CHAPTER V.

The morning light found her kneeling thus, with her cheek resting on his hand, which, in her tender unconsciousness, she had stolen and hidden away there.CHAPTER V.CONFESSING HIS LOVE.NORSTON'S REST" was now in a state of comparative quiet. The throng of visitors that had made the place so brilliant had departed, and, for the first time in months, Sir Noel could enjoy the company of his son with a feeling of restfulness; for now the discipline of school and college lay behind the young man, and he was ready to begin life in earnest. After travelling a while on the continent he had entered upon the dignity of heir-ship with all the pomp and splendor of a great ovation, into which he had brought so much of kindly memory and generous purpose that his popularity almost rivalled the love and homage with which his father was regarded.Sir Noel was a proud man—so proud that the keenest critic must have failed to discover one trace of the arrogant self-assumption that so many persons are ready to display as a proof of superiority. With Sir Noel this feeling was a delicate permeation of his whole being, natural to it as the blue blood that flowed in his veins, and as little thought of. Profound self-respect rendered encroachment on the reserve of another simply impossible. During the stay of his son at "The Rest" one fond hope had possessed the baronet, and that grew out of his intense love of two human beings that were dearest to him on earth—the young heir and Lady Rose Hubert.It could not be asserted that ambition led to this wish; though the lady's rank was of the highest, and she was the inheritor of estates that made her a match even for the heir of "Norston's Rest." The baronet in the isolationof his long widowerhood had found in this fair girl all that he could have desired in a daughter of his own. Her delicacy of bloom and beauty appealed to his æsthetic taste. Her gayety and the spirituelle sadness into which it sometimes merged gave his home life a delightful variety. He could not think of her leaving "The Rest" without a pang such as noble-hearted fathers feel when they give away their daughters at the altar. To Sir Noel, Lady Rose was the brightest and most perfect being on earth, and the great desire of his heart was that she should become his daughter in fact, as she already was in his affections.Filled with this hope he had watched with some anxiety for the influence this young lady's loveliness might produce upon his son, without in any way intruding his wishes into the investigation; for, with regard to the perfect freedom which every heart should have to choose a companionship of love for itself, this old patrician was peculiarly sensitive. Having in his own early years suffered, as few men ever had, by the uprooting of one great hope, he was peculiarly anxious that no such abiding calamity should fall on the only son and heir of his house, but he was not the less interested in the choice that son might make when the hour of decision came. With all his liberality of sentiment it had never entered the thoughts of the baronet that a man of his race could choose ignobly, or look beneath the rank in which he was born. To him perfect liberty of choice was limited, by education and family traditions, to a selection among the highest and the best in his own proud sphere of life. Thus it became possible that his sentiments, uttered under this unexplained limitation, might be honestly misunderstood.Some months had passed since the young heir had taken up his home at "The Rest"—pleasant months to the baronet, who had looked forward to this period with the longing affection which centred everything of love and pride on this one human being that man can feel for man. At first it had been enough of happiness that his son was there, honored, content—with an unclouded and brilliant future before him—but human wishes are limitless, and the strong desire that the young man should anchor his heart where his own wishes lay grew into a pleasant belief. How could it be otherwise, when two beings so richly endowed were brought into the close companionship of a common home?One day, when the father and son chanced to be alone in the grand old library, where Sir Noel spent so much of his time, the conversation seemed naturally to turn upon some future arrangements regarding the estate."It has been a pleasant burden to me so far," said the old gentleman, "because every day made the lands a richer inheritance for you and your children; but now I am only waiting for one event to place the heaviest responsibility on your young shoulders.""You mean," said the young man, flushing a little, "that you would impose two burdens upon me at once—a vast estate and some lady to preside over the old house."The baronet smiled, and answered with a faint motion of the head.Then the young man answered, laughingly:"There is plenty of time for that. I have everything to learn before so great a trust should be given me. As for the house, no one could preside there better than the Lady Rose."The baronet's face brightened."No," he said, "we could hardly expect that. In all England it would be difficult to find a creature so lovely and so well fitted to the position."Sir Noel faltered as he concluded this sentence. He had not intended to connect the idea of this lady so broadly with his wishes. To his refined nature it seemed as if her dignity had been sacrificed."She is, indeed, a marvel of beauty and goodness," answered the young man, apparently unmindful of the words that had disturbed his father. "I for one am in no haste to disturb her reign at 'Norston's Rest'."Sir Noel was about to say: "But it might be made perpetual," but the sensitive delicacy natural to the man checked the thought before it formed itself into speech."Still it is in youth that the best foundations for domestic happiness are laid. I look upon it as a great misfortune when circumstances forbid a man to follow the first and freshest impulses of his heart—"Here the baronet broke off, and a deep unconscious sigh completed the sentence.Young Hurst looked at his father with awakened interest. The expression of sadness that came over those finely-cut features made him thoughtful. He remembered that Sir Noel had entered life a younger son, and that he had not left the army to take possession of his title and estates until after mid-age. He could only guess at the romance of success or disappointment that might have gone before; but even that awoke new sympathy in the young man's heart for his father."I can hardly think that there is any time of life for which a man has power to lay down for himself certain rules of action," he said. "To say that any man will or will not marry at any given period is to suppose him capable of great control over his own best feelings.""You are right," answered Sir Noel, with more feeling than he usually exhibited. "The time for a man to marry is when he is certainly in love.""And the person?" questioned the young man, with a strange expression of earnestness in his manner."Ah! The person that he does love."Sir Noel, thinking of his ward, was not surprised to see a flood of crimson rush over the young man's face, nor offended when he arose abruptly and left the library.CHAPTER VI.CONFESSIONS OF LOVE.THEbaronet might, however, have been surprised had he seen Walton Hurst pass the Lady Rose on the terrace, only lifting his hat in recognition of her presence as he hurried into the park."He guesses at my madness, or, at the worst, he will forgive it," ran through his thoughts as he took a near route toward the wilderness, "and she—ah, I have been cruel in this strife to conquer myself. My love, my beautiful wild-bird! It will be sweet to see her eyes brighten and her mouth tremble under a struggle to keep back her smiles."Thoughts like these occupied the young man until he stood before the gardener's cottage, and looked eagerly into the porch, hoping to see something besides the birds fluttering under the vines. He was disappointed: no one was there; but glancing through the oriel window he saw a gleam of warm color and the dejected droop ofa head, that might have grown weary with looking out of the window; for it fell lower and lower, as if two unsteady hands were supporting the face. Hurst trod lightly over the turf, holding his breath, lifted the latch and stole into the little parlor in which the girl, we have once seen in the porch, was sitting disconsolately, as she had done hours each day through a lonely week."Ruth!"The girl sprang to her feet, uttering a little cry of delight. Then an impulse of pride seized upon the heart that was beating so wildly, and she drew back, repudiating her own gladness."I hoped to find you here and alone," he said, holding out both hands with a warmth that astonished her; for she shrunk back and looked at him wonderingly."I have been away so long, and all the time longing to come; nay, nay, I will not have that proud lift of the head; for, indeed, I deserve a brighter welcome."The girl had done her best to be reserved and cold, but how could she succeed with those pleading eyes upon her—those two hands searching for hers?"It is so long, so long," she said, with sweet upbraiding in her eyes; "father has wondered why you did not come. It is very cruel neglecting him so."Hurst smiled at her pretty attempt at subterfuge; for he really had not spent much of his time in visiting Jessup, though the gardener had been a devoted friend during his boyhood, and truly believed that it was old remembrances that brought the young man so often to his cottage."I fancy your father will not have missed me very much," he said."But he does; indeed, indeed he does.""And you cared nothing?"Ruth dropped her eyelids, and he saw that tears were swelling under them. Selfishly watching her emotion until the long black lashes were wet, he lifted her hands suddenly to his lips and kissed them, with passionate warmth.She struggled, and wrenched her hands away from him."You must not—you must not: father would besoangry.""Not if he knew how much I love you."She stood before him transfigured; her black eyes opened wide and bright, her frame trembled, her hands were clasped."You love me—you?""Truly, Ruth, and dearly as ever man loved woman," was the earnest, almost solemn, answer.The girl turned pale, even her lips grew white."I dare not let you," she said, in a voice that was almost a whisper. "I dare not.""But how can you help it?" said Hurst, smiling at her terror."How can I help it?"The girl lifted her hands as if to ward him away. This announcement of his love frightened her. A sweet unconscious dream that had neither end nor beginning in her young experience had been rudely broken up by it."You tremble—you turn pale. Is it because you cannot love me, Ruth?""Love you—love you?" repeated the girl, in wild bewilderment. "Oh, God! forgive me—forgive me! I do, I do!"Her face was one flame of scarlet now, and she covered it with her hands—shame, terror, and a great ecstasy of joy seized upon her."Let me go, let me go, I cannot bear it," she pleaded, at length. "I dare not meet my father after this.""But I dare take your hand in mine and say to him, as one honorable man should say to another: 'I love this girl, and some day she shall become my wife.'""Your wife!""I did not know till now the sweetness that lies in a single word. Yes, Ruth, when a Hurst speaks of love he speaks also of marriage.""No, no, that can never be—Sir Noel, Lady Rose, my father—you forget them all!""No, I forget nothing. Sir Noel is generous, and he loves me. You have always been a favorite with Lady Rose. As for your father—""He would die rather than drag down the old family like that. My father, in his way, is proud as Sir Noel. Besides—besides—""Well, what besides?""He has promised. He and John Storms arranged it long ago.""Arranged what, Ruth?""That—that I should some day be mistress of the farm.""Mistress of the farm—and you?""Oh, Mr. Hurst! it breaks my heart to think of it, but father's promise was given when I did not care so much, and I let it go on without rebelling."Ruth held out her hands, imploringly, as she said this, but Hurst turned away from her, and began to pace up and down the little parlor, while she shrunkinto the recess of the window, and watched him timidly through her tears. At last he came up to her, blaming his own anger."This must never be, Ruth!""You do not know what a promise is to my father," said the girl, with piteous helplessness."Yes, I do know; but this is one he shall not keep."Once more the young man took the hands she dared not offer him again, and pressed them to his lips. Then he went away full of anger and perplexity.Ruth watched him through the window till his tall figure was lost in the windings of the path; then she ran up to her own little room, and throwing herself on the bed, wept until tears melted away her trouble, and became an exquisite pleasure. The ivy about the window shed a lovely twilight around her, and the shadows of its trembling leaves tinted the snowy whiteness of the pillow on which her cheek rested, with fairy-like embroidery. The place was like heaven to her. Here this young girl lay, thrilled heart and soul by the first passion of her womanhood. This feeling that burned on her cheek, and swelled in her bosom, was a delicious insanity. There was no hope in it—no chance for reason, but Hurst loved her, and that one thought filled the moment with joy.With her hands clasped over her bosom, and her eyes closed in the languor of subsiding emotion, she lay as in a dream, save that her lips moved, as red rose-leaves stir when the rain falls on them, but all that they uttered was, "He loves me—he loves me."If a thought of her father or of Richard Storms came to mar her happiness, she