Lance was excited, evidently. The drawing shook in his hand. "No," he said; "nothing wrong. Quite the contrary. It's exactly like her in some ways."
"You don't look crazy, Lance; but how can you possibly know whether it's like or not?"
"Oh, I mean—I forgot; you never saw Adela—Miss Jessie, I mean."
"No," said Hedson. "I take, now. Like her, eh?"
Lance nodded silently. To him the picture resembled Adela more than Jessie.
CHAPTER XI.
LANCE RETURNS.
April, coming to thaw the ice on Northern streams, and to mould the first buds that started out timidly as a young artist's efforts at creation, also dissolved the spell of solitude which had so long encompassed Jessie.
Lance was ready to build the paper-mill, and had written that he would take the rail southward as soon as possible. It had been agreed at Christmas-time that the wedding should come off in May or June. Activity began in the turpentine plantation; the trees were "boxed" and "tapped;" the sap commenced to flow. The air grew milder, the stars shone with a more hazy lustre in the night heavens, and birds renewed their notes in the thickets about the manor, or flew with transient greetings over the lonely land, on their mission of heralding the return of spring to higher latitudes. But Jessie could not rid herself of the mournfulness and the partial lethargy that had so long clung to her. She knew that Lance was coming, and her heart throbbed the more warmly: she waited eagerly to feel his arms clasped round her. Yet a lingering fear persuaded her that the happiness might still be deferred or, in the end, frustrated.