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                                  OR,
                            LOVE AND PRIDE.

                           By MARY J. HOLMES

                                  1878

                                  ————

CONTENTS

    CHAPTER I.—THE INMATES OF THE FARM-HOUSE.
    CHAPTER II.—MR. GRAHAM AND JESSIE.
    CHAPTER III.—EIGHT YEARS LATER.
    CHAPTER IV.—JESSIE AND ELLEN.
    CHAPTER V.—WALTER AND JESSIE.
    CHAPTER VI.—OLD MRS. BARTOW.
    CHAPTER VII.—HUMAN NATURE.
    CHAPTER VIII.—A RETROSPECT.
    CHAPTER IX.—NELLIE.
    CHAPTER X.—A DISCLOSURE.
    CHAPTER XI.—THE NIGHT AFTER THE BURIAL.
    CHAPTER XII.—A CRISIS.
    CHAPTER XIII.—EXPLANATIONS.
    CHAPTER XIV.—THE STRANGER NURSE.
    CHAPTER XV.—GLORIOUS NEWS.
    CHAPTER XVI.—THANKSGIVING DAY AT DEERWOOD.
    CHAPTER XVII.—CONCLUSION.

                                  ————

CHAPTER I.—THE INMATES OF THE FARM-HOUSE.

Old Deacon Marshall sat smoking beneath the maple tree which he had
planted many years before, when he was scarcely older than the little
girl sitting on the broad doorstep and watching the sun as it went down
behind the western hills. The tree was a sapling then, and himself a
mere boy. The sapling now was a mighty tree, and its huge branches swept
the gable roof of the time-worn building, while the boy was a
gray-haired man, sitting there in the glorious sunset of that bright
October day, and thinking of all which had come to him since the morning
long ago, when, from the woods near by, he brought the little twig, and
with his mother’s help secured it in its place, watching anxiously for
the first indications of its future growth.

Across the fields and on a shady hillside, there were white headstones
gleaming in the fading sunlight. He could count them all from where he
sat,—could tell which was his mother’s, which his father’s, and which
his fair-haired sister’s. Then there came a blur before his eyes, and
great tears rolled down his furrowed cheek, as he remembered that in
that yard there were more graves of his loved ones than there were
chairs around his fireside, even though he counted the one which for
years had not been used, but stood in the dark corner of the kitchen,
just where it had been left that dreadful night when his only son was
taken from him. On the hillside there was no headstone for that boy, but
there were two graves, which had been made just as many years as the
arm-chair of oak had stood in the dark corner, and on the handsome
monument which a stranger’s hand had reared, was cut the name of the
deacon’s wife and the deacon’s daughter-in-law.

Fourteen times the forest tree had cast its leaf since this last great
sorrow came, and the old man had in a measure recovered from the
stunning blow, for new joys, new cares, new loves had sprung into
existence, and few who looked into his calm, unruffled face, ever
dreamed of the anguish he had suffered. Time will soften the keenest
grief, and in all the town there was not apparently a happier man than
the deacon; though as often as the autumn came, bringing the frosty
nights and hazy October days, there stole a look of sadness over his
face, and the pipe, his never-failing friend, was brought into
requisition more frequently than ever.

"It drove the blues away," he said; but on the afternoon of which we
write, _the blues_ must have dipped their garments in a deeper dye than
usual, for though the thick smoke curled in graceful wreaths about his
head, it did not dissipate the gloom which weighed upon his spirits as
he sat beneath the maple, counting the distant graves, and then casting
his eye down the long lane, through which a herd of cows was wending its
homeward way. They were the deacon’s cows, and he watched them as they
came slowly on, now stopping to crop the tufts of grass growing by the
wayside, now thrusting their slender horns over the low fence in quest
of the juicy cornstalk, and then quickening their movements as they
heard the loud, clear whistle of their driver, a lad of fourteen, and
the deacon’s only grandson.

Walter Marshall was a handsome boy, and none ever looked into his frank,
open face, and clear, honest eyes, without turning to look again, he
seemed so manly, so mature for his years, while about his slightly
compressed lips there was an expression as if he were constantly seeking
to force back some unpleasant memory, which had embittered his young
life and fostered in his bosom a feeling of jealousy or distrust of
those about him, lest they, too, were thinking of what was always
uppermost in his mind.

