOODEY.
Singing, singing through the valleys;
Singing, singing up the hills;
Peace that comes, and Love that tarries,
Hope that cheers, and Faith that thrills,
Heart and I, are we not blest
At the thought of coming rest?
Singing, singing 'neath the shadow;
Singing, singing in the light;
Plucking flowerets from the meadow,
Seeing beauty up the height,
Heart and I, are we not gay
Thinking of unclouded day?
Singing, singing through the summer;
Singing, singing in the snow;
Glad to hear the brooklets murmur,
Patient when the wild winds blow,
Heart and I, can we do this?
Yes, because of future bliss.
Singing, singing up to Heaven;
Singing, singing down to earth;
Unto all some good is given.
Unto all there cometh worth;
Heart and I, we sing to know
That the good God loves us so.
ELIZABETH.
A ROMANCE OF COLONIAL DAYS.
BY FRANCES C. SPARHAWK, Author of "A Lazy Man's Work."
CHAPTER VIII.
DEPARTURE.
With suppressed ejaculations and outspoken condolences the party broke up. It was not until the last one had gone that Mrs. Eveleigh, leaving her post of observation in the corner, swept out to find Elizabeth who disappeared after Stephen Archdale had gone with Katie. She found her in her bed-room trying to put her things into her box. Her face was flushed, and her hands cold and trembling.
"Why have you waited so long?" she began. "We must go at once. Have you sent for a carriage? We shall meet ours on the way."
"My dear," answered the other seating herself, "that is impossible. They will not turn you out, if you have made a mistake. You can not go until to-morrow, of course; nobody will expect it. I am very sorry for poor Archdale and the young lady, but I dare say it will turn out all right."
Elizabeth raised herself from the box over which she had been stooping throwing in her things in an agony of haste. She opened her lips, but words failed her. The amazement and indignation of her look turned slowly to an appealing glance that few could have resisted. She had been used to Mrs. Eveleigh's not comprehending nice distinctions, but now it seemed as if to be a woman would make one understand. If her father were with her now! She turned away sharply.
"Will you see that some conveyance is here within half an hour?" she said. "If it is a cart I will not refuse to go in it. But leave here at once I will, if it must be on foot. For yourself, do as you choose, only give my order."
There was something in Elizabeth's gesture, and a desperation in her face that made Mrs. Eveleigh go away and leave her without a word. In a moment she came back.
"I met James in the hall and sent him off in hot haste," she said. Her tones showed that she had recovered the equanimity which the girl's unexpected conduct had disturbed. She seated herself again with no less complacency and with more deliberation than before.
"I brought you up to be polite, Elizabeth," she said. "Things do sometimes happen that are very trying, to be sure, but we should not give way to irritation. Why, where should I have been if I had? Think how it would have distressed your dear mother to have you show such temper."
The girl looked up sharply, looked down again, her hands moving faster than ever, though everything grew indistinct to her for a minute.
"Are you going with me?" she asked after a pause.
"I? O, my dear child, you will not go at all this way. Perhaps it is as well to pack up and show your dignity, but they will not let you go, you know, your father's daughter, and all,—I told James to tell them,—it would be shameful, I should never forgive them."
"The question is whether they will ever forgive me, whether I have not killed Katie. Sometimes I think of it only that way, and sometimes—."
She was silent again and busy. Then all at once she stopped and walked to the window. Her hands grasped the sash and she stood looking out at the sky that had not gathered a cloud from all this darkness of her life. At length she began to walk up and down as if every footstep took her away from the house.
"I always thought it must be a dreadful thing to marry a man you did not want," she said speaking out her thoughts as if alone; "but to marry a man who does not want you,—that is the most terrible thing in the world. I have done both." And she covered her face with her hands.