thrust it away, still murmuring, "He loves me. He loves me."After a time she began to reason, to wonder that this one man, to whom the giving of her childish admiration had seemed an unpardonable liberty, could have thought of her at all, except as he might give a moment's attention to the birds and butterflies that helped to make the old place pleasant. How could he—so handsome, so much above all other gentlemen of his own class—think of her while Lady Rose was near in all the splendor of her beauty and the grace of a high position!"Was it that she was also beautiful?"When this question arose in her mind, Ruth turned upon her pillow, and, half ashamed of the movement, looked into a small mirror that hung on the opposite wall. What she saw there brought a smile to her mouth and the flash of diamonds to the blackness of her eyes."Not like the Lady Rose," she thought, "not fair and white like her; but he loves me! He loves me!"CHAPTER VII.JUDITH.RUTH JESSUPwas indeed more deeply pledged to Richard Storms than she was herself aware of. The old farmer and Jessup had been fast friends for years when these young people were born, and almost from the first it had become an understanding between them that their families should be united in these children. The two fathers had saved money in their hard-working and frugal lives, which was to lift the youngpeople into a better social class than the parents had any wish to occupy, and each had managed to give to his child a degree of education befitting the advancement looked forward to in their future.Young Richard had accepted this arrangement with alacrity when he was old enough to comprehend its advantages, for, of all the maidens in that neighborhood, Ruth Jessup was the most beautiful; and what was equally important to him, even in his boyhood, the most richly endowed. As for the girl herself, the importance of this arrangement had never been a subject of serious consideration.Bright, gay, and happy in her nest-like home, she accepted this lad as a special playmate in her childhood, and had no repugnance to his society after that, so long as more serious things lay in the distance. Brought up with those habits of strict obedience so commendable in the children of English parents, she accepted without question the future that had seemed most desirable to her father, who loved her, as she well knew, better than anything on earth.Indeed, there had been a time in her immature youth when the presence of young Storms filled all the girlish requirements of her life. Nay, as will sometimes happen, the very dash and insolence of his character had the charm of power for her; but since then the evil of his nature had developed into action, while her judgment, refined and strengthened, began to revolt from the traits that had seemed so bold and manly in the boy.Jessup had himself been somewhat displeased by the idle habits of the young man, and had expostulated with the father on the subject so directly that Richard was put on a sort of probation after his escapade at the hunt,and found his presence at the gardener's cottage less welcome than it had been, much to his own disgust."I have given up the dogs and nursed that lame brute as if I had been his grandmother—what more can any reasonable man want?" he said one day when Jessup had looked coldly on him."If you would win favor with daughter Ruth, my lad, go less with that gang at 'The Two Ravens,' and turn a hand to help the old father. When that is done there will always be a welcome for you; but my lass has no mother to guide her, and I must take extra care that she does not match herself illy. Wait a while, and let us see the upshot of things.""Is it that you take back your word?" questioned Richard, anxiously."Take back my word! Am I a man to ask that question of? No, no; I was glad about the terriers, and shall not be sorry to see you on the back of the horse when he is well, for he is a fair hunter and worth money; but daughter Ruth has heard of these things, and it'll be well to keep away for a bit till they have time to get out of her mind.""I'll be sure to remember what you say, and do nothing to anger any one," said Storms, with more concession than Jessup expected, and the young man rode away burning with resentment."So I am to be put in a corner with a finger in my mouth till this pretty sweetheart of mine thinks fit to call me out of punishment. As if there were no other inn but 'The Two Ravens,' and no other lass worth making love to but her! Now, that the hunter is on his feet again, I'll take care that she'll know little of what I am doing."This conversation happened a few days after the hunt. Since that time Storms had never been heard of at the "Two Ravens," and his name had begun to be mentioned with respect in the village, much to Jessup's satisfaction.Occasionally, however, the young man was seen mounted on the hunter, and dressed like a gentleman, riding off into the country on business for his father. The people who met him believed this, and they gave him credit for the change that a few weeks had wrought.Was it instinct in the animal, or premeditation in his rider that turned the hunter upon the old track the first time he was taken from the stable? Certain it is that Richard Storms rode him leisurely up the long hill and by the lane which led to the dilapidated house he had visited on the day of his misfortune, but without calling at the house.After he had pursued this course a week or more, riding slowly in full view of the porch, until he was certain that one of its inmates had seen him, he turned from the road one day, left his horse under a chestnut tree that grew in the lane, and sauntered down the weedy path toward the house.Looking eagerly forward, he saw Judith Hart in the porch. She was standing on a small wooden bench, with both arms uplifted and bare to the shoulders. Evidently the unpruned vines had broken loose, and she was tying them up again.As she heard the sound of hoofs the girl stooped down and looked through the vines with eager curiosity.She jumped down from the bench as she recognized the young man, a vivid flush of color coming into her face and a sparkle of gladness in her eyes. If he had forgotten that day when the first cup of milk was given, she had not.At first a smile parted her red lips; then a sullen cloud came over her, and she turned her back, as if about to enter the house, at which he laughed inly, and walked a little faster until a new mood came over her, and she stood shyly before him on the porch, playing with the vine leaves, a little roughly; yet, under all this affectation, she was deeply agitated."I have come," he said, mounting the broken steps of the porch, "for another glass of water. You look cross, and would not give me a cup of milk if I asked for it ever so humbly.""There is water in the well, if you choose to draw it," answered the girl, turning her face defiantly upon him. "I had forgotten all about the other.""And about me too, I dare say?""You! Ah, now, that I look again, you have been here before. One cannot remember forever."Storms might have been deceived but for the swift blushes that swept that face, and the smile that would not be suppressed."I have been so busy," he said; "and this is an out-of-the-way place."Out-of-the-way place! Why, Judith had seen him ride by a dozen times without casting his eyes toward the poor house she lived in, and each time with a swift pang at the heart; but she would have died rather than let him know it, having a fair amount of pride in her nature, crude as it was."Will you come in?" she said, after an awkward pause.The young man lifted his hat and accepted this half-rude invitation.He did draw water from the well that day, while Judithstood by with a glass in her hand, exulting while she watched him toil at the windlass, as she had done when he asked for a drink. Some vague idea of a woman's dignity had found exaggerated development since that time in Judith's nature, and though she dipped the water from the bucket, and held it sparkling toward him, it was with the air of an Indian princess, scorning toil, but offering hospitality. She was piqued with the man, and would not seem too glad that he had come back again."There is no water in all the valley like that in your well," he said, draining the glass and giving it back with a smile; "no view so beautiful as that which strikes the river yonder and looks up the gorge. There must be pleasant walks in that direction.""There the river is awful deep, and a precipice shelves over it ever so high. I love to sit there sometimes, though it makes most people dizzy.""Some day you will show me the place?""Oh, it is found easy enough. A foot-path is worn through the orchard. Everybody knows the way.""Still, I shall come to-morrow, and you will show it to me?"The color rose in Judith's face."No," she said; "I shall have work to do."There was pride, as well as a dash of coquetry, in this. Judith resented the time that had been lost, and the forgetfulness that had wounded her.Perhaps it was this seeming indifference that inspired new admiration in the young man. Perhaps it was the unusual bloom of beauty dawning upon her that reminded him vividly of Ruth Jessup; for the same richness of complexion was there—the dark eyes and heavy tresses with that remarkable purple tinge that onesees but once or twice in a lifetime. Certain it is, he came again, and from that time the change in Judith, body and soul, grew positive, like the swift development of a tropical plant.CHAPTER VIII.WAITING FOR HIM.JUDITHstood within her father's porch once more—this time leaning forward eagerly, shading her eyes with one hand, and looking from under it in an attitude of intense expectation.As she waited there, with fire on her cheeks and longing in her eyes, the change that a few months had made was marvellous. Those eyes, at first boldly bright, were now like velvet or fire, as tenderness or passion filled them. She had grown taller, more graceful, perhaps a little less vigorous in her movements; but in spirit and person the girl was vividly endowed with all that an artist would have desired for a picture of her own scriptural namesake Judith.This question was on her lips and in her eyes: "Will he come alone? Oh, will he come alone?"Was it her father she was watching for, and did she wish him to come alone? If she expected that, why were those scarlet poppies burning in the blackness of her hair? Why had she put on that chintz dress with tufts of wild flowers glowing on a maroon ground?—all cheap in themselves, but giving richness of color to match that of her person. Her father had gone to bedsupperless one night because the money for that knot of red ribbon on her bosom had been paid to a pedlar who cajoled her into the purchase.Evidently some one besides the toiling old man was expected. Judith never in her life had waited so anxiously for him. There was a table set out in the room she had left, on which a white cloth was spread; a glass dish of blackberries stood on this table, and by it a pitcher-full of milk, mantled temptingly with cream.Does any one suppose that Judith had arranged all this for the father whom she had sent supperless to bed only a few days before, because of her longing for the ribbon that flamed on her bosom?No, no; Richard Storms had made good use of his opportunities. Riding his blood-horse, or walking leisurely, he had mounted that hill almost every day since his second visit to the old house.I have said that a great change had taken place in Judith's person. Indeed, there was something in her face that startled you. Until a few months since her deepest feelings had been aroused by some sensational romance; but now all the poetry, all the imagination and rude force of her nature were concentrated in a first grand passion. Females like Judith, left to stray into life untaught and unchecked—through the fervor of youth—inspired by ideas that spring out of their own boundless ignorance, sometimes startle one with a sudden development of character.As a tropical sun pours its warmth into the bosom of an orange tree, ripening its fruit before the blossoms fall, first love had awakened the strong, even reckless nature of this girl, and inspired all the latent elements of acharacter formed like the garden in which we first saw her, where fruit, weeds, and flowers struggled for life together. Without method or culture, these elements concentrated to mar or brighten her future life.For a while after that second visit of Storms, Judith had held her independence bravely. When the young man came, she was full of quaint devices for his entertainment, bantering him all the time with good-natured audacity, which he liked. She took long rambles with him down the hillside, rather proud that the neighbors should witness her conquest, but without a fear, or even thought, of the scandal it might occasion.Sometimes they sat hours together under the orchard-trees, where she would weave daisy-chains or impatiently tear up the grass around her as he became tender or tantalizing in his speech.For a time her voice—a deep, rich contralto—filled the whole house as it went ringing to and fro, like the joyous out-gush of a mocking-bird, for in that way she gave expression to the pride and glory that possessed her.The girl told her father nothing of this, but kept it hoarded in her heart with the secret of her novel-reading. But he saw that she grew brighter and more cheerful every day, that her curt manner toward himself had become almost caressing, and that the house had never been so well cared for before. So he thanked God for the change, and went to his work more cheerfully.No, it was not for the old father that worshipped her that Judith stood on the porch