To the deacon, Walter was dear as the apple of his eye, both for his
noble qualities and the cloud of sorrow which had overshadowed his
babyhood. A dying mother’s tears had mingled with the baptismal waters
sprinkled on his face, and the first sound to which he ever seemed to
listen was that of the village bell tolling, as a funeral train wound
slowly through the lane and across the field to the hillside, where the
dead of the Marshall family were sleeping. He had lain in his
grandmother’s arms that day, but before a week went by, a stranger held
him in her lap, while the deacon went again to the hillside and stood by
an open grave. Then the remaining inmates of the farm-house fell back to
their accustomed ways, and the prattle of the orphan boy,—for so they
called him,—was the only sunshine which for many a weary month visited
the old homestead.

Since that time the deacon’s daughter had married, had wept over her
dead husband, and smiled upon a little pale-faced, blue-eyed girl, to
whom she gave the name of Ellen, for the sake of Walter’s mother.

Aunt Debby, the deacon’s maiden sister, occupied a prominent position in
the family, who prized her virtues and humored her whims in a way which
spoke volumes in her praise. Although unmarried, Aunt Debby declared
that it was not her fault, and insisted that her husband, who was to
have been, was killed in the war of 1812. Not that she ever saw him, but
her fortune had been told for fifty cents by one who pretended to read
the future, and as she placed implicit confidence in the words of the
seer, she shed a few tears to the memory of the widower who marched
bravely to his death, leaving to the world four little children, and to
her a life of single-blessedness. For the sake of the four children
whose step-mother she ought to have been, she professed a great
affection for the entire race of little ones, and especially for Walter,
whose father had been her pet.

"Walter was the very image of him," she said, and when, on the night of
which we are writing, she heard his clear whistle in the distance, she
drew her straight-backed chair nearer to the window, and watched for the
first appearance of the boy. "That’s Seth again all over," she thought,
as she saw him make believe set the dog on Ellen, who had gone to meet
him. "That’s just the way Seth used to pester Mary," and she glanced at
the meek-eyed woman, moulding biscuits on the pantry shelf. As was usual
with Aunt Debby, when Seth was the burden of her thoughts, she finished
her remarks with, "Seth allus was a good boy," and then, as she saw
Walter take a letter from his pocket and pass it to his grandfather, she
hastened to the door, while her pulses quickened with the hope that it
might contain some tidings of the wanderer.

The letter bore the New York postmark, and glancing at the signature,
the deacon said:

"It’s from Richard Graham," while both Walter and Aunt Debby drew nearer
to him, waiting patiently to know the nature of its contents.

"There’s nothing about my boy," the old man said, when he had finished
reading, and with a gesture of impatience Walter turned away, saying to
himself, "I’d thank him not to write if he can’t tell us something we
want to hear," while Aunt Debby went back to her knitting, and the
polished needles were wet as they resumed their accustomed click.

"Mary," called the deacon, to his daughter, "this letter concerns you
more than it does me. Richard’s wife is dead,—killed herself with
fashion and fooleries."

Advancing toward her father, Mary said:

"When did she die, and what will he do with his little girl?"

"That’s it," returned the father, "that’s the very thing he wrote
about," and opening the letter a second time, he read that the
fashionable and frivolous Mrs. Graham, worn out by a life of folly and
dissipation, had died long before her time, and that the husband, warned
by her example, wished to remove his daughter, a little girl eight years
of age, from the city, or rather from the care of her maternal
grandmother, who was sure to ruin her.

It is true the letter was not exactly worded thus, but that was what it
meant. Mr. Graham had once lived in Deerwood, and knew the old Marshall
homestead well,—knew how invigorating were the breezes from the
mountains,—how sweet the breath of the newly mown hay, or soil freshly
plowed,—knew how bracing were the winter winds which howled around the
farm-house,—how healthful the influences within, and when he decided to
shut up his grand house and go to Europe for an indefinite length of
time, his thoughts turned toward rustic Deerwood as a safe asylum for
his child. In the gentle Mary Howland she would find a mother’s care,
such as she had never known, and after a little hesitation, he wrote to
know if at the deacon’s fireside there was room for Jessie Graham.

