Horses were suggested again. “You have other horses than Bet,” and Hugh was conscious of a pang which wrung from him a groan, for his horses were his idols, and parting with them would be like severing a right hand. It was too terrible to think about, and Hugh dismissed it as an alternative which might have to be considered another time. Then hope made her voice heard above the little blue imps tormenting him so sadly.
He should get along somehow. Something would turn up. Ad might marry and go away. He knew it was wrong, and yet he could not help thinking it would be nice to come home some day and not find her there, with her fault-finding, and her sarcastic remarks. What made her so different from his mother—so different from the little sister he always remembered with a throb of delight? He had loved her, and he thought of her now as she used to look in her dainty white frocks, with the strings of coral he had bought with nuts picked on the New England hills.
He used to kiss her chubby arms—kiss the rosy cheeks, and the soft brown hair. But that hair had changed sadly since the days when its owner had first lisped his name, and called him “Ugh,” for the bands and braids coiled around ’Lina’s head were black as midnight. Not less changed than ’Lina’s tresses was ’Lina herself, and Hugh had often felt like crying for the little baby sister, so lost and dead to him in her young womanhood. What had changed Ad so? To be sure he did not care much for females any way, but if Ad were half way decent, and would let him, he should love her, he presumed. Other young men loved their sisters. There was Bob Reynolds seemed to idolize his, crippled though she was, and he had mourned so bitterly, when she died, bending over her coffin, and kissing her white face. Would Hugh do so to Ad? He thought it very doubtful! though, he supposed, he should feel sorry and mourn some, but he’d bet he wouldn’t wear a very wide band of crape around his hat; he couldn’t afford it! Still he should remember all the harsh things he had said to her, and be so sorry.
There was many a tender spot in Hugh Worthington’s heart, and shadow after shadow flitted across his face as he thought how cheerless was his life, and how little there was in his surroundings to make him happy. Poor Hugh! It was a dreary picture he drew as he sat alone that night, brooding over his troubles, and listening to the moan of the wintry wind—the only sound he heard, except the rattling of the shutters and the creaking of the timbers, as the old house rocked in the December gale.
Suddenly there crept into his mind Adah’s words, “I shall pray for you to-night.” Would she? Had she prayed for him, and did prayers do any good? Was any one bettered by them? Golden Hair had thought so, and he was sure she had talked with God of him, but since the waters closed over her dear head, no one had remembered Hugh Worthington in that way, he was sure. But Adah would, and Hugh’s heart grew stronger as he thought of Adah praying for him. What would she say? How would she word it? He wished he knew, but prayer was strange to Hugh. He never prayed, and the Bible given by Golden Hair had not been opened this many a day, but he would do so now, and unlocking the trunk where it was hidden, he took it from its concealment and opened it reverently, half wondering what he should read first and if it would have any reference to his present position.
“Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these ye did it unto me.”
That was what Hugh read in the dim twilight, that, the passage on which the lock of hair lay, and the Bible dropped from his hands as he whispered,
“Golden Hair, are you here? Did you point that out to me? Does it mean Adah? Is the God you loved on earth pleased that I should care for her?”
To these queries, there came no answer, save the mournful wailing of the night wind roaring down the chimney and past the sleet-covered window, but Hugh was a happier man for reading that, and had there before existed a doubt as to his duty toward Adah, this would have swept it away. Bending closer to the fire, Hugh read the chapter through, wondering why he should feel so much better, and why the world looked brighter than it had an hour before. If it made folks feel so nice to read a little bit in the Bible, how would they feel to read it through? He meant to try and see, beginning at Genesis the very next night, and hiding his treasure away, Hugh sought his pillow just as the first greyish streak of daylight was beginning to show in the east.