"I knew it would come to this at last," she wrote. "I have acknowledged my error, and told him of my engagement with Rufus Malcome. It cost me a struggle, but I knew he must learn it from some source e'er long, and better from my lips than those of strangers. He will visit Wimbledon, and then, O horrible thought! I shall be the bride of another; for father tells me Col. Malcome is desirous the marriage should be consummated the approaching winter. I got a long, foolish letter from Rufus yesterday. O dear, how sick and sorry it made me! It is strange mother never writes. Col. Malcome says she is not as well as when we left, and this intelligence disposes father to hasten home. O, my poor bleeding heart! How soon this little day of happiness has past." She closed the book, and threw herself on the bed. After a while she fell asleep, and was roused by Ellen, knocking for admittance.
In the morning she met Edgar in the parlor with her father and young Williams, the three in earnest conversation about their proposed excursion to the Profile Mountain. He made her a distant bow. She returned to her room, and not the most urgent entreaties of her father could induce her to join the party. She pleaded a violent headache, and Ellen announced her resolve to remain with her. She cared nothing about the 'Old Man;' she would stay at home and nurse Florence. So the three gentlemen departed together, and in a few days the Howards had left the mountain region and set out for Wimbledon.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
"Once more the sound
Of human voices echoes in our ears;
And some commotion dire hath roused
The female ranks. Let's pause and learn
The drift of all this wordy war of tongues."
Back to the Mumbles, the Wimbles and Pimbles, and their clamorous voices again dinning in our ears. Will we ever be quit of them?
As cold weather approached, and the atmospheric thermometer descended to the freezing point, the philanthropic one mounted suddenly to blood heat.