"Poor girl," answered Mrs. Eveleigh, "it is hard. But you gave him as good as he sent, that's a fact. Governor Wentworth spoke about it after you left." Elizabeth had raised her head and was looking steadily at her companion. "When young Archdale looked at you as he passed out, I mean," she went on. "'Great Heavens!' cried the Governor, 'did you see that exchange of looks, scorn and hatred on both sides, and they may be husband and wife? The Lord pity them. And poor Katie!'"
"He said that?"
"Exactly that. Why, everybody noticed it, of course. What did you say?" she added at a faint sound from her listener.
"Nothing."
And Elizabeth said nothing until ten minutes later when the sound of wheels sent her to the window to see that a conveyance at least fairly comfortable had been found for them. Her bonnet and wraps were already on.
"Are you coming?" she said to the other abruptly. "I shall start in five minutes."
"For Heaven's sake, more time, my dear. I have not changed my dress yet. I suppose I cannot let you go alone, I should not feel happy about it, and your father would never forgive me in the world."
A half smile of contempt touched the girl's lips. Mrs. Eveleigh knew what was for her own comfort too well to get herself out of Mr. Royal's good graces, and not to be devoted to his daughter would have been to him the unpardonable sin. But nobody would have been more astonished than this same lady to be told that she had not a thoroughly conscientious care of Elizabeth. She combined duty and interest as skilfully as the most Cromwellian old Presbyter among her ancestors.
In the hall Elizabeth met her hostess.
"May I speak to Katie?" she asked timidly.
Mrs. Archdale hesitated a moment, nodded in silence and went on to the library, the girl following. Mr. Archdale was there, and the Colonel and his wife. Stephen sat by the great chair in which Katie was propped, holding her hand and sometimes speaking softly to her, or looking into her face with eyes that gave no comfort. Elizabeth seemed to see no one but her friend, she went up to the chair, and said to her softly, pleadingly,
"Good by, Katie."
But Katie turned away her head.
The door closed, Elizabeth had gone.
CHAPTER IX.
FORECASTINGS.
Gerald Edmonson, Esquire, and Lord Bulchester drove leisurely through the streets of the London of 1743. They found in it that same element that makes the fascination of the London of to-day; for the streets, dim, narrower, and less splendid than now, were full of this same charm of human life, and yet, human isolation. Then, as now, might a man wander homeless and lost, or these grim houses might open their doors to him and reveal the splendors beyond them; and whether he were desolate, or shone brilliant as a star depended upon so many chances and changes that this Fortune's-Wheel drew him toward itself like a magnet.
"I tell you," said Edmonson to his companion as they went along, "there is not a shadow of a chance for me. When a woman says, 'no,' you can tell by her eyes if she means it, and if there had been the least sign of relenting or a possibility of it in Lady Grace's eyes, do you think I would have given up? She has led me a sorry chase, that pretty sister of yours."
"Her beauty would not have taken you ten steps out of your way, if she had not been such an heiress," retorted Bulchester.
"Don't be so blunt, my friend. Is it my fault that I am obliged to look out for money? If a man has only a tenth of the income he needs to live upon, what is he going to do? It is well enough for you to be above sordidness, so could I be with your purse and your prospects. Besides, you know that I told you frankly I found Lady Grace charming. I wonder," he asked turning sharply round, "if you have been playing me false?"
But Bulchester laughed. A laugh at such a time, and a laugh so full of simplicity and amusement brought the other to his bearings again.
"You know I favored the match," added the nobleman. "Hang it! I don't see why my sister could not have had my taste. She does not know all your deviltries as I do, but yet I think you the most fascinating fellow in England."
"Perhaps that is the reason, because she does not know," laughed Edmonson. "But, then, you have not been very far beyond England, except to the land of the frog, and nobody expects to delight in the messieurs anywhere but on the point of the bayonet, as we had them lately at Dettengen." In a moment, however, he added gravely, "I am afraid my suit to your sister has damaged my prospects in another quarter, at least the matrimonial part of them, and I can hardly expect to be so successful otherwise as to enable me to marry a lady whose face is her fortune."