that day. The meagre affection she felt for him was as nothing to the one grand passion that had swallowed up everything but the intense self-love that it had warmed into unwholesome vigor.She was only watching for her father because of her hope that another and a dearer one was coming with him."Dear me, it seems as if the sun would never set!" she exclaimed, stepping impatiently down from the wooden stool. "What shall I do till they come? I wonder, now, if there would be time to run out and pick a few more berries? The dish isn't more than half full, and father hinted that some were getting ripe on the bushes by the lower wall. I've a good mind to go and see. I hate to have them look skimpy in the dish. Anyway I'll just get my sun-bonnet and try. Father seemed to think that I might pick them for our tea. As if I'd a-gone out in the hot sun for the best father that ever lived! But let him think so if he wants to. One may as well please the poor old soul once in a while."Judith went into the kitchen, took a bowl from the table, and hurried down toward the orchard-fence, where she found some wild bushes clambering up the stonework, laden with fruit. A flock of birds fluttered out from the bushes at her approach, each with his bill stained blood-red and his feathers in commotion.Judith laughed at their musical protests, and fell to picking the ripe berries, staining her own lips with the largest and juiciest now and then, as if to tantalize the little creatures, who watched her longingly from the boughs of a neighboring apple tree.All at once a shadow fell upon the girl, who looked up and saw that the golden sunshine was dying out from the orchard."Dear me, they may come any minute!" she said, shaking up the berries in her bowl. "A pretty fix I should be in then, with my mouth all stained up and my hair every which way; but it is just like me!"Away the girl went, spilling her berries as she ran. Leaving them in the kitchen, she hurried up to her own room and gave herself a rapid survey in the little seven-by-nine looking-glass that hung on the wall."Well, if it wasn't me, I should almost think that face was going to be handsome one of these days," she thought, striving to get a better look at herself by a not ungraceful bend of the neck. The mirror took in her head and part of the bust on which the scarlet ribbon flamed. The face was radiant. The eyes full of happy light, smiled upon her until dimples began to quiver about the mouth, and she laughed outright.The beautiful gipsy in the glass laughed too, at which Judith darted away and ran down-stairs in swift haste, for she heard footsteps on the porch, and her heart leaped to meet them.CHAPTER IX.THE NEXT NEIGHBOR.PANTINGfor breath, radiant with hope, Judith flung the door open.A woman stood upon the porch, looking up at a wren that was shooting in and out among the vines, chirping and fluttering till all the blossoms seemed alive.Judith fell back with a hostile gesture, holding the door in her hand. "Is it you?" she asked, curtly enough."Just me, and nobody else," answered the woman, quite indifferent to the frowns on that young face. "Hurriedthrough my work early, and thought I'd just run over and see how you got along.""Oh, I am doing well enough.""But you never come round to see us now. Neighbors like us ought to be a little more sociable.""I've had a great deal to attend to," answered Judith, still holding on to the door."Nothing particular just now, is there? Got nobody inside that you'd rather a next-door neighbor shouldn't see—have you?" questioned the woman, with a keen flash of displeasure in her eyes."What do you mean, Mrs. Parsons?""Oh, nothing; only I ought to know that chintz dresses of the best, and red ribbons fluttering around one like butterflies, ain't, as a general thing, put on for run-in callers such as I am. I begin to think, Judith, that what everybody is saying has more truth in it than I, as an old friend, would ever allow."Judith turned as if to close the door and shut the intruder out; for the girl was so angry and disappointed that she did not even attempt to govern her actions. The woman had more patience."Don't do that, Judith; don't, now; for you will be shutting that door in the face of the best friend you've got—one that comes kindly to say her say to your face, but stands up for you through thick and thin behind your back!""Stands up for me! What for?" questioned the girl, haughtily, but checking a swift movement to cover the knot of ribbon with her hand. "What is it to you or any one else what I wear?""Oh, nothing—nothing; of course not; only, having no mother to look after you, some of the neighbors feelanxious, and the rest talk dreadfully. I have eyes as well as other people, but I never told a mortal how often I have seen you and—you know who—sitting in the orchard, hours on hours, when the old man was out to work. That isn't my way; but other people have eyes, and the best of 'em will talk."Judith's face was crimson now, and her black eyes shot fire; but she forced herself to laugh."Well, let them talk; little I care about it!""But you ought to care, Judith Hart, if it's only for your father's sake. Somebody'll be telling him, next."A look of affright broke through the fire in Judith's eyes, and her voice was somewhat subdued as she answered:"But what can they tell him or any one else? Come in and tell me what they say; not that I care, only for the fun of laughing at it. Come in, Mrs. Parsons!"Mrs. Parsons stepped within the hall and sat down in the only chair it contained, when she took off her sun-bonnet and commenced to fan herself with it, for the good woman was heated both by her walk across the fields and the curbed anger which Judith's rudeness had inspired."Laugh!" she said, at last. "I reckon you'll laugh out of the other side of your mouth one of these days! Talk like this isn't a thing that you or your father can afford to put up with.""People had better let my father alone! He is as good a man as ever lived, every inch of him, if he does go out to days' work for a living!""That he is!" rejoined Mrs. Parsons; "which is the reason why no one has told him what was going on.""But whatisgoing on?" questioned Judith, with anair that would have been disdainful but for the keen anxiety that broke through all her efforts."That which I have seen with my own eyes I will speak of. The young man who stops each week at the public-house yonder comes up the hill too often; people have begun to watch for him, and the talk grows stronger every day. I don't join in; but most of the neighbors seem to think that you are on the highway to destruction, and are bound to break your father's heart.""Indeed!" sneered Judith, white with wrath."They say the young fellow left a bad character behind him, and that his visits mean no good to any honest girl, especially a poor workingman's child, who lives from hand to mouth.""Does my father owe them anything?" demanded Judith, fiercely."Not as I know of; but the long and the short of it is, Judith, people will talk so long as that person keeps coming here. A girl without a mother can't spend hours on hours with a strange young man without having awful things said about her; that's what I came to warn you of.""There was no need of coming. Of course, I expected all the girls to be jealous, and their mothers, too, because Mr. Storms passed their doors without calling," answered Judith."That is just where it is. People say that the father is a fore-handed man, and keeps half a dozen hands to work on his place. This young fellow is an only son. Now, is it likely, Judith, that he means anything straight-forward in coming here so much?"Mrs. Parsons said this with a great deal of motherly feeling, which was entirely thrown away upon Judith,who felt the sting of her words through all the kindness of their utterance."As if Mr. Storms was not old enough and clever enough to choose for himself," she said."That's the worst of it, Judith. Every one is saying that, after making his choice, he's no business coming here to fasten scandal on you.""It isn't he that fastens scandal on me, but the vile tongues of the neighbors, that are always flickering venom on some one. So it may as well be me as another. I'm only astonished that they will allow that he has made a choice.""Made a choice! Why, everybody knows, that he's engaged to be married!""Engaged to be married!"A rush of hot color swept Judith's face as these words broke from her lips, but to retreat slowly, leaving a cold pallor behind."Just that. Engaged to be married to a girl who lives neighbor to his father's place—one who has plenty of money coming and wonderful good looks," said the woman."I don't believe it. I know better! There isn't a word of truth in what any of them says," retorted Judith, with fierce vehemence, while a baleful fire broke into her eyes that fairly frightened her visitor."Well, I had nothing to do with it. Every word may be a slander, for anything I know.""It is a slander, I'll stake my life on it—a mean, base slander, got up out of spite? But who said it? Where did the story come from? I want to know that!""Oh, people are constantly going back and forth from 'Norston's Rest,' who put up at the public-house at thefoot of the hill, where he leaves his horse. All agree in saying the same thing. Then the young man himself only smiles when he is asked about it.""Of course, he would smile. I don't see how he could keep from laughing outright at such talk."Notwithstanding her disdainful words, Judith was greatly disturbed. The color had faded even from her lips. Her young life knew its keenest pang when jealousy, with one swift leap, took possession of her heart and soul and tortured them. But the girl was fiery and brave even in her anguish. She would not yield to it in the presence of her visitor, who might watch and report."They tell you that my father does not know when Mr. Storms comes here. That, you will find, is false as the rest. He is coming home with father this afternoon. I thought it was them when you came in. Look, I have just set out the table. Wait a while, and you will see them coming down the lane together."Judith flung open the parlor-door as she spoke, and Mrs. Parsons went in. Never had that room taken such an air of neatness within the good woman's memory. The table-cloth was spotless; the china unmatched, but brightly clean; the uncarpeted floor had been scoured and the cobwebs were all swept away. The open fireplace was crowded with leaves and coarse garden flowers."Well, I'm glad that I can say that much, anyway," said the good woman, looking around with no little admiration. "What a nack you have got, Judith! Just to think that a few branches from the hedge can do all that! I'll go right home and tell my girls about it.""Not yet—not till you have seen father and Mr. Storms come in to tea, as they are sure to do before long. The neighbors are so anxious to know about it that I want them to have it from good authority."Judith had not recovered from her first exasperation, and spoke defiantly, not at all restrained by a latent fear that her father might come alone.Mrs. Parsons had made her way to a window, where the wren she had taken so much interest in was twittering joyously among the vine-leaves.The great anxiety that possessed Judith drew her to the window also, where she stood trembling with dread and burning with wrath. She had been informed before that damaging rumors were abroad with regard to Storms' stolen visits, and it was agreed upon between her and the young man that he should in some natural way seek out old Mr. Hart, and thus obtain a legitimate right to visit the house.The expectation of his coming that very afternoon had induced Judith to brighten up her dreary old home with so much care, and would make her triumph only the greater if Mrs. Parsons was present to witness his approach."Yes," she said, "it is father and Mr. Storms I am expecting to tea. You can see with your own eyes what friends they are."Mrs. Parsons was not so deficient in curiosity that she did not look eagerly through the vine-leaves, even holding them apart with her own hands to obtain a good view. She saw two persons coming down the lane, as opposite in appearance as creatures of the same race could be. Young Storms walked vigorously, swinging his cane in one hand or dashing off the head of a thistle with it whenever those stately wild-flowers tempted him with their imperial purple.To the old man who came toiling after him this reckless destruction seemed a cruel enjoyment. His gentle nature shrunk from every blow, as if the poor flowerscould feel and suffer under those cruel lacerations. He could not have been induced to break the smallest blossom from its roots in that ruthless fashion, but tore up unseemly weeds in the garden gently and with a sort of compassion, for the tenderness of his nature reached the smallest thing that God has made.A slight man loaded down with hard work, stooping in the shoulders, walking painfully beyond his usual speed, Hart appeared as he struggled to keep up with young Storms, who knew that he was weary and too old for the toil that had worn him out, but never once offered to check his own steps or wait for him to take breath."Yes, it is father and Mr. Storms. You can tell the neighbors that; and tell them from me that he'll come again, just as long as he wants to, and we want to have him," said Judith, triumphantly."I'll tell the neighbors what I have seen, and nothing more," answered the woman. "There's not one of them that wishes you any harm.""Oh, no, of course not!" was the mocking answer.The woman shook her head, half sorrowful, half in anger."Well, Judith, I won't say another word, now I see that your father knows; but it is to be hoped he has