"She is a wayward, high-spirited little thing," he wrote, "but
warm-hearted, affectionate and truthful,—willing to confess her faults,
though very apt to do the same thing again. If you take her, Mrs.
Howland, treat her as if she were your own; punish her when she deserves
it, and, in short, train her to be a healthy, useful woman."

The price offered in return for all this was exceedingly liberal, and
would have tempted the deacon had there been no other inducement.

"That’s an enormous sum to pay for one little girl," he said, when he
finished reading the letter. "It will send Ellen through the seminary,
and maybe, buy her a piano, if she’s thinking she must have one to drum
upon."

"Piano!" repeated Walter. "I’ll earn one for her when she needs it. I
don’t like this Jessie with her city airs. Don’t take her, Aunt Mary. We
have suffered enough from the Grahams;" and Walter tossed his cap into
the tree, with a low rejoinder, which sounded very much like "_darn
’em!_"

"Walter," said the deacon, "you do wrong to cherish such feelings toward
Mr. Graham. He only did what he thought was right, and were your father
here now, he’d say Richard was the best friend he ever had."

This was the place for Aunt Debby to put in her accustomed "Seth allus
was a good boy," while Walter, not caring to discuss the matter, laughed
good-humoredly, and said:

"But that’s nothing to do with this minx of a Jessie. Why does he write
her name s-i-e? Why don’t he spell it s-y-sy, and be sensible? Of course
she’s as stuck up as she can be,—afraid of cows and snakes and
everything," and Walter sneered at the idea of a girl who was afraid of
snakes and everything.

"Yes," chimed in Ellen, who Aunt Debby said was born for no earthly use
except to "take Walter down." "I shouldn’t suppose you’d say anything,
for don’t you remember when you went to Boston with Mr. Smith to see the
caravan, and stopped at the Tremont, and when they pounded that big
thing for dinner you were scared almost to death, and hid behind the
door screaming, ’The lion’s out! the lion’s out! Don’t you hear him
roar?’"

Walter colored crimson, and replied apologetically:

"Pshaw, Nell, I was a little shaver then, only ten years old. I’d never
heard a gong before, and why shouldn’t I think the lion out?"

"And why shouldn’t Jessie be afraid of snakes if she never saw one?
She’s only eight, and you were ten," was the reply of Ellen, whose heart
bounded at the thoughts of a companion, and who had unwittingly avowed
herself the champion of the unknown Jessie Graham.

"Hush, children," interrupted the deacon. "It isn’t worth while to
quarrel. Folks raised in the city are sometimes green as well as country
people, and this Jessie may be one of ’em. But the question now is,
shall she come to Deerwood or not?" and he turned inquiringly toward his
daughter. "Mary, are you willing to be a mother to Richard Graham’s
child?"

Mrs. Howland started, and sweeping her hand across her face, answered:
"I am willing," while Aunt Debby, in her straight-backed chair mumbled:

"To think it should come to that,—Mary taking care of his and another
woman’s child; but, law! it’s no more than I should have done if he
hadn’t been killed," and with a sigh for the widower and his four
motherless offspring, Aunt Debby also gave her assent, thinking how she
would knit lamb’s-wool stockings for the little girl, whose feet she
guessed were about the size of Ellen’s.

"Oh, I’m so glad!" cried Ellen, when it was settled, "for now there’ll
be somebody to play with when my head aches too hard to go to school. I
hope she’ll bring a lot of dolls; and, Walter, you won’t ink their faces
and break their legs as you did that cob baby Aunt Debby made for me?"

When thus appealed to, Walter was reading for himself the letter which
had fallen at his grandfather’s feet, and his clear hazel eyes were
moist with tears, as he read the postscript:

"I have as yet heard nothing from Seth, poor fellow! I hoped he would
come back ere this. It may be I shall meet him in my travels."