"Hardly, with your tastes," said Bulchester. "But, for my part, I am glad that I can afford to be sentimental if I like. For that very reason I shall probably be extremely sensible."
Edmonson smiled, half in amusement, half in contempt.
"Suppose the lady should be so too?" he asked slyly; then added, "I hope she will, Bulchester, and take you. I don't know her name yet."
"Nor I. But I don't want to consider only the rent-roll of the future Lady Bulchester."
"My lord, I shall be devotion itself to Mistress Edmonson, and I assure you that the young lady I have chosen, I having failed to win your adorable sister, is not a nonentity, though I cannot say that she is charming. But you will see her. Her father was very gracious to me when I was in Boston last winter, and regretted that I was obliged to leave in the spring on affairs of importance. How was he to know, he or the fair Elizabeth, that the business was a love suit? That would not have done. The old gentleman would not think the king himself too good for his daughter; if he dreamed that she was second fiddle, he would want me to find the door faster than he could shew me there. So, if you fall in love with her and want to supersede me, there's your chance."
"I'm Jonathan to your David," returned the smaller man, "the kingdom is for you, Edmonson." And the speaker looked at his companion with an admiration that was deep in proportion as he felt himself unable to imitate that mixture of good nature, strong will, and audacity that in Edmonson fascinated him. "Is she handsome?" he added.
"No," said the other decidedly. "She has a smile that lights up her face well, and occasionally she says good things, but half the time in company she seems not to be attending to what is going on about her, she is away off in a dream about something that nobody cares a pin for, and of course, it gives her a peculiar manner. I could see I interested her more than anybody else did, but I had hard work sometimes to know how to answer her queer sayings, for I could scarcely tell what she was talking about."
"You don't like that," suggested Bulchester. "You like ladies who lead in society."
"Well," assented Edmonson, "I know. But she will have to set up for an oddity, and, you see, she has money enough to be able to afford it. A fortune in her own right, and large expectations from the old gentleman who began with money and has never made a bad investment in his life. Think of it! Gerald Edmonson will keep open house and live rather differently from at present in his bachelor quarters; and all his old friends will be welcome."
"What do you say to those we are going to meet to-night, who are to give us our farewell supper; you would not ask a set like that to a lady's table?"
Edmonson laughed.
"Why, and if I did," he answered, "Elizabeth Royal would never fathom them. She might think they drank somewhat too much, and discover that they were noisy; but as to the wild pranks we have played, yes, you and I, Bulchester, I out of pure enjoyment of them, you, I do believe, more than half not to be behind other men of fashion, why, you might tell them to her safely, for she would never comprehend. One can't get along so well with her on the little nothings one says to other women, to be sure, but she has the greatest simplicity in the world, and that touch of evil that spices life is entirely beyond her. But however that might be, I tell you this, my lord: Gerald Edmonson is always master, and always will be."
"Yes," assented his hearer.
"I only hope the extent of my impecuniosity will not cross the water with me. I have never pretended to be rich, but I have said that my expectations were excellent. So they are; for you know, Bulchester, the heiress is not all my errand to these outlandish colonies. I have expectations there. Rather strange ones, to be sure, so strange, and to be come at so strangely, that if I can make anything out of them I shall enjoy it a thousand times more than by any stupid old way of inheritance."
"It strikes me, though, you would not object to the stupid if a good plum should fall down on your head from an ancestral tree."
Edmonson laughed.
"You have me there, Bul," he said. "But, on your honor, you are not to betray my plans, or I have no chance at all," he added, suddenly facing his companion.
"What do you take me for, a traitor?"
"No," exclaimed Edmonson with an oath.
"For a tattler, then?"
"No," came the answer again. "Only, inadvertence is sometimes as mischievous in its results."
"I, inadvertent?" cried Bulchester.
