CHAPTER V.
THE FALSE ACCUSATION.
Dorothy was not sorry to leave the old homestead. All the old associations that had endeared it to her, and surrounded its gloomy walls with an atmosphere of love, were broken up or changed so completely, that she could no longer recognize them. Even the joyous bark of old Pincher, rushing forth to greet her, on her return from church or market, had been silenced, oh, how cruelly. She could not bear to recall the treachery that had robbed her of an humble, faithful friend.
"I cannot recognize the presence of God in this place, as I once did," she thought, "where every word spoken to me is a provocative to evil, to do as they do, not to do as I would be done by. I have daily prayed to be delivered from evil, and kept from temptation, and have too often yielded to the snares laid to entrap my soul. It is hard to dwell with the scorner, and escape free from contamination."
She was just cording her trunk, ready for its removal to the parsonage, when Mrs. Gilbert suddenly entered the attic.
"I wish to look into that trunk before you take it away."
"May I ask why, Mrs. Gilbert Rushmere?"
"To see that you have taken nothing but what belongs to you."
"Certainly, if you are mean enough to suspect me of such baseness," and the hot blood rushed into Dorothy's cheeks, and her dark eyes flashed with a bright light, that made the cold flaxen haired woman recoil before them. "But hold," she cried (as Mrs. Gilbert laid her hand on the trunk,) "I shall not give you the key, except in the presence of competent witnesses, lest the heart that conceived such an insult should belie me also."
Springing down stairs, and scarcely feeling them beneath her feet, she encountered Gilbert in the hall.