"He isn’t so bad a man after all," thought Walter, and with his feelings
softened toward the father, he was more favorably disposed toward the
daughter’s dolls, and to Ellen’s question he replied, "Of course I
shan’t bother her if she lets me alone and don’t put on too many airs."

"I can’t see to write as well as I used to," said the deacon, after
everything had been arranged, "and Walter must answer the letter."

"Walter won’t do any such thing," was the mental comment of the boy,
whose animosity began to return toward one who he fancied had done his
father a wrong.

After a little, however, he relented, and going to his room wasted
several sheets of paper before he was at all satisfied with the few
brief lines which were to tell Mr. Graham that his daughter Jessie would
be welcome at Deerwood. Great pains he took to spell her name according
to his views of orthography, making an extra flourish to the "y" with
which he finished up the "Jessy."

"Now, that’s sensible," he said. "I wonder Aunt Debby don’t spell her
name b-i-e-by. She would, I dare say, if she lived in New York."

Walter’s ideas of city people were formed entirely from the occasional
glimpses he had received of his proud Boston relatives, who had been
highly indignant at his mother’s marriage with a country youth, the most
of them resenting it so far as to absent themselves from her funeral.
His lady grandmother, they told him, had been present, and had held him
for a moment upon her rich black mourning dress, but from that day she
had not looked upon his face. These things had tended to embitter Walter
toward his mother’s family, and judging all city people by them, it was
hardly natural that he should be very favorably disposed toward little
Jessie. Still, as the time for her arrival drew near, none watched for
her more vigilantly or evinced a greater interest in her coming than
himself, and on the day when she was expected, it was observed by his
cousin Ellen that he took more than usual pains with his toilet, and
even exchanged his cowhide boots for a lighter pair, which would make
less noise in walking; then as he heard the whistle in the distance, he
stationed himself by the gate, where he waited until the gray horses
which drew the village omnibus appeared over the hill. The omnibus
itself next came in sight, and the head of a little girl was thrust from
the window, a profusion of curls falling from beneath her brown straw
hat, and herself evidently on the lookout for her new home.

"Curls, of course," said Walter. "See if I don’t cut some of ’em off,"
and he involuntarily felt for his jack-knife.

By this time the carriage was so near that he vacated his post, lest the
strangers should think he was waiting for them, and returning to the
house, looked out of the west window, whistling indifferently, and was
apparently quite oblivious of the people alighting at the gate, or of
the chubby form tripping up the walk, and with sunny face and laughing
round bright eyes, winning at once the hearts of the four who, unlike
himself, had gone out to receive her.

CHAPTER II.—MR. GRAHAM AND JESSIE.

She was a little fat, black-eyed, black-haired girl, with waist and
ankles of no Lilliputian size, and when at last Walter dared to steal a
look at her, she had already divested herself of her traveling
habiliments, and with the household cat in her arms, was looking about
for a chair which suited her. She evidently did not fancy the high,
old-fashioned ones which had belonged to Deacon Marshall’s wife, for,
spying the one which was never used, and into which even Ellen dared not
climb, she unhesitatingly wheeled it from its place, and seated herself
in its capacious depths, quite as a matter of course.

A good deal shocked, and somewhat amused, Walter watched her
proceedings, thinking to himself:

"By and by I’ll tell her that is father’s chair, and then she won’t want
to sit in it; but she’s a stranger now, so I guess I’ll let her alone."

By this time the cat, unaccustomed to quite so hard a squeeze as Jessie
gave it, escaped from her lap, and jumping down, Jessie ran after it,
exclaiming:

"Oh, boy, boy, stop her!"

A peculiar whistle from Walter sent the animal flying faster from her,
and shaking back her curls, Jessie’s black eyes flashed up into his
face, as she said:

"You’re the meanest boy, and I don’t like you a bit."

"Jessie," said the stern voice of her father, and for the first time
since his entrance, Walter turned to look at him, and as he looked he
felt the bitterness gradually giving way, for the expression of Mr.
Graham’s face was not proud and overbearing as he had fancied it to be.