His listener smiled slyly. The other felt that caution was his strong point, and Edmonson's diplomacy would not assault this vigorously; his aim had been merely to warn Bulchester and strengthen the defences. Soon after this they reached the inn, where they were boisterously greeted by their companions, who had been waiting for them in what was then one of the fashionable public houses of London, though long since fallen out of date and forgotten.
"Don't be flattered," said Edmonson aside, "all this welcome is not for us; the feast is to begin now that we have arrived." And a cynical smile flashed over his handsome face.
It was hours after this. The high revel had gone on with jest, and laugh, and song, with play, too, and some purses were empty that before had been none too well filled. Through it all Edmonson, the life of the party, kept the control over himself that many had lost. There was no credit due to him for the fact that he could drink more wine without being overcome than any other man there. His face was flushed with it, his eyes somewhat blood-shot and his fair hair disordered as, at last, looking at his opposite neighbor, he nodded to him, leaned across the table and touched glasses with him. Then, "Let us drink this toast standing," he said, rising as he spoke; and at the movement ten other young men, full of the effrontery of a long carousal, pushed back their chairs noisily and rose, exclaiming in tones varying in degrees of intoxication:
"We pledge."
"Yes," returned the man opposite Edmonson, repeating the pledge that they all without exception would meet one hundred years from that night to pledge each other again.
A shout, more of drunken acquiescence than of comprehension went up in chorus from all but one of the revelers; he held his glass silently a moment, disposed to put it untasted on the table.
"Bulchester's backing out," cried Edmonson giving him a scornful glance.
"Oh, ho! Backing out!" echoed nine derisive voices.
"We have made it too hot for him," called out Edmonson again.
At which remark another shout arose, and the glasses were tossed off with bravado, Bulchester's also being set down empty.
After this the party broke up boisterously, Edmonson and Bulchester receiving the good wishes of the company for their prosperous voyage.
Leaving the inn, they went out into the night again, in which the October moon veiled in clouds was doing its best to light the streets now almost deserted. Bulchester looked with disapprobation at his smiling companion. It was for the first time in their acquaintance, but the compact into which the earl had so unwillingly entered had sobered him, and was still ringing in his ears, giving him a sort of horror. He said this to Edmonson, who burst out laughing.
"A mere drunken freak, Bul, that counts for nothing. You will be an angel sitting on a cold cloud singing psalms long before that time. I'll warrant it. You are a good fellow. Don't bother your brains about such nonsense."
The third of November, Edmonson and Lord Bulchester sailed from Liverpool in the "Ariel" for Boston.
CHAPTER X.
TWO WHO WOULD EXCHANGE PLACES.
The winds were baffling, and Edmonson and Lord Bulchester had a longer voyage than they had counted upon. They found it tedious, and it was with satisfaction that they at last set foot on land and drove through the streets of Boston to the Royal Exchange. Edmonson's projects inspired him rather than made him anxious. It was, of course, possible that Elizabeth Royal might refuse him, but in his heart he had the attitude of a Londoner toward provincials and was not burdened with doubts as to the result of his wooing, and so the one necessary grain of uncertainty only gave flavor to the whole affair.
A few hours after his arrival he left the house to try his fortune.
"I may not be home until late," he said to Bulchester. "I shall tackle pater-familias first, then the young lady herself. It is possible they will invite me to tea, you know. Don't wait for me if you find anything to do or anywhere to go in this puritanical hole." And the young man, in all the tasteful splendor of attire that the times allowed, closed the door behind him and left Lord Bulchester looking at the oaken panels which had suddenly taken the place in which his friend had been standing, and seeing, not these, but Edmonson's fine figure and his bold smile.
"No woman can resist his wooing," the nobleman said to himself with a sigh at the thought of his own indifferent appearance. Therefore it was with amazement that two hours later coming home from a stroll he learned that the other had returned, and going to his room found him prone on the sofa.
"Why! What is the—," he began, then checked himself, considering that since only failure could be the matter, this was hardly a generous question.
