Mrs. Flint found out that the desire of the woman’s heart was to have a snug little fortune of her own, and she would never have a good opinion of the Lord until her desire was gratified.
One day, while she was looking out of the front window, she saw Arthur Varian going past in a sleigh with his mother, the silver bells ringing out gayly as they sped over the snow, while their rich fur robes and seal-skin garments gave evidence of their wealth and position.
“Who are those grand, rich people?” she asked, enviously.
Mrs. Flint told her, and added with pardonable pride, that the young man had been a suitor for Cinthia’s hand, but her father had separated the lovers.
“He was very foolish, unless he had some good reason,” exclaimed Rachel Dane.
“He did not have any good reason that I could find out,” returned Mrs. Flint; adding, regretfully: “It would have been a splendid match for Cinthia. I have heard that Arthur’s grandfather, a Southern planter, left him a million dollars in his own right.”
“I wish I knew how to get some of it from him!” murmured Rachel Dane, gazing with covetous eyes after the vanishing sleigh with its fortunate occupants.
And no thought crossed her mind that she was the possessor of a secret that the rich Arthur Varian would have sacrificed his whole great fortune to know.
CHAPTER XXII.
WHEN YEARS HAD FLED.
“I thought of thee—I thought of thee,