On the contrary, it was mild and gentle as a woman’s, while there was
something in his pleasant blue eyes which would prompt an entire
stranger to trust him at once. He had seen much of the world, and of
what is called best society, and his manners were polished and pleasing.
Still there was nothing ostentatious about him, no consciousness of
superiority, and when Deacon Marshall, pointing to Walter, said to him,
"This is Seth’s child," he took the boy’s hand in his own, and for a
moment, stood gazing down into the frank, open face, then pushing the
brown hair from off the forehead, he said:

"You look as your father did, when we were boys together, and he was the
dearest friend I knew."

"What made you turn against him then?" trembled on Walter’s lips, but
the words were not uttered, for Mr. Graham’s manner had disarmed him of
all animosity, and he said instead:

"I hope I may be as good and true a man as I believe him to have been."

For a moment longer Mr. Graham held the hand in his, while he looked
admiringly at the boy, who had paid this tribute to one whom the world
considered an outcast, then releasing it, he turned away, and Walter was
sure that his eyes were moist with something which looked like tears.

"I like him for that," was his mental comment, as he watched Mr. Graham
talking with his aunt of little Jessie, who, when he bade her
farewell,—for he went back that night,—clung sobbing to his neck,
refusing to be comforted, until Walter whispered to her of a bright-eyed
squirrel playing in its cage up in the maple tree.

Then her arms relaxed their grasp, and she went with Ellen to see the
sight, while Walter accompanied Mr. Graham to the depot. There was a
bond of sympathy between the man and boy, and they grew to liking each
other very fast during the few moments they talked together upon the
platform of the Deerwood station. Numerous were the charges Mr. Graham
gave to Walter concerning his little girl, bidding him care for her as
if she were his sister, and Walter felt a boyish pride in thinking how
well he would fulfill his trust.

Mr. Graham could never tell what prompted him to say it, but as his mind
went forward to the future, when Jessie would be grown, he said:

"She will make a beautiful woman, I think, and I hope she will be as
good and pure as beautiful, so that her future husband, should she ever
have one, will not look to her in vain for happiness."

It might have been that Mr. Graham was thinking of his own wife, and the
little congeniality there had been between them. If so, he hastened to
thrust such thoughts aside by adding, laughingly:

"Her grandmother is a remarkably scheming old lady, and has already set
her heart on William Bellenger, or rather on his family; but I would
rather see her buried than the wife of any of that race."

Unconsciously Mr. Graham had wounded Walter deeply, for in his veins the
blood of the Bellengers was flowing, and he did not care to hear another
speak thus disparagingly of a race from which his gentle mother sprung,
though he had no love for it himself. William Bellenger was his cousin,
and even now he felt his finger tips tingle as he recalled the only time
they had met. It was on the occasion of that first visit to Boston, to
which Ellen had alluded. His uncle’s family were then boarding at the
Tremont and William was making a constrained effort to entertain him in
the public parlor, when he became so frightened with the gong, mistaking
it for a roaring lion, and taking refuge behind the door as Ellen had
said. With explosive shouts of laughter William repeated the story to
all whose ear he could gain, and Walter had never forgotten the sneering
tone of his voice as he called after him at parting:

"The lion’s out! the lion’s out!"

They had never seen each other since,—he hoped they never should see
each other again,—and though sure that he disliked Jessie very much, he
shrank even from the thought of associating her with William Bellenger,
though he did not like to have Mr. Graham speak so slightingly of him.
Something like this must have shown itself upon his face, for Mr. Graham
saw the shadow resting there and quickly divining the cause, hastened to
say:

"Forgive me, Walter, for speaking thus thoughtlessly of your mother’s
family. I did not think of the relationship. You are not like them in
the least, I am sure, for you remind me each moment of your father."

Around the curve the train appeared in view, but Walter must ask one
question of his companion, and as the latter sprang upon the steps of
the forward car, he held his arm, and said to him entreatingly, as it
were:

"Do you think my father guilty?"

Oh, how Mr. Graham longed to say no to the impulsive boy, whose handsome
face looked up to him so wistfully. But he could not, and he answered
sadly:

"I did think so, years ago."

"Yes, yes; but now? Do you think so now?" and Walter held fast to the
arm, even though the train was moving slowly on.