found out something better about the young man than any of us has heard of yet."Mrs. Parsons tied her bonnet as she spoke, and casting a wistful look on the table, hesitated, as if waiting for an invitation to remain.But Judith was too much excited for any thought of such hospitality; so the woman went away more angry than she had ever been with that motherless girl before.The moment she was gone Judith took her bowl of blackberries, emptied them into the glass dish, heaping them unevenly on one side to conceal a crack in the glass, then ran into the hall, for she heard footsteps on the porch, and her father's voice inviting some one to walk in.CHAPTER X.JEALOUS PASSIONS.WALKin, Mr. Storms. Judith will be somewhere about. Oh, here she is!"Yes, there she was, lighting up the bare hall with the rosy glow of her smiles, which, sullen as she strove to make them, beamed upon the visitor quite warmly enough to satisfy his insatiate vanity."Daughter, this is Mr. Storms, a young gentleman from the neighborhood of 'Norston's Rest,' come up the valley on business. He was kind enough to walk along the hill with me after I got through work, and when I told him of the view, he wanted to see it from the house."Neither of the young people gave the slightest sign that they had met before. Judith's smile turned to an inward laugh as she made a dashing courtesy, and gave the young man her hand the moment her father's back was turned.Storms might have kissed the hand, while the old man was hanging up his hat, but was far too prudent for anything of the kind, though he saw a resentful cloud gathering on the girl's face.The old man gave a quiet signal to Judith that she should stop a moment for consultation, while their visitor went out of the back-door, as if tempted by a glimpse of the scenery in that direction."I couldn't help asking him in, daughter, so you must make the best of it. Is there anything in the house—anything for tea, I mean? No butter, I suppose?""Yes, there is; I churned this morning.""You churned this morning! Why, what has come over you, daughter?""Dear me, what a fuss about a little churning! As if I'd never done as much before!"The old man was so well pleased that he did not hint that butter, made in his own house, seemed like a miracle to him."But bread—when did we have a baking?""No matter about that. There are plenty of cakes, raised with eggs, too.""That's capital," said the old man, throwing off a load of anxiety that had oppressed him all the way home. "We shall get along famously. The young man has got uncommon education, you see, Judith, and it isn't often that I get a chance to talk with any one given to reading; so I want you to make things extra nice. Now I'll go and see what can be found on the bushes.""I've picked all the berries, and got them in the dish, father.""Why, Judith!""You asked me to, or as good as that, so there's nothing to wonder at."The old man drew a deep breath. A little kindness was enough to make him happy, but this was overpowering."So you picked 'em for the old man just as ifhewere company, dear child!—dressed up for him, too!"Judith blushed guiltily. Her poor father was so easily deceived, that she felt ashamed of so many unnecessary falsehoods."I dressed up a little because I wanted to be like other girls.""I wish you could be more like other girls," said the father, sighing, this time heavily enough; "but it's of no use wishing, is it, child?""I think that there is a great deal of use in it. If it were not for hoping and wishing and dreaming day-dreams, how could one live in this stupid place?"The old man looked at his child wistfully. It was so many years since he had known a day-dream, that the idea bewildered him."It is so long since I was young," he said; "so very long. Perhaps I had them once, but I'm not sure—I'm not sure.""I'm sure that the cakes will burn up if I stand here any longer," said Judith, on whom the sad pathos of her father's words made no impression. "I'll put them on the table at once. Call your friend in before they get heavy."When the old man came in with Storms, he found Judith standing by the table, which she was surveying with no little pride. Unusual attempts had been made to decorate the room. The fireplace was turned into a tiny bower fairly set afire by a jar crowded full of great golden-hearted marigolds, that glowed through the soft greenness like flame.All this surprised and delighted the old man. He turned with childlike admiration from the fireplace tothe table, and from that to his daughter, who was now casting stolen and anxious glances into the old mirror opposite, over which was woven more delicate flowers, with the sprays of some feathery plant, heavy and rich with coral berries that scattered themselves in reflection on the glass.The room was cool with shadows, but swift arrows of gold came shooting from the sunset through the thick vines, and broke here and there upon the floor, giving a soft glow to the atmosphere which was not heat.The old man glanced at all this very proudly, and when one of these arrows was shivered in his daughter's hair he sat fondly admiring her; for to him she was wonderfully beautiful.Young Storms looked at her also, with a little distrust. There was something unnatural in her high color and in the dashing nervousness of her movements as she poured out the tea, that aroused his interest. Once or twice she fixed her eyes upon him in a wild, searching fashion, that made even his cold gray eyes droop beneath their lids.At last they all arose from the table and gathered around the window, looking out upon the sunset. It was a calm scene, rich with golden haze near the horizon; while the gap below was choked up with purple shadows through which the river flowed dimly. Of those three persons by the window, the old man was perhaps the only one who thoroughly felt all the poetic beauty of the scene; even to him the rural picture became more complete when the only cow he possessed came strolling up to the gate, thus throwing in a dash of life as she waited to be milked."I'll go out and milk her," said the old man. "You'vehad a good deal to attend to, daughter, and it is no more than fair that I should help a little."Help a little! why it was not often that any one else went near the poor beast for weeks together; but the old man was pleased with all the girl had done, and covered her delinquency with this kindly craft as he went into the kitchen in search of a pail.The moment he was gone, Judith turned upon her visitor."Let us go down into the orchard; I want to speak with you," she said."Why not here?" questioned the young man, who instinctively refused or evaded everything he did not himself propose."Because he may come back, and I want to be alone—quite alone," said the girl, impatiently. "Come, I say!"There was something rudely imperative in the girl's manner that forced him to go; but a sinister smile crept over his face as he took his hat and followed her through the back way down to the orchard, over which the purple dusk was gathering, though flashes of sunlight still trembled on the hill-tops.Judith did not accept the half-offered arm of the young man, but walked by his side, her head erect, her hands moving restlessly, and her black eyes, full of wistful fire, now and then turning upon him.She leaped over the stone wall without help, though Storms reached out his hand, and frowned darkly when she refused it.Down to an old gnarled tree, bristling with dead limbs, she led the way, and halted under its shadows."What does this mean?" said Storms, in a cold, low voice. "Why do you insist on bringing me here?""Because of something that worries me," answered Judith, trembling all over; "because I want to know the truth.""I wonder if there is a girl in the world who has not something to worry her?" said Storms, with smiling sarcasm. "Well, now, what is the trouble? Have the old magpies been picking you to pieces again?""No, it isn't that, but something—I know it isn't true; but it seems to me that I can never draw a long breath till you've told me so over and over again—sworn to it."A shade of disturbance gathered on the young man's face, but he looked at the girl, as she spoke, with sinister coolness."But you do not tell me what this dreadful thing is that takes away your breath.""I—I know it is silly—""Of course; but what is it?""They tell me—I know it is an awful falsehood—but they tell me that you are engaged!""Well!""Well!—you say 'well,' as if it were possible!" cried the girl, looking wildly into his face."All things are possible, Judith. But is this the only thing that troubles you?""Is not that enough—more than enough? Why do you wait so long before denying it? Why do you look so dark and keen, as if an answer to that slander needed thought? Why don't you speak out?""Because I want to know everything that you have heard first, that I may deny it altogether.""Then you deny it, do you?""Not till I have all the rest. When people are down on a man, they do not often stop at one charge. What is the next?""Oh, they amounted to nothing compared to this—just nothing. Idling away time, spending money. I—I don't remember! There was something, but I took no heed. This one thing drove the rest out of my mind. Now will you answer me?""Answer me a question first.""Oh, what is it? Be quick! Have I not told you that I cannot breathe?""What do you care about the matter?""What do I care?" repeated the girl, aghast."Yes; why should you?"The same love of cruelty that made this man behead thistles with his cane and set dogs to tear each other, influenced him now. He revelled in the young creature's anguish, and, being an epicure in malice, sought to prolong it.How could the girl answer, with so much stormy surprise choking back her utterance? This man, who had spent so much time with her, who had flattered her as if she had been a goddess, whose very presence had made her the happiest creature on earth, was looking quietly in her stormy face, and asking why she should care if he were pledged to marry another!She could not speak, but looked at him in blank dismay, her great black eyes wildly open, her lips quivering in their whiteness."You ask me that?" she said, at length, in a low, hoarse voice—"you dare to ask me that, after—after—""After what?" he said, with an innocent, questioning look, that stung her like an insult.The girl had her voice now. Indignation brought it back. But what could she say? In a thousand forms that man had expressed his love for her; but never oncein direct words, such as even a finer nature than hers could have fashioned into a direct claim.The wrathful agony in her eyes startled the young man from his studied apathy; but before he could reach out his arms or speak, she lifted both hands to her throat and fled downward toward the gap.This fierce outburst of passion startled the man who had so coolly aroused it. He sprang after the girl, overtook her as she came near the precipice, increasing her speed as if she meant to leap over, and seizing her by the waist, swung her back with a force that almost threw her to the ground."Are you crazy?" he said, as she stood before him, fierce and panting for breath."No," she answered, drawing so close to him that her white face almost touched his; "but you are worse than that—stark, staring mad, I tell you—when you expect to even me with any other girl.""Even you with any other girl!" said Storms, really startled. "As if any one ever thought of it! Why, one would think you never heard of a joke before!""A joke?—a joke?""Yes, you foolish child, you beautiful fiend—a joke on my part, but something more with the miserable old gossips that have gotten up stories to torment you. As if you had not had enough of their lies!"Judith drew a deep breath, and looked at him with all the pitiful intensity of a dumb animal recovering from a blow."They seemed to be in earnest. They said that you were about to marry some girl of your mother's choosing.""Well, what then? That was reason enough why you should have laughed at it.""But you hesitated. You looked at me with a wicked smile.""No wonder. Who could help laughing at such folly?""Folly—is it folly? Just now your face is pale, but when I look at you a hot red comes about your eyes. I don't like it—I don't like it!""Is it strange that a sensible fellow can't help blushing when the girl he loves makes a fool of herself?"Judith looked in that keen, sinister face with misgiving; but Storms had gained full command of his countenance now, and met her scrutiny with a smile."Come, come," he said, "no more of this nonsense. There isn't any such girl as you are dreaming of in the world.""Oh, Richard,areyou telling me the truth?" questioned the girl, clasping her hands, and reaching them out with a gesture of wild entreaty."The truth, and nothing but the truth, on my honor—on my soul!"A fragment of rock half imbedded in the earth lay near Judith. She sunk down upon it, dashed both hands up to her face, and burst into a wild passion of weeping that shook her from head to foot.The young man stood apart, regarding her with mingled astonishment and dismay. Up to this time she had been scarcely more than an overgrown child in his estimation, but this outgush of strength, wrath, and tears bespoke something sterner and more unmanageable than that—something that he must appease and guard against, or mischief might come of it.He approached her with more of respect in his manner than it had ever exhibited before, and said, in a low, conciliatory tone:"Come, Judith, now that you know this story to be all lies, what are you crying about? Don't you see that it is getting dark? What will your father think?"Judith dashed the tears from her eyes, and, taking his arm, clung to it lovingly as she went toward home.