"Headache," growled Edmonson. "No," he cried with an oath, "that is a lie," and springing up, turned blood-shot eyes upon his companion. "I am mad, Bulchester," he cried, "raving mad. It is all over with me in that quarter."
"She has refused you? Or the father has?"
"Hang it! they couldn't do anything else, either of them. I did not see Mistress Royal, Mistress Archdale, rather. Yes, married!" as Bulchester echoed the name. "There's been an interesting drama with one knave and two fools. If I could only catch the knave! Perhaps it is as well to let the fools go, since I can't help it." He was silent a moment. Then after a moment he added. "Well! what is the use of cursing one's luck?" "There are several others I know of doing the same thing at this moment, and I like to be original. I declare, if he didn't stand in my way, I should be tempted to pity young Archdale. He wishes himself in my shoes as much, and I suspect a good deal more, than I do myself in his. I don't wonder that the young lady keeps herself retired for a time. I did not see her, as I told you. Mr. Royal made as light of the matter as possible, merely saying that something which might prove to have been a real marriage ceremony, though he thought not, had taken place in a joke between his daughter and Stephen Archdale, that the matter was to be thoroughly investigated at once, and if it turned out that Elizabeth was not Mistress Archdale, I had his permission to receive her answer from her own lips. He was guarded enough; but on the way home I met Clinton who had been one of the guests at Mistress Katie's attempted wedding last week. He gave me details. Here they are." And these details lost nothing through Edmonson's racy recital of them. "No, Bulchester," he finished, "out of six people that I could name mixed up in this affair, on the whole, I am the best off."
"Six?"
"Yes; counting in the love-lorn Waldo; that knave Harwin, who ought to swing for it; the poor little bride that lost her bridegroom; and the bridegroom; the young lady that got him when she didn't want him, and missed me, whom, perhaps (without too much vanity) she did want a little; and last on the list of wounded spirits, your humble servant. How wise that man was who said that one sinner destroyed much good. By the way, Bulchester, who was he? It is an excellent thing to quote in regard to this affair, and I should like to know where it comes from."
An anxious expression crossed the other's face as he cried:
"Good heavens! Edmonson, if you go to quoting the Bible and asking where the quotation comes from, you will get into awful disgrace with this strictest-sect-of-our-religion people, and then what will become of the other scheme that is bound to pull through?"
"True, most sapient counsellor, and I will be on my guard. To show how I profit by your sageness, let us drop all thought of this royal maiden who is probably out of my reach, and attend to the other business. It is good to have a sympathetic friend, Bul."
They talked for nearly an hour after this, but not about Edmonson's wooing. When Bulchester left, the other sat looking after him a moment.
"Yes," he said to himself, "it is well to have a sympathetic creature like that sometimes, but not if one tell him all his heart. I hid my rage well, I passed it off for mere spleen. But we are not a race to get over things in that way. It is hate, hate, I say," And he ground his teeth, and again threw himself upon the sofa his face downward and buried in his hands as if he were meditating deeply.
Edmonson told his friend of having met one of the guests at Katie Archdale's wedding, but he did not say to him that coming out of Mr. Royal's house and walking quickly down the street, he had met the bridegroom himself, and had returned Archdale's bow with a politeness equally cold, while anger had leaped up within him. Was Archdale going to call upon his wife?
