Adam did not know what, and the very possibility that she might answer, as he sometimes feared, paled his bronzed cheek, and made him reel, as, walking to his blind mother’s chair, he knelt beside it, and prayed earnestly for grace to bear the happiness or sorrow there might be in store for him. In early youth, Adam had learned the source of all true peace, and now in every perplexity, however trivial, he turned to God, who was pledged to care for the child, trusting so implicitly in him.

“If it is right for Anna to be mine, give her to me, but, if she has sickened of me, oh, Father, help me to bear.”

This was Adam’s prayer, and when it was uttered, the pain and dread were gone, and the childlike man saw no cloud lowering on his horizon.

It was nearly time for him to be going now, if he would have Anna see the cottage by day-light, and hastening to the chamber he had occupied since he was a boy, he put on, not his wedding suit, for that was safely locked in his trunk, but his Sunday clothes, feeling a pardonable thrill of satisfaction when he saw how much he was improved by dress. Not that Adam Floyd was ever ill-looking. A stranger would have singled him out from a thousand. Tall, straight and firmly built, with the flush of perfect health upon his frank, open face, and the sparkle of intelligence in his dark brown eyes, he represented a rare type of manly beauty. He was looking uncommonly well, too, this afternoon, old Martha thought, as from the kitchen door she watched him passing down the walk and out into the road which lead to the red farm-house, where Deacon Burroughs lived, and where Anna was waiting for him.

CHAPTER II.
ANNA.

Waiting for him, we said, but not exactly as Adam Floyd should have been waited for. Never had a day seemed so long to her as that which to Adam had passed so quickly. Restless and wretched she had wandered many times from the garden to the brook, from the brook back to the garden, and thence to her own little chamber, from whose window, looking southward could be seen the chimney of the cottage, peeping through the trees. At this she looked often and long, trying to silence the faithful monitor within, whispering to her of the terrible desolation which would soon fall upon the master of that cottage, if she persisted in her cruel plan. Then she glanced to the northward, where, from the hill top, rose the pretentious walls of Castlewild, whose young heir had come between her and her affianced husband; then she compared them, one with the other—Adam Floyd with Herbert Dunallen—one the rich proprietor of Castlewild, the boyish man just of age, who touched his hat so gracefully, as in the summer twilight he rode in his handsome carriage past her father’s door, the youth, whose manners were so elegant, and whose hands were so white; the other, a mechanic, a carpenter by trade, who worked sometimes at Castlewild—a man unversed in etiquette as taught in fashion’s school, and who could neither dress, nor dance, nor flatter, nor bow as could Dunallen, but who she knew he was tenfold more worthy of her esteem. Alas, for Anna; though our heroine, she was but a foolish thing, who suffered fancy to rule her better judgment, and let her heart turn more willingly to the picture of Dunallen than to that of honest Adam Floyd, hastening on to join her.

“If he were not so good,” she thought, as with a shudder she turned away from the pretty little work-box he had brought her; “if he had ever given me an unkind word, or suspected how treacherous I am, it would not seem so bad, but he trusts me so much! Oh, Adam, I wish we had never met!” and hiding her face in her hands, poor Anna weeps passionately.

There was a hand upon the gate, and Anna knew whose step it was coming so cheerfully up the walk, and wondered if it would be as light and buoyant when she was gone. She heard him in their little parlor, talking to her mother, and, as she listened, the tones of his voice fell soothingly upon her ear, for there was music in the voice of Adam Floyd, and more than Anna had felt its quieting influence. It seemed cruel to deceive him so dreadfully, and in her sorrow Anna sobbed out,

“Oh, what must I do?” Once she thought to pray, but she could not do that now. She had not prayed aright since that first June night when she met young Herbert down in the beech grove, and heard him speak jestingly of her lover, saying “she was far too pretty and refined for such an odd old cove.” It had struck her then that this cognomen was not exactly refined, that Adam Floyd would never have called Dunallen thus, but Herbert’s arm was round her waist, where only Adam’s had a right to rest. Herbert’s eyes were bent fondly upon her, and so she forgave the insult to her affianced husband, and tried to laugh at the joke. That was the first open act, but since then she had strayed very far from the path of duty, until now she had half promised to forsake Adam Floyd and be Dunallen’s bride. That very day, just after sunset he would be waiting in the beech wood grove for her final decision. No wonder that with this upon her mind she shrank from meeting her lover, whom she knew to be the soul of truth and honor. And yet she must school herself to go with him over the house he had prepared for her with so much pride and care. Once there she would tell him, she thought, how the love she once bore him had died out from her heart. She would not speak of Herbert Dunallen but she would ask to be released, and he, the generous, unselfish man, would do her bidding.