The morning light found her kneeling thus, with her cheek resting on his hand, which, in her tender unconsciousness, she had stolen and hidden away there.

CONFESSING HIS LOVE.

NORSTON'S REST" was now in a state of comparative quiet. The throng of visitors that had made the place so brilliant had departed, and, for the first time in months, Sir Noel could enjoy the company of his son with a feeling of restfulness; for now the discipline of school and college lay behind the young man, and he was ready to begin life in earnest. After travelling a while on the continent he had entered upon the dignity of heir-ship with all the pomp and splendor of a great ovation, into which he had brought so much of kindly memory and generous purpose that his popularity almost rivalled the love and homage with which his father was regarded.

Sir Noel was a proud man—so proud that the keenest critic must have failed to discover one trace of the arrogant self-assumption that so many persons are ready to display as a proof of superiority. With Sir Noel this feeling was a delicate permeation of his whole being, natural to it as the blue blood that flowed in his veins, and as little thought of. Profound self-respect rendered encroachment on the reserve of another simply impossible. During the stay of his son at "The Rest" one fond hope had possessed the baronet, and that grew out of his intense love of two human beings that were dearest to him on earth—the young heir and Lady Rose Hubert.

It could not be asserted that ambition led to this wish; though the lady's rank was of the highest, and she was the inheritor of estates that made her a match even for the heir of "Norston's Rest." The baronet in the isolationof his long widowerhood had found in this fair girl all that he could have desired in a daughter of his own. Her delicacy of bloom and beauty appealed to his æsthetic taste. Her gayety and the spirituelle sadness into which it sometimes merged gave his home life a delightful variety. He could not think of her leaving "The Rest" without a pang such as noble-hearted fathers feel when they give away their daughters at the altar. To Sir Noel, Lady Rose was the brightest and most perfect being on earth, and the great desire of his heart was that she should become his daughter in fact, as she already was in his affections.

Filled with this hope he had watched with some anxiety for the influence this young lady's loveliness might produce upon his son, without in any way intruding his wishes into the investigation; for, with regard to the perfect freedom which every heart should have to choose a companionship of love for itself, this old patrician was peculiarly sensitive. Having in his own early years suffered, as few men ever had, by the uprooting of one great hope, he was peculiarly anxious that no such abiding calamity should fall on the only son and heir of his house, but he was not the less interested in the choice that son might make when the hour of decision came. With all his liberality of sentiment it had never entered the thoughts of the baronet that a man of his race could choose ignobly, or look beneath the rank in which he was born. To him perfect liberty of choice was limited, by education and family traditions, to a selection among the highest and the best in his own proud sphere of life. Thus it became possible that his sentiments, uttered under this unexplained limitation, might be honestly misunderstood.

Some months had passed since the young heir had taken up his home at "The Rest"—pleasant months to the baronet, who had looked forward to this period with the longing affection which centred everything of love and pride on this one human being that man can feel for man. At first it had been enough of happiness that his son was there, honored, content—with an unclouded and brilliant future before him—but human wishes are limitless, and the strong desire that the young man should anchor his heart where his own wishes lay grew into a pleasant belief. How could it be otherwise, when two beings so richly endowed were brought into the close companionship of a common home?

One day, when the father and son chanced to be alone in the grand old library, where Sir Noel spent so much of his time, the conversation seemed naturally to turn upon some future arrangements regarding the estate.

"It has been a pleasant burden to me so far," said the old gentleman, "because every day made the lands a richer inheritance for you and your children; but now I am only waiting for one event to place the heaviest responsibility on your young shoulders."

"You mean," said the young man, flushing a little, "that you would impose two burdens upon me at once—a vast estate and some lady to preside over the old house."

The baronet smiled, and answered with a faint motion of the head.

Then the young man answered, laughingly:

"There is plenty of time for that. I have everything to learn before so great a trust should be given me. As for the house, no one could preside there better than the Lady Rose."

The baronet's face brightened.

"No," he said, "we could hardly expect that. In all England it would be difficult to find a creature so lovely and so well fitted to the position."

Sir Noel faltered as he concluded this sentence. He had not intended to connect the idea of this lady so broadly with his wishes. To his refined nature it seemed as if her dignity had been sacrificed.

"She is, indeed, a marvel of beauty and goodness," answered the young man, apparently unmindful of the words that had disturbed his father. "I for one am in no haste to disturb her reign at 'Norston's Rest'."

Sir Noel was about to say: "But it might be made perpetual," but the sensitive delicacy natural to the man checked the thought before it formed itself into speech.

"Still it is in youth that the best foundations for domestic happiness are laid. I look upon it as a great misfortune when circumstances forbid a man to follow the first and freshest impulses of his heart—"

Here the baronet broke off, and a deep unconscious sigh completed the sentence.

Young Hurst looked at his father with awakened interest. The expression of sadness that came over those finely-cut features made him thoughtful. He remembered that Sir Noel had entered life a younger son, and that he had not left the army to take possession of his title and estates until after mid-age. He could only guess at the romance of success or disappointment that might have gone before; but even that awoke new sympathy in the young man's heart for his father.

"I can hardly think that there is any time of life for which a man has power to lay down for himself certain rules of action," he said. "To say that any man will or will not marry at any given period is to suppose him capable of great control over his own best feelings."

"You are right," answered Sir Noel, with more feeling than he usually exhibited. "The time for a man to marry is when he is certainly in love."

"And the person?" questioned the young man, with a strange expression of earnestness in his manner.

"Ah! The person that he does love."

Sir Noel, thinking of his ward, was not surprised to see a flood of crimson rush over the young man's face, nor offended when he arose abruptly and left the library.

CONFESSIONS OF LOVE.

THEbaronet might, however, have been surprised had he seen Walton Hurst pass the Lady Rose on the terrace, only lifting his hat in recognition of her presence as he hurried into the park.

"He guesses at my madness, or, at the worst, he will forgive it," ran through his thoughts as he took a near route toward the wilderness, "and she—ah, I have been cruel in this strife to conquer myself. My love, my beautiful wild-bird! It will be sweet to see her eyes brighten and her mouth tremble under a struggle to keep back her smiles."

Thoughts like these occupied the young man until he stood before the gardener's cottage, and looked eagerly into the porch, hoping to see something besides the birds fluttering under the vines. He was disappointed: no one was there; but glancing through the oriel window he saw a gleam of warm color and the dejected droop ofa head, that might have grown weary with looking out of the window; for it fell lower and lower, as if two unsteady hands were supporting the face. Hurst trod lightly over the turf, holding his breath, lifted the latch and stole into the little parlor in which the girl, we have once seen in the porch, was sitting disconsolately, as she had done hours each day through a lonely week.

"Ruth!"

The girl sprang to her feet, uttering a little cry of delight. Then an impulse of pride seized upon the heart that was beating so wildly, and she drew back, repudiating her own gladness.

"I hoped to find you here and alone," he said, holding out both hands with a warmth that astonished her; for she shrunk back and looked at him wonderingly.

"I have been away so long, and all the time longing to come; nay, nay, I will not have that proud lift of the head; for, indeed, I deserve a brighter welcome."

The girl had done her best to be reserved and cold, but how could she succeed with those pleading eyes upon her—those two hands searching for hers?

"It is so long, so long," she said, with sweet upbraiding in her eyes; "father has wondered why you did not come. It is very cruel neglecting him so."

Hurst smiled at her pretty attempt at subterfuge; for he really had not spent much of his time in visiting Jessup, though the gardener had been a devoted friend during his boyhood, and truly believed that it was old remembrances that brought the young man so often to his cottage.

"I fancy your father will not have missed me very much," he said.

"But he does; indeed, indeed he does."

"And you cared nothing?"

Ruth dropped her eyelids, and he saw that tears were swelling under them. Selfishly watching her emotion until the long black lashes were wet, he lifted her hands suddenly to his lips and kissed them, with passionate warmth.

She struggled, and wrenched her hands away from him.

"You must not—you must not: father would besoangry."

"Not if he knew how much I love you."

She stood before him transfigured; her black eyes opened wide and bright, her frame trembled, her hands were clasped.

"You love me—you?"

"Truly, Ruth, and dearly as ever man loved woman," was the earnest, almost solemn, answer.

The girl turned pale, even her lips grew white.

"I dare not let you," she said, in a voice that was almost a whisper. "I dare not."

"But how can you help it?" said Hurst, smiling at her terror.

"How can I help it?"

The girl lifted her hands as if to ward him away. This announcement of his love frightened her. A sweet unconscious dream that had neither end nor beginning in her young experience had been rudely broken up by it.

"You tremble—you turn pale. Is it because you cannot love me, Ruth?"

"Love you—love you?" repeated the girl, in wild bewilderment. "Oh, God! forgive me—forgive me! I do, I do!"

Her face was one flame of scarlet now, and she covered it with her hands—shame, terror, and a great ecstasy of joy seized upon her.

"Let me go, let me go, I cannot bear it," she pleaded, at length. "I dare not meet my father after this."

"But I dare take your hand in mine and say to him, as one honorable man should say to another: 'I love this girl, and some day she shall become my wife.'"

"Your wife!"

"I did not know till now the sweetness that lies in a single word. Yes, Ruth, when a Hurst speaks of love he speaks also of marriage."

"No, no, that can never be—Sir Noel, Lady Rose, my father—you forget them all!"

"No, I forget nothing. Sir Noel is generous, and he loves me. You have always been a favorite with Lady Rose. As for your father—"

"He would die rather than drag down the old family like that. My father, in his way, is proud as Sir Noel. Besides—besides—"

"Well, what besides?"

"He has promised. He and John Storms arranged it long ago."

"Arranged what, Ruth?"

"That—that I should some day be mistress of the farm."

"Mistress of the farm—and you?"

"Oh, Mr. Hurst! it breaks my heart to think of it, but father's promise was given when I did not care so much, and I let it go on without rebelling."

Ruth held out her hands, imploringly, as she said this, but Hurst turned away from her, and began to pace up and down the little parlor, while she shrunkinto the recess of the window, and watched him timidly through her tears. At last he came up to her, blaming his own anger.

"This must never be, Ruth!"

"You do not know what a promise is to my father," said the girl, with piteous helplessness.

"Yes, I do know; but this is one he shall not keep."

Once more the young man took the hands she dared not offer him again, and pressed them to his lips. Then he went away full of anger and perplexity.

Ruth watched him through the window till his tall figure was lost in the windings of the path; then she ran up to her own little room, and throwing herself on the bed, wept until tears melted away her trouble, and became an exquisite pleasure. The ivy about the window shed a lovely twilight around her, and the shadows of its trembling leaves tinted the snowy whiteness of the pillow on which her cheek rested, with fairy-like embroidery. The place was like heaven to her. Here this young girl lay, thrilled heart and soul by the first passion of her womanhood. This feeling that burned on her cheek, and swelled in her bosom, was a delicious insanity. There was no hope in it—no chance for reason, but Hurst loved her, and that one thought filled the moment with joy.

With her hands clasped over her bosom, and her eyes closed in the languor of subsiding emotion, she lay as in a dream, save that her lips moved, as red rose-leaves stir when the rain falls on them, but all that they uttered was, "He loves me—he loves me."

If a thought of her father or of Richard Storms came to mar her happiness, she thrust it away, still murmuring, "He loves me. He loves me."

After a time she began to reason, to wonder that this one man, to whom the giving of her childish admiration had seemed an unpardonable liberty, could have thought of her at all, except as he might give a moment's attention to the birds and butterflies that helped to make the old place pleasant. How could he—so handsome, so much above all other gentlemen of his own class—think of her while Lady Rose was near in all the splendor of her beauty and the grace of a high position!