Stephen Archdale had come to Boston to collect whatever facts he could about Harwin, and about the places and the people that the confession referred to. Nothing was farther from his thoughts than any such visit. It was his wish that Elizabeth and himself need never meet again, and he knew that it was hers. Indeed, so far from thinking of the woman who was perhaps his wife, he was living over again the glimpse he had had of the one from whom he had been separated. Three days ago he had taken his gun early in the morning and had gone out hunting, made more miserable than before by something he had perceived in his father's mind. The Colonel was not in sympathy with him; he was consoling himself that, after all, Elizabeth Royal was a richer woman than Katie Archdale. At his light insinuation of this to his son, the young man had flamed out into a heat of passion and declared that one golden hair of Katie's head was worth both Elizabeth and her fortune. He had rushed out of the house with the wish for destroying something in his mind. As he stopped in the hall to snatch his gun, the flintlock caught, and tore a hole in the tapestry hanging. He saw it, pushed the great stag's antlers that the gun had been swung on a little aside, and covered the torn place. Then he forgot the accident almost as soon as this was done, left the house and went striding over the fields, not so much to chase the foxes, as to be alone. And when that point was gained he would have gone a step further if he could and escaped from himself also. But he was only all the more with his own thoughts as he wandered aimlessly through great stretches of pine trees with the light snow of the night before still white on their lower boughs, except when in some opening it had melted into dewdrops in the December sun, and still clung to the trees, ready when the sun had passed by them towards its setting to turn into filmy icicles. The sky was brilliant; the long winter already upon the earth smiled gently, as if to say that its reign would be mild. Stephen went along so much preoccupied that only the baying of his hound made him notice the light fox-prints by the roadside. Then the instinct of the hunter stirred within him, and he followed on, listening now and then to the distant bark while pursued and the pursuer were going farther away. He waited, knowing fox nature well and that there were a hundred chances to one that the creature would come back near the spot from which it was started. As he waited close by the road which here led through the woods, two men passed along it without seeing him. They were talking as they went. Stephen knew them; one was an old man who used to be a servant in the family when Colonel Archdale was a boy. He had married long ago and was now living in a little house not far from his old home. The young man with him was his son. Stephen was in no mood even for a passing word, and he stood still, perceiving that a clump of bushes hid him. A few sentences of the conversation reached him through the stillness, but it meant nothing to him; he was not conscious even of listening until Katie's name caught his ear. They were talking of this marriage then, as every body was; he was the gossip of the very servants. But his attention once caught was held until the speakers passed out of hearing. Surely they knew nothing about the matter that he did not.
"She is such a pretty young lady," said the elder man, "and any girl would feel it to miss the handsome young master for a husband."
"Um!" assented the son. "Well, I suppose she will miss the sight of him if her heart is set upon him, but there is many a young man nicer to my thinking, and not so proud in his ways."
"Has he ever been unjust or overbearing to you, Nathan?" inquired the old man severely.
"Oh, no, he has been uncommonly civil, he would think it beneath him to be anything else. I know the cut of him; if he had any spite he would take it out on a gentleman. He thinks we are made of different clay from him." And the embryo republican threw back his shoulders impatiently.
"So we are," returned the other, with the Englishman's ingrained belief in caste; "but, to be sure, you feel it with some more than with others, with the young man more than with his father. But I like it better than the softly way the Colonel has. Stephen is more like his grandfather."
"His grandfather!" echoed the son. "Why, he was a—."
"Hush!" cried the other so suddenly and sharply that if the word had been, uttered at all Stephen lost it, though, now he was listening eagerly enough. "Do you remember you swore that you would never speak that word?"
"Well," returned the young man in a sullen tone, "if I did, what harm in saying it here with not a soul but you around? And my feeling is," he went on, "that this broken-off wedding is a judgment for his grandfather's—." He hesitated.
"When you learned it by accident, Nathan," returned his father, "you swore to satisfy me, that you would never speak the word in connection with him. Who knows what person may be round?" And he glanced cautiously about him. Stephen half resolved to confront him and force him to tell this secret. But the very quality in himself which the men had been discussing held him back until the opportunity had passed. "No, I don't want you to name it at all, Nathan. That is what you swore," continued the old man.
"You have said enough about it," retorted the younger. "I will keep my word, of course; you know that." His tone was loud with anger.
"Yes, yes, I know," said his companion, "But, you see, I was fond of the young master if he was a bit wild; he was a fine, free gentleman, though he changed very much after this—this accident and his coming over to the Colonies, which wasn't no ways suited to him like London, only he found it a good place to get rich in. You see, Nathan, it all happened this way; he told me about it his own self with tears in his eyes, as I might say, for his family,—he—."