The ringing of the bell, the creaking of the machinery, and the puffing
of the engine increased each moment; but above the din of them all
Walter caught the reply:

"I have had no reason to change my mind," and releasing Mr. Graham, he
sprang to the ground and walked slowly back to the farm-house, his bosom
swelling with resentment, and his eyes filling with tears, for upon no
subject was the high-spirited boy so sensitive as the subject of his
father’s honor.

"I’ll never believe it till he himself tells me it is true," he said,
and then, as he had often done before, he began to wonder if his father
ever thought of the child he had never seen, and if in this world they
would ever meet.

While thus meditating, he reached home, where he found the entire family
assembled around little Jessie, who, with flushed cheeks and angry eyes,
was stamping her fat feet furiously, and, by way of variety,
occasionally bumping her hard head against the harder door.

"What is it?" he asked, pressing forward until he caught sight of the
little tempest.

The matter was soon explained. Always accustomed to her own way with her
indulgent grandmother, Jessie had insisted upon opening the cage and
taking the squirrel in her hands, and when her request was refused she
had flown into a most violent passion, screaming for her father to come
and take her away from such dirty, ugly people. It was in vain that they
tried by turns to soothe her. Her spirit was the ruling one as yet, and
she raved on till Walter came and learned the cause of her wrath.

"I can make her mind, I’ll bet," he thought, and advancing toward her,
he said sternly: "Jessie!" but a more decided stamp of the foot was her
only answer, and seizing her arm, he shook her violently, while he said
more sternly than before: "Stop, instantly!"

Like coals of fire the black eyes flashed up into his, meeting a look so
firm and decided that they quailed beneath the glance. Jessie had met
her master, and after a few hysterical sobs, she became as gentle as a
lamb, nestling so close to Walter, who had seated himself upon the
chintz-covered lounge, that he involuntarily wound his arm around her,
as if to make amends for his recent harshness.

Jessie was as affectionate and warm-hearted as she was high-tempered and
rebellious. Her tears were like April showers, and before Walter had
been with her one half hour, all traces of the storm had disappeared,
and in her own way she was cultivating his acquaintance, and
occasionally inflicting upon him a pang by criticising some of his modes
of speech. Particularly was she shocked at his favorite expression,
"Darn it!" and looking wonderingly into his face, she said:

"You mustn’t use such naughty words. Nobody but vulgar folks do that."

Walter colored painfully, and that night, in the little diary which he
kept, he wrote:

"Resolved to break myself of using the word 'darn;’ not because a pert
city miss wishes it, but because—"

He didn’t know quite what reason to assign, so he left the sentence to
be finished at some future time.

In less than three weeks Jessie was the pet of the household, not even
excepting Walter, whose prejudices gradually gave way, and who at last
admitted that she would be "a niceish kind of a little girl, if she
wasn’t so awful spunky."

To no one of the family did Jessie take so kindly as to him. He had been
the first to conquer her, and she clung to him with a childish, trusting
love, whose influence he could not resist. Naturally full of life and
fond of exercise, she was his constant companion in the fields and in
the woods, where, fearless of complexion or dress, she gathered the rich
butternuts, or sought among the yellow leaves for the brown chestnuts
which the hoar frost had cast from their prickly covering. She liked the
country, she said, and when her grandmother wrote, as she often did,
begging her to come back, if only for a week, she absolutely refused to
go, bidding Walter, who was her amanuensis, say that she liked staying
where she was, and never meant to live in the city again. To Walter she
was of inestimable advantage, for she cured him of more than one bad
habit, both of word and manner, and though he, perhaps, would not have
acknowledged it, he was very careful not to offend her ladyship by a
repetition of the offense, until at last his schoolmates more than once
called him stuck-up and proud, while even Ellen thought him greatly
changed.