"Was it that she was also beautiful?"

When this question arose in her mind, Ruth turned upon her pillow, and, half ashamed of the movement, looked into a small mirror that hung on the opposite wall. What she saw there brought a smile to her mouth and the flash of diamonds to the blackness of her eyes.

"Not like the Lady Rose," she thought, "not fair and white like her; but he loves me! He loves me!"

JUDITH.

RUTH JESSUPwas indeed more deeply pledged to Richard Storms than she was herself aware of. The old farmer and Jessup had been fast friends for years when these young people were born, and almost from the first it had become an understanding between them that their families should be united in these children. The two fathers had saved money in their hard-working and frugal lives, which was to lift the youngpeople into a better social class than the parents had any wish to occupy, and each had managed to give to his child a degree of education befitting the advancement looked forward to in their future.

Young Richard had accepted this arrangement with alacrity when he was old enough to comprehend its advantages, for, of all the maidens in that neighborhood, Ruth Jessup was the most beautiful; and what was equally important to him, even in his boyhood, the most richly endowed. As for the girl herself, the importance of this arrangement had never been a subject of serious consideration.

Bright, gay, and happy in her nest-like home, she accepted this lad as a special playmate in her childhood, and had no repugnance to his society after that, so long as more serious things lay in the distance. Brought up with those habits of strict obedience so commendable in the children of English parents, she accepted without question the future that had seemed most desirable to her father, who loved her, as she well knew, better than anything on earth.

Indeed, there had been a time in her immature youth when the presence of young Storms filled all the girlish requirements of her life. Nay, as will sometimes happen, the very dash and insolence of his character had the charm of power for her; but since then the evil of his nature had developed into action, while her judgment, refined and strengthened, began to revolt from the traits that had seemed so bold and manly in the boy.

Jessup had himself been somewhat displeased by the idle habits of the young man, and had expostulated with the father on the subject so directly that Richard was put on a sort of probation after his escapade at the hunt,and found his presence at the gardener's cottage less welcome than it had been, much to his own disgust.

"I have given up the dogs and nursed that lame brute as if I had been his grandmother—what more can any reasonable man want?" he said one day when Jessup had looked coldly on him.

"If you would win favor with daughter Ruth, my lad, go less with that gang at 'The Two Ravens,' and turn a hand to help the old father. When that is done there will always be a welcome for you; but my lass has no mother to guide her, and I must take extra care that she does not match herself illy. Wait a while, and let us see the upshot of things."

"Is it that you take back your word?" questioned Richard, anxiously.

"Take back my word! Am I a man to ask that question of? No, no; I was glad about the terriers, and shall not be sorry to see you on the back of the horse when he is well, for he is a fair hunter and worth money; but daughter Ruth has heard of these things, and it'll be well to keep away for a bit till they have time to get out of her mind."

"I'll be sure to remember what you say, and do nothing to anger any one," said Storms, with more concession than Jessup expected, and the young man rode away burning with resentment.

"So I am to be put in a corner with a finger in my mouth till this pretty sweetheart of mine thinks fit to call me out of punishment. As if there were no other inn but 'The Two Ravens,' and no other lass worth making love to but her! Now, that the hunter is on his feet again, I'll take care that she'll know little of what I am doing."

This conversation happened a few days after the hunt. Since that time Storms had never been heard of at the "Two Ravens," and his name had begun to be mentioned with respect in the village, much to Jessup's satisfaction.

Occasionally, however, the young man was seen mounted on the hunter, and dressed like a gentleman, riding off into the country on business for his father. The people who met him believed this, and they gave him credit for the change that a few weeks had wrought.

Was it instinct in the animal, or premeditation in his rider that turned the hunter upon the old track the first time he was taken from the stable? Certain it is that Richard Storms rode him leisurely up the long hill and by the lane which led to the dilapidated house he had visited on the day of his misfortune, but without calling at the house.

After he had pursued this course a week or more, riding slowly in full view of the porch, until he was certain that one of its inmates had seen him, he turned from the road one day, left his horse under a chestnut tree that grew in the lane, and sauntered down the weedy path toward the house.

Looking eagerly forward, he saw Judith Hart in the porch. She was standing on a small wooden bench, with both arms uplifted and bare to the shoulders. Evidently the unpruned vines had broken loose, and she was tying them up again.

As she heard the sound of hoofs the girl stooped down and looked through the vines with eager curiosity.

She jumped down from the bench as she recognized the young man, a vivid flush of color coming into her face and a sparkle of gladness in her eyes. If he had forgotten that day when the first cup of milk was given, she had not.

At first a smile parted her red lips; then a sullen cloud came over her, and she turned her back, as if about to enter the house, at which he laughed inly, and walked a little faster until a new mood came over her, and she stood shyly before him on the porch, playing with the vine leaves, a little roughly; yet, under all this affectation, she was deeply agitated.

"I have come," he said, mounting the broken steps of the porch, "for another glass of water. You look cross, and would not give me a cup of milk if I asked for it ever so humbly."

"There is water in the well, if you choose to draw it," answered the girl, turning her face defiantly upon him. "I had forgotten all about the other."

"And about me too, I dare say?"

"You! Ah, now, that I look again, you have been here before. One cannot remember forever."

Storms might have been deceived but for the swift blushes that swept that face, and the smile that would not be suppressed.

"I have been so busy," he said; "and this is an out-of-the-way place."

Out-of-the-way place! Why, Judith had seen him ride by a dozen times without casting his eyes toward the poor house she lived in, and each time with a swift pang at the heart; but she would have died rather than let him know it, having a fair amount of pride in her nature, crude as it was.

"Will you come in?" she said, after an awkward pause.

The young man lifted his hat and accepted this half-rude invitation.

He did draw water from the well that day, while Judithstood by with a glass in her hand, exulting while she watched him toil at the windlass, as she had done when he asked for a drink. Some vague idea of a woman's dignity had found exaggerated development since that time in Judith's nature, and though she dipped the water from the bucket, and held it sparkling toward him, it was with the air of an Indian princess, scorning toil, but offering hospitality. She was piqued with the man, and would not seem too glad that he had come back again.

"There is no water in all the valley like that in your well," he said, draining the glass and giving it back with a smile; "no view so beautiful as that which strikes the river yonder and looks up the gorge. There must be pleasant walks in that direction."

"There the river is awful deep, and a precipice shelves over it ever so high. I love to sit there sometimes, though it makes most people dizzy."

"Some day you will show me the place?"

"Oh, it is found easy enough. A foot-path is worn through the orchard. Everybody knows the way."

"Still, I shall come to-morrow, and you will show it to me?"

The color rose in Judith's face.

"No," she said; "I shall have work to do."

There was pride, as well as a dash of coquetry, in this. Judith resented the time that had been lost, and the forgetfulness that had wounded her.

Perhaps it was this seeming indifference that inspired new admiration in the young man. Perhaps it was the unusual bloom of beauty dawning upon her that reminded him vividly of Ruth Jessup; for the same richness of complexion was there—the dark eyes and heavy tresses with that remarkable purple tinge that onesees but once or twice in a lifetime. Certain it is, he came again, and from that time the change in Judith, body and soul, grew positive, like the swift development of a tropical plant.

WAITING FOR HIM.

JUDITHstood within her father's porch once more—this time leaning forward eagerly, shading her eyes with one hand, and looking from under it in an attitude of intense expectation.

As she waited there, with fire on her cheeks and longing in her eyes, the change that a few months had made was marvellous. Those eyes, at first boldly bright, were now like velvet or fire, as tenderness or passion filled them. She had grown taller, more graceful, perhaps a little less vigorous in her movements; but in spirit and person the girl was vividly endowed with all that an artist would have desired for a picture of her own scriptural namesake Judith.

This question was on her lips and in her eyes: "Will he come alone? Oh, will he come alone?"

Was it her father she was watching for, and did she wish him to come alone? If she expected that, why were those scarlet poppies burning in the blackness of her hair? Why had she put on that chintz dress with tufts of wild flowers glowing on a maroon ground?—all cheap in themselves, but giving richness of color to match that of her person. Her father had gone to bedsupperless one night because the money for that knot of red ribbon on her bosom had been paid to a pedlar who cajoled her into the purchase.

Evidently some one besides the toiling old man was expected. Judith never in her life had waited so anxiously for him. There was a table set out in the room she had left, on which a white cloth was spread; a glass dish of blackberries stood on this table, and by it a pitcher-full of milk, mantled temptingly with cream.

Does any one suppose that Judith had arranged all this for the father whom she had sent supperless to bed only a few days before, because of her longing for the ribbon that flamed on her bosom?

No, no; Richard Storms had made good use of his opportunities. Riding his blood-horse, or walking leisurely, he had mounted that hill almost every day since his second visit to the old house.

I have said that a great change had taken place in Judith's person. Indeed, there was something in her face that startled you. Until a few months since her deepest feelings had been aroused by some sensational romance; but now all the poetry, all the imagination and rude force of her nature were concentrated in a first grand passion. Females like Judith, left to stray into life untaught and unchecked—through the fervor of youth—inspired by ideas that spring out of their own boundless ignorance, sometimes startle one with a sudden development of character.

As a tropical sun pours its warmth into the bosom of an orange tree, ripening its fruit before the blossoms fall, first love had awakened the strong, even reckless nature of this girl, and inspired all the latent elements of acharacter formed like the garden in which we first saw her, where fruit, weeds, and flowers struggled for life together. Without method or culture, these elements concentrated to mar or brighten her future life.

For a while after that second visit of Storms, Judith had held her independence bravely. When the young man came, she was full of quaint devices for his entertainment, bantering him all the time with good-natured audacity, which he liked. She took long rambles with him down the hillside, rather proud that the neighbors should witness her conquest, but without a fear, or even thought, of the scandal it might occasion.

Sometimes they sat hours together under the orchard-trees, where she would weave daisy-chains or impatiently tear up the grass around her as he became tender or tantalizing in his speech.

For a time her voice—a deep, rich contralto—filled the whole house as it went ringing to and fro, like the joyous out-gush of a mocking-bird, for in that way she gave expression to the pride and glory that possessed her.

The girl told her father nothing of this, but kept it hoarded in her heart with the secret of her novel-reading. But he saw that she grew brighter and more cheerful every day, that her curt manner toward himself had become almost caressing, and that the house had never been so well cared for before. So he thanked God for the change, and went to his work more cheerfully.

No, it was not for the old father that worshipped her that Judith stood on the porch that day. The meagre affection she felt for him was as nothing to the one grand passion that had swallowed up everything but the intense self-love that it had warmed into unwholesome vigor.

She was only watching for her father because of her hope that another and a dearer one was coming with him.

"Dear me, it seems as if the sun would never set!" she exclaimed, stepping impatiently down from the wooden stool. "What shall I do till they come? I wonder, now, if there would be time to run out and pick a few more berries? The dish isn't more than half full, and father hinted that some were getting ripe on the bushes by the lower wall. I've a good mind to go and see. I hate to have them look skimpy in the dish. Anyway I'll just get my sun-bonnet and try. Father seemed to think that I might pick them for our tea. As if I'd a-gone out in the hot sun for the best father that ever lived! But let him think so if he wants to. One may as well please the poor old soul once in a while."