But it was in vain that Stephen strained his ears, the voices that had not been drowned in the noise of footsteps had been growing fainter with distance, and now were lost altogether.
So there had been something in the family, thought Stephen, that he knew nothing about, something that his grandfather had done which this man, the son of his grandfather's butler, considered had brought down vengeance on Katie and himself as the grandchildren. The very suggestion oppressed him in this land of the Puritans, although he told himself that he believed neither in the vengeance nor even in the crime itself. But he had not dreamed of anything, anything at all, which had even shadowed the fair fame of the Archdales. Did his father know of it? Nothing that Stephen had ever seen in him looked like such knowledge, but that did not make the son quite sure, for the old butler's remark about the Colonel's suavity was just; his elaborate manners made Stephen almost brusque at times, and aroused a secret antagonism in both, so that they sometimes met one another with armor on, and Stephen's keen thrust would occasionally penetrate the shield which his father skilfully interposed between that and some fact.
That morning Stephen sank down upon a rock near by while his mind ranged over his recollections to find some clue to this mystery. But he found none. He was sure that his grandfather had never been referred to as being connected with anything secret, still less, disgraceful, or perhaps criminal. It was impossible to imagine where the old butler's idea came from, but it could not be founded upon truth. Yet, this snatch of talk which Stephen had heard made him curious and uncomfortable. And he knew that he must resign himself to feeling so; he could ask his father, to be sure, but he would get no satisfaction out of that; either the Colonel did not know, or, evidently he had resolved that there should seem to be nothing to tell. After all, it did not matter very much. His thoughts came back to his own position with almost wonder that anything could have drawn them away from it. While he sat there the baying of the hound drew nearer, and suddenly a rabbit started up from a bush on his right. He raised his gun, but instantly lowered it again. He had not moved, so it had not been he that had startled the rabbit, but the larger game that was following it. The little creature scampered away, and in another moment the fox which his dog had started ran past him. Again he raised his gun and took aim with a hand accustomed to bring down what he sighted. But to-day the gun dropped once more at his side, for here was a creature that wanted its life, that was straining for it. "Let him have the worthless gift if he values it," thought Archdale, feeling that the gun had better have been turned the other way in his hands. The fox disappeared after the rabbit, and in another moment Stephen rose with a sneer at himself, and turned toward home. Evidently, he could accomplish nothing that day, matters must have gone hard with him to make him lose even the nerve of a hunter. He whistled to his dog, but the hound had no intention of giving up the chase as his master had done, and rushed past in full cry. The young man left him to follow home at his pleasure, and walked along the road with a sombre face. Soon the sound of distant bells reached him. A minute after a sleigh appeared coming toward him from the vanishing point of the road that here ran straight through the woods for some distance. It made no difference to Stephen who was in the sleigh. As it came nearer and nearer he never even glanced at it, until as it was passing, some instinct, or perhaps eyes fixed upon him, made him look up. He started, stopped, bowed low, took off his fur cap with deference, holding it in his hand until the sleigh had gone slowly by. Then he turned and stood looking after it, the flush that had come suddenly to his face fading away as his eyes followed Katie Archdale's figure until it was lost to sight. He could see her clinging to her father's arm; he seemed to see her face before him for days, her face pale and sad, and so lovely. Neither had spoken. Mr. Archdale had not waited; what had they to say? Stephen had not really wished it; every thought was deeper than speech, and probably Katie, too, had preferred to go on. And yet to pass in this way—it was like their lives.
That afternoon he started for Boston. It was doing something. Edmonson who met him just arrived, need not have feared that he was going to Elizabeth. He was in the city only to prove that the frolic of that summer evening had been frolic merely, and that he was still free to follow that charming face that had passed him by, so reluctantly, he knew, in the woods.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]