"I have to implore your forgiveness for neglecting to obey as to the advertisement, but the truth is——" and he hesitated—"I have a plan. It may not meet with your concurrence," he added, "but I wished to submit it before you made other and irrevocable arrangements."
"You have thought of some position for me?" she forced herself to say, all the bloom and delight vanishing from her face.
"Yes. I know an individual who wants precisely such a person as you are, for—a wife."
"Colonel Pinckney!" she exclaimed indignantly.
"Do forgive me, dear Miss Featherstone. I am such a confounded poltroon"—and he seized her hands again—"that I dare not risk my fate; but that person is"—and he looked down upon her, his heart beating so violently that he could scarcely speak—"that person is—myself!"
Of what happened then Mrs. Pinckney, roused by her brother-in-law's return, was cognizant, for actually, in the open air, with her blue eyes bent eagerly upon them, he clasped the governess in his arms. "It is a fact accomplished!" cried the fair widow with a sigh, and sank back upon her pillows.
THE HOME OF THE GENTIANS.
There is a lonesome hamlet of the dead
Spread on a high ridge, up above a lake—
A quiet meadow-slope, unfrequented,
Where in the wind a thousand wild flowers shake.
But most of all, the delicate gentian here,
Serenely blue as the sweet eyes of Hope,
Doth prosper in th' untroubled atmosphere,
Where wide its fringèd eyelids love to ope.
You cannot set a foot upon the ground
On warm September noons, in this old croft,
But there some satiny blossom crushed is found,
Swift springing up to look again aloft.