Judith went into the kitchen, took a bowl from the table, and hurried down toward the orchard-fence, where she found some wild bushes clambering up the stonework, laden with fruit. A flock of birds fluttered out from the bushes at her approach, each with his bill stained blood-red and his feathers in commotion.

Judith laughed at their musical protests, and fell to picking the ripe berries, staining her own lips with the largest and juiciest now and then, as if to tantalize the little creatures, who watched her longingly from the boughs of a neighboring apple tree.

All at once a shadow fell upon the girl, who looked up and saw that the golden sunshine was dying out from the orchard.

"Dear me, they may come any minute!" she said, shaking up the berries in her bowl. "A pretty fix I should be in then, with my mouth all stained up and my hair every which way; but it is just like me!"

Away the girl went, spilling her berries as she ran. Leaving them in the kitchen, she hurried up to her own room and gave herself a rapid survey in the little seven-by-nine looking-glass that hung on the wall.

"Well, if it wasn't me, I should almost think that face was going to be handsome one of these days," she thought, striving to get a better look at herself by a not ungraceful bend of the neck. The mirror took in her head and part of the bust on which the scarlet ribbon flamed. The face was radiant. The eyes full of happy light, smiled upon her until dimples began to quiver about the mouth, and she laughed outright.

The beautiful gipsy in the glass laughed too, at which Judith darted away and ran down-stairs in swift haste, for she heard footsteps on the porch, and her heart leaped to meet them.

THE NEXT NEIGHBOR.

PANTINGfor breath, radiant with hope, Judith flung the door open.

A woman stood upon the porch, looking up at a wren that was shooting in and out among the vines, chirping and fluttering till all the blossoms seemed alive.

Judith fell back with a hostile gesture, holding the door in her hand. "Is it you?" she asked, curtly enough.

"Just me, and nobody else," answered the woman, quite indifferent to the frowns on that young face. "Hurriedthrough my work early, and thought I'd just run over and see how you got along."

"Oh, I am doing well enough."

"But you never come round to see us now. Neighbors like us ought to be a little more sociable."

"I've had a great deal to attend to," answered Judith, still holding on to the door.

"Nothing particular just now, is there? Got nobody inside that you'd rather a next-door neighbor shouldn't see—have you?" questioned the woman, with a keen flash of displeasure in her eyes.

"What do you mean, Mrs. Parsons?"

"Oh, nothing; only I ought to know that chintz dresses of the best, and red ribbons fluttering around one like butterflies, ain't, as a general thing, put on for run-in callers such as I am. I begin to think, Judith, that what everybody is saying has more truth in it than I, as an old friend, would ever allow."

Judith turned as if to close the door and shut the intruder out; for the girl was so angry and disappointed that she did not even attempt to govern her actions. The woman had more patience.

"Don't do that, Judith; don't, now; for you will be shutting that door in the face of the best friend you've got—one that comes kindly to say her say to your face, but stands up for you through thick and thin behind your back!"

"Stands up for me! What for?" questioned the girl, haughtily, but checking a swift movement to cover the knot of ribbon with her hand. "What is it to you or any one else what I wear?"

"Oh, nothing—nothing; of course not; only, having no mother to look after you, some of the neighbors feelanxious, and the rest talk dreadfully. I have eyes as well as other people, but I never told a mortal how often I have seen you and—you know who—sitting in the orchard, hours on hours, when the old man was out to work. That isn't my way; but other people have eyes, and the best of 'em will talk."

Judith's face was crimson now, and her black eyes shot fire; but she forced herself to laugh.

"Well, let them talk; little I care about it!"

"But you ought to care, Judith Hart, if it's only for your father's sake. Somebody'll be telling him, next."

A look of affright broke through the fire in Judith's eyes, and her voice was somewhat subdued as she answered:

"But what can they tell him or any one else? Come in and tell me what they say; not that I care, only for the fun of laughing at it. Come in, Mrs. Parsons!"

Mrs. Parsons stepped within the hall and sat down in the only chair it contained, when she took off her sun-bonnet and commenced to fan herself with it, for the good woman was heated both by her walk across the fields and the curbed anger which Judith's rudeness had inspired.

"Laugh!" she said, at last. "I reckon you'll laugh out of the other side of your mouth one of these days! Talk like this isn't a thing that you or your father can afford to put up with."

"People had better let my father alone! He is as good a man as ever lived, every inch of him, if he does go out to days' work for a living!"

"That he is!" rejoined Mrs. Parsons; "which is the reason why no one has told him what was going on."

"But whatisgoing on?" questioned Judith, with anair that would have been disdainful but for the keen anxiety that broke through all her efforts.

"That which I have seen with my own eyes I will speak of. The young man who stops each week at the public-house yonder comes up the hill too often; people have begun to watch for him, and the talk grows stronger every day. I don't join in; but most of the neighbors seem to think that you are on the highway to destruction, and are bound to break your father's heart."

"Indeed!" sneered Judith, white with wrath.

"They say the young fellow left a bad character behind him, and that his visits mean no good to any honest girl, especially a poor workingman's child, who lives from hand to mouth."

"Does my father owe them anything?" demanded Judith, fiercely.

"Not as I know of; but the long and the short of it is, Judith, people will talk so long as that person keeps coming here. A girl without a mother can't spend hours on hours with a strange young man without having awful things said about her; that's what I came to warn you of."

"There was no need of coming. Of course, I expected all the girls to be jealous, and their mothers, too, because Mr. Storms passed their doors without calling," answered Judith.

"That is just where it is. People say that the father is a fore-handed man, and keeps half a dozen hands to work on his place. This young fellow is an only son. Now, is it likely, Judith, that he means anything straight-forward in coming here so much?"

Mrs. Parsons said this with a great deal of motherly feeling, which was entirely thrown away upon Judith,who felt the sting of her words through all the kindness of their utterance.

"As if Mr. Storms was not old enough and clever enough to choose for himself," she said.

"That's the worst of it, Judith. Every one is saying that, after making his choice, he's no business coming here to fasten scandal on you."

"It isn't he that fastens scandal on me, but the vile tongues of the neighbors, that are always flickering venom on some one. So it may as well be me as another. I'm only astonished that they will allow that he has made a choice."

"Made a choice! Why, everybody knows, that he's engaged to be married!"

"Engaged to be married!"

A rush of hot color swept Judith's face as these words broke from her lips, but to retreat slowly, leaving a cold pallor behind.

"Just that. Engaged to be married to a girl who lives neighbor to his father's place—one who has plenty of money coming and wonderful good looks," said the woman.

"I don't believe it. I know better! There isn't a word of truth in what any of them says," retorted Judith, with fierce vehemence, while a baleful fire broke into her eyes that fairly frightened her visitor.

"Well, I had nothing to do with it. Every word may be a slander, for anything I know."

"It is a slander, I'll stake my life on it—a mean, base slander, got up out of spite? But who said it? Where did the story come from? I want to know that!"

"Oh, people are constantly going back and forth from 'Norston's Rest,' who put up at the public-house at thefoot of the hill, where he leaves his horse. All agree in saying the same thing. Then the young man himself only smiles when he is asked about it."

"Of course, he would smile. I don't see how he could keep from laughing outright at such talk."

Notwithstanding her disdainful words, Judith was greatly disturbed. The color had faded even from her lips. Her young life knew its keenest pang when jealousy, with one swift leap, took possession of her heart and soul and tortured them. But the girl was fiery and brave even in her anguish. She would not yield to it in the presence of her visitor, who might watch and report.

"They tell you that my father does not know when Mr. Storms comes here. That, you will find, is false as the rest. He is coming home with father this afternoon. I thought it was them when you came in. Look, I have just set out the table. Wait a while, and you will see them coming down the lane together."

Judith flung open the parlor-door as she spoke, and Mrs. Parsons went in. Never had that room taken such an air of neatness within the good woman's memory. The table-cloth was spotless; the china unmatched, but brightly clean; the uncarpeted floor had been scoured and the cobwebs were all swept away. The open fireplace was crowded with leaves and coarse garden flowers.

"Well, I'm glad that I can say that much, anyway," said the good woman, looking around with no little admiration. "What a nack you have got, Judith! Just to think that a few branches from the hedge can do all that! I'll go right home and tell my girls about it."

"Not yet—not till you have seen father and Mr. Storms come in to tea, as they are sure to do before long. The neighbors are so anxious to know about it that I want them to have it from good authority."

Judith had not recovered from her first exasperation, and spoke defiantly, not at all restrained by a latent fear that her father might come alone.

Mrs. Parsons had made her way to a window, where the wren she had taken so much interest in was twittering joyously among the vine-leaves.

The great anxiety that possessed Judith drew her to the window also, where she stood trembling with dread and burning with wrath. She had been informed before that damaging rumors were abroad with regard to Storms' stolen visits, and it was agreed upon between her and the young man that he should in some natural way seek out old Mr. Hart, and thus obtain a legitimate right to visit the house.

The expectation of his coming that very afternoon had induced Judith to brighten up her dreary old home with so much care, and would make her triumph only the greater if Mrs. Parsons was present to witness his approach.

"Yes," she said, "it is father and Mr. Storms I am expecting to tea. You can see with your own eyes what friends they are."

Mrs. Parsons was not so deficient in curiosity that she did not look eagerly through the vine-leaves, even holding them apart with her own hands to obtain a good view. She saw two persons coming down the lane, as opposite in appearance as creatures of the same race could be. Young Storms walked vigorously, swinging his cane in one hand or dashing off the head of a thistle with it whenever those stately wild-flowers tempted him with their imperial purple.

To the old man who came toiling after him this reckless destruction seemed a cruel enjoyment. His gentle nature shrunk from every blow, as if the poor flowerscould feel and suffer under those cruel lacerations. He could not have been induced to break the smallest blossom from its roots in that ruthless fashion, but tore up unseemly weeds in the garden gently and with a sort of compassion, for the tenderness of his nature reached the smallest thing that God has made.

A slight man loaded down with hard work, stooping in the shoulders, walking painfully beyond his usual speed, Hart appeared as he struggled to keep up with young Storms, who knew that he was weary and too old for the toil that had worn him out, but never once offered to check his own steps or wait for him to take breath.

"Yes, it is father and Mr. Storms. You can tell the neighbors that; and tell them from me that he'll come again, just as long as he wants to, and we want to have him," said Judith, triumphantly.

"I'll tell the neighbors what I have seen, and nothing more," answered the woman. "There's not one of them that wishes you any harm."

"Oh, no, of course not!" was the mocking answer.

The woman shook her head, half sorrowful, half in anger.

"Well, Judith, I won't say another word, now I see that your father knows; but it is to be hoped he has found out something better about the young man than any of us has heard of yet."

Mrs. Parsons tied her bonnet as she spoke, and casting a wistful look on the table, hesitated, as if waiting for an invitation to remain.

But Judith was too much excited for any thought of such hospitality; so the woman went away more angry than she had ever been with that motherless girl before.

