"But you'll surely come to us again," Nellie said. "Jessie will be here. You'll want to visit her," and a tear trembled on her long eyelashes.
"I can see Jessie in the city, and if I come to Deerwood it will be you who brings me. Do you wish me to come and see you, Nellie?" and the dark, handsome face bent so low that the rich brown hair rested on the golden locks of the artless, innocent girl, who answered, in a whisper,
"Yes, I wish you to come."
"Then you must give me a kiss," he said, "as a surety of my welcome, and when the trees on the mountain where we have been so happy together are casting their dense leaves in the autumn, I will surely be with you again."
The kiss was given—not one—not two—but many, for William Bellenger was greedy, and his lips had never touched aught so pure and sweet before.
"I wouldn't tell Walter that I'm coming," he said, "for he does not like me, I fancy, and I cannot bear to have him prejudice you against me. I wouldn't tell my mother either, or any one——"
"Not Jessie?" Ellen asked, for she had a kind of natural pride in wishing her friend to know that she, who never aspired to notice of any kind, had succeeded in pleasing the fastidious William Bellenger.
"No, not Jessie," he said, "because,—well, because you better not," and knowing well his power over the timid girl, he felt sure that his wishes would be regarded, and with another good-by, he left her.
He had hoped that Jessie would be induced to accompany him to New York, and as there was a secret understanding between himself and Mrs. Bartow, the old lady had written, entreating her granddaughter to return with William.
"You have stayed in the country long enough," she wrote, "and I dare say you are as sunburnt and freckled as you can be, so pray come home. Everybody is gone, I know, and New York is just like Sunday, while I stay like a guilty thing in the rear of the house, to make folks think I'm off to some watering place. I wouldn't for the world let old Mrs. Reeves know that I have been cooped up here the blessed summer. It's all owing to your obstinacy, too, and I think you ought to come back and entertain me. Mr. Bellenger will attend to you, and you couldn't ask for a more desirable companion. Old Mrs. Reeves says he is the most eligible match in the city, his family are so aristocratic. There isn't a single mechanic or working person in the whole line, for she spent an entire season in tracing back their ancestry, finding but one blot, and that an unfortunate marriage of a Miss Ellen Bellenger with some ignorant country loafer she met at boarding-school, and who she says was hung, or sent to State prison, I forgot which. I am sorry she discovered this last, as in case you cut out Charlotte, and of course you will, it will be like the spiteful old wretch to blazon it abroad, though William ain't to blame, of course."