The moment she was gone Judith took her bowl of blackberries, emptied them into the glass dish, heaping them unevenly on one side to conceal a crack in the glass, then ran into the hall, for she heard footsteps on the porch, and her father's voice inviting some one to walk in.

JEALOUS PASSIONS.

WALKin, Mr. Storms. Judith will be somewhere about. Oh, here she is!"

Yes, there she was, lighting up the bare hall with the rosy glow of her smiles, which, sullen as she strove to make them, beamed upon the visitor quite warmly enough to satisfy his insatiate vanity.

"Daughter, this is Mr. Storms, a young gentleman from the neighborhood of 'Norston's Rest,' come up the valley on business. He was kind enough to walk along the hill with me after I got through work, and when I told him of the view, he wanted to see it from the house."

Neither of the young people gave the slightest sign that they had met before. Judith's smile turned to an inward laugh as she made a dashing courtesy, and gave the young man her hand the moment her father's back was turned.

Storms might have kissed the hand, while the old man was hanging up his hat, but was far too prudent for anything of the kind, though he saw a resentful cloud gathering on the girl's face.

The old man gave a quiet signal to Judith that she should stop a moment for consultation, while their visitor went out of the back-door, as if tempted by a glimpse of the scenery in that direction.

"I couldn't help asking him in, daughter, so you must make the best of it. Is there anything in the house—anything for tea, I mean? No butter, I suppose?"

"Yes, there is; I churned this morning."

"You churned this morning! Why, what has come over you, daughter?"

"Dear me, what a fuss about a little churning! As if I'd never done as much before!"

The old man was so well pleased that he did not hint that butter, made in his own house, seemed like a miracle to him.

"But bread—when did we have a baking?"

"No matter about that. There are plenty of cakes, raised with eggs, too."

"That's capital," said the old man, throwing off a load of anxiety that had oppressed him all the way home. "We shall get along famously. The young man has got uncommon education, you see, Judith, and it isn't often that I get a chance to talk with any one given to reading; so I want you to make things extra nice. Now I'll go and see what can be found on the bushes."

"I've picked all the berries, and got them in the dish, father."

"Why, Judith!"

"You asked me to, or as good as that, so there's nothing to wonder at."

The old man drew a deep breath. A little kindness was enough to make him happy, but this was overpowering.

"So you picked 'em for the old man just as ifhewere company, dear child!—dressed up for him, too!"

Judith blushed guiltily. Her poor father was so easily deceived, that she felt ashamed of so many unnecessary falsehoods.

"I dressed up a little because I wanted to be like other girls."

"I wish you could be more like other girls," said the father, sighing, this time heavily enough; "but it's of no use wishing, is it, child?"

"I think that there is a great deal of use in it. If it were not for hoping and wishing and dreaming day-dreams, how could one live in this stupid place?"

The old man looked at his child wistfully. It was so many years since he had known a day-dream, that the idea bewildered him.

"It is so long since I was young," he said; "so very long. Perhaps I had them once, but I'm not sure—I'm not sure."

"I'm sure that the cakes will burn up if I stand here any longer," said Judith, on whom the sad pathos of her father's words made no impression. "I'll put them on the table at once. Call your friend in before they get heavy."

When the old man came in with Storms, he found Judith standing by the table, which she was surveying with no little pride. Unusual attempts had been made to decorate the room. The fireplace was turned into a tiny bower fairly set afire by a jar crowded full of great golden-hearted marigolds, that glowed through the soft greenness like flame.

All this surprised and delighted the old man. He turned with childlike admiration from the fireplace tothe table, and from that to his daughter, who was now casting stolen and anxious glances into the old mirror opposite, over which was woven more delicate flowers, with the sprays of some feathery plant, heavy and rich with coral berries that scattered themselves in reflection on the glass.

The room was cool with shadows, but swift arrows of gold came shooting from the sunset through the thick vines, and broke here and there upon the floor, giving a soft glow to the atmosphere which was not heat.

The old man glanced at all this very proudly, and when one of these arrows was shivered in his daughter's hair he sat fondly admiring her; for to him she was wonderfully beautiful.

Young Storms looked at her also, with a little distrust. There was something unnatural in her high color and in the dashing nervousness of her movements as she poured out the tea, that aroused his interest. Once or twice she fixed her eyes upon him in a wild, searching fashion, that made even his cold gray eyes droop beneath their lids.

At last they all arose from the table and gathered around the window, looking out upon the sunset. It was a calm scene, rich with golden haze near the horizon; while the gap below was choked up with purple shadows through which the river flowed dimly. Of those three persons by the window, the old man was perhaps the only one who thoroughly felt all the poetic beauty of the scene; even to him the rural picture became more complete when the only cow he possessed came strolling up to the gate, thus throwing in a dash of life as she waited to be milked.

"I'll go out and milk her," said the old man. "You'vehad a good deal to attend to, daughter, and it is no more than fair that I should help a little."

Help a little! why it was not often that any one else went near the poor beast for weeks together; but the old man was pleased with all the girl had done, and covered her delinquency with this kindly craft as he went into the kitchen in search of a pail.

The moment he was gone, Judith turned upon her visitor.

"Let us go down into the orchard; I want to speak with you," she said.

"Why not here?" questioned the young man, who instinctively refused or evaded everything he did not himself propose.

"Because he may come back, and I want to be alone—quite alone," said the girl, impatiently. "Come, I say!"

There was something rudely imperative in the girl's manner that forced him to go; but a sinister smile crept over his face as he took his hat and followed her through the back way down to the orchard, over which the purple dusk was gathering, though flashes of sunlight still trembled on the hill-tops.

Judith did not accept the half-offered arm of the young man, but walked by his side, her head erect, her hands moving restlessly, and her black eyes, full of wistful fire, now and then turning upon him.

She leaped over the stone wall without help, though Storms reached out his hand, and frowned darkly when she refused it.

Down to an old gnarled tree, bristling with dead limbs, she led the way, and halted under its shadows.

"What does this mean?" said Storms, in a cold, low voice. "Why do you insist on bringing me here?"

"Because of something that worries me," answered Judith, trembling all over; "because I want to know the truth."

"I wonder if there is a girl in the world who has not something to worry her?" said Storms, with smiling sarcasm. "Well, now, what is the trouble? Have the old magpies been picking you to pieces again?"

"No, it isn't that, but something—I know it isn't true; but it seems to me that I can never draw a long breath till you've told me so over and over again—sworn to it."

A shade of disturbance gathered on the young man's face, but he looked at the girl, as she spoke, with sinister coolness.

"But you do not tell me what this dreadful thing is that takes away your breath."

"I—I know it is silly—"

"Of course; but what is it?"

"They tell me—I know it is an awful falsehood—but they tell me that you are engaged!"

"Well!"

"Well!—you say 'well,' as if it were possible!" cried the girl, looking wildly into his face.

"All things are possible, Judith. But is this the only thing that troubles you?"

"Is not that enough—more than enough? Why do you wait so long before denying it? Why do you look so dark and keen, as if an answer to that slander needed thought? Why don't you speak out?"

"Because I want to know everything that you have heard first, that I may deny it altogether."

"Then you deny it, do you?"

"Not till I have all the rest. When people are down on a man, they do not often stop at one charge. What is the next?"

"Oh, they amounted to nothing compared to this—just nothing. Idling away time, spending money. I—I don't remember! There was something, but I took no heed. This one thing drove the rest out of my mind. Now will you answer me?"

"Answer me a question first."

"Oh, what is it? Be quick! Have I not told you that I cannot breathe?"

"What do you care about the matter?"

"What do I care?" repeated the girl, aghast.

"Yes; why should you?"

The same love of cruelty that made this man behead thistles with his cane and set dogs to tear each other, influenced him now. He revelled in the young creature's anguish, and, being an epicure in malice, sought to prolong it.

How could the girl answer, with so much stormy surprise choking back her utterance? This man, who had spent so much time with her, who had flattered her as if she had been a goddess, whose very presence had made her the happiest creature on earth, was looking quietly in her stormy face, and asking why she should care if he were pledged to marry another!

She could not speak, but looked at him in blank dismay, her great black eyes wildly open, her lips quivering in their whiteness.

"You ask me that?" she said, at length, in a low, hoarse voice—"you dare to ask me that, after—after—"

"After what?" he said, with an innocent, questioning look, that stung her like an insult.

The girl had her voice now. Indignation brought it back. But what could she say? In a thousand forms that man had expressed his love for her; but never oncein direct words, such as even a finer nature than hers could have fashioned into a direct claim.

The wrathful agony in her eyes startled the young man from his studied apathy; but before he could reach out his arms or speak, she lifted both hands to her throat and fled downward toward the gap.

This fierce outburst of passion startled the man who had so coolly aroused it. He sprang after the girl, overtook her as she came near the precipice, increasing her speed as if she meant to leap over, and seizing her by the waist, swung her back with a force that almost threw her to the ground.

"Are you crazy?" he said, as she stood before him, fierce and panting for breath.

"No," she answered, drawing so close to him that her white face almost touched his; "but you are worse than that—stark, staring mad, I tell you—when you expect to even me with any other girl."

"Even you with any other girl!" said Storms, really startled. "As if any one ever thought of it! Why, one would think you never heard of a joke before!"

"A joke?—a joke?"

"Yes, you foolish child, you beautiful fiend—a joke on my part, but something more with the miserable old gossips that have gotten up stories to torment you. As if you had not had enough of their lies!"

Judith drew a deep breath, and looked at him with all the pitiful intensity of a dumb animal recovering from a blow.

"They seemed to be in earnest. They said that you were about to marry some girl of your mother's choosing."

"Well, what then? That was reason enough why you should have laughed at it."

"But you hesitated. You looked at me with a wicked smile."

"No wonder. Who could help laughing at such folly?"

"Folly—is it folly? Just now your face is pale, but when I look at you a hot red comes about your eyes. I don't like it—I don't like it!"

"Is it strange that a sensible fellow can't help blushing when the girl he loves makes a fool of herself?"

Judith looked in that keen, sinister face with misgiving; but Storms had gained full command of his countenance now, and met her scrutiny with a smile.

"Come, come," he said, "no more of this nonsense. There isn't any such girl as you are dreaming of in the world."

"Oh, Richard,areyou telling me the truth?" questioned the girl, clasping her hands, and reaching them out with a gesture of wild entreaty.

"The truth, and nothing but the truth, on my honor—on my soul!"

A fragment of rock half imbedded in the earth lay near Judith. She sunk down upon it, dashed both hands up to her face, and burst into a wild passion of weeping that shook her from head to foot.

The young man stood apart, regarding her with mingled astonishment and dismay. Up to this time she had been scarcely more than an overgrown child in his estimation, but this outgush of strength, wrath, and tears bespoke something sterner and more unmanageable than that—something that he must appease and guard against, or mischief might come of it.

He approached her with more of respect in his manner than it had ever exhibited before, and said, in a low, conciliatory tone:

"Come, Judith, now that you know this story to be all lies, what are you crying about? Don't you see that it is getting dark? What will your father think?"

Judith dashed the tears from her eyes, and, taking his arm, clung to it lovingly as she went toward home.

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