And thus the autumn passed away, and the breath of winter was cold and
keen upon the New England hills, while the grim old mountain frowned
gloomily down upon the pond, or tiny lake, whose surface was covered
over with a coat of polished glass, tempting the skaters far and near,
and bringing to its banks one day Walter and Jessie Graham. It was in
vain that Mrs. Howland and Aunt Debby both urged upon the latter the
propriety of remaining at home and knitting on the deacon’s socks, just
as gentle, domestic Ellen did. Jessie was not to be persuaded, and,
wrapped in her warm fur cape and mittens, she went with Walter to the
pond, receiving many a heavy fall upon the ice, but always saying it was
no matter, particularly if Walter were within hearing. The surest way to
win his favor, she knew, was to be brave and fearless, and when, as the
bright afternoon drew to its close, some boy, more mischievous than the
rest, caught off Walter’s cap and sent it flying toward the southern
boundary of the pond, she darted after it, unmindful of the many voices
raised to stay the rash adventure.

"Stop, Jessie! stop! The deep hole lies just there!" was shouted after
her. But she did not hear; she thought only of Walter’s commendation
when she returned him his cap, and she kept on her way, while Walter,
with blanched cheek, looked anxiously after her, involuntarily shutting
his eyes as the dreadful cry rose upon the air:

"She’s gone! she’s gone!"

When he opened them again the space where he had seen her last, with her
bright face turned toward him, was vacant, and the cold, black waters
were breaking angrily over the spot where she had stood, Walter thought
himself dying, and almost hoped he was, for the world would be very
dreary with no little Jessie in it; then as he caught sight of the
crimson lining to Jessie’s cape fluttering above the ice, and thought of
her father’s trust in him, he cried, "I’ll save her, or perish too!" and
rushed on to the rescue.

There was a fierce struggle in the water, and the ice was broken up for
many yards around, and then, just as those who stood upon the shore,
breathlessly awaiting the result, were beginning to despair, the noble
boy fell fainting in their midst, his arms clasped convulsively around
Jessie, whose short black curls and dripping garments clung tightly to
her face and form. Half an hour later and Deacon Marshall, smoking by
his kitchen fire, looked from the western window, and, starting to his
feet, exclaimed:

"Who are all those people coming this way, and what do they carry with
them? It’s Walter,—it’s Walter!" he cried, as the setting sun shone on
the white face, and hurrying out, he asked, huskily, "Is my boy dead?"

"No, not dead," answered one of the group, "his heart is beating yet,
but she——" and he pointed to little Jessie, whom a strong man carried in
his arms.

But Jessie was not dead, although for a long time they thought she was,
and Walter, who had recovered from his fainting fit, was not ashamed to
cry as he looked upon the still white face and wished he had never been
harsh to the little girl, or shaken her so hard on that first day of her
arrival at Deerwood. Slowly, as one wakes from a heavy slumber, Jessie
came back to life, and the first words she uttered were:

"Tell Walter I did get his cap, but somebody took it from me and hurt my
hand so bad," and she held up the tiny thing on which was a deep cut
made by the sharp-pointed ice.

"Yes, darling, I know it," Walter whispered, and when no one saw him he
pressed his lips to the wounded hand.

This was a good deal for Walter to do. Never had he called any one
darling before, never kissed even his blue-eyed cousin Ellen, but the
first taste inspired him with a desire for more, and he wondered at
himself for having refrained so long.

"Will she live?" he asked eagerly of the physician, who replied:

"There is now no reason why she should not," and Walter hastened away to
his own room, where, unobserved, he could weep out his great joy.

Gradually, as the days went by, Jessie comprehended what Walter had done
for her, and her first impulse was that some one should write to her
father,—somebody who would say just what she told them to, and as Aunt
Debby was the most likely to do this, the poor old lady was pressed into
the service, groaning and sweating over the task.

"And now, pa," Aunt Debby wrote, after telling of the accident, "Walter
must be paid, and I’ll tell you how to pay him. I heard him one night
talking with his grandpa about going to school and college, and his
grandpa said he couldn’t, they were not worth enough in the whole world
for that. Then Walter said he should never know anything, and cried so
hard that I was just going to cry too, when I fell asleep and forgot it.
You are rich, I know, for one of ma’s rings cost five hundred dollars,
and her shawl a thousand, and I want you to send me money enough for
Walter to go to college. It will take a lot, I guess, for I heard him
say he’d only studied the things they learn in district schools; but you
have got enough. Let me give it to him with my own hands, because he
saved me with his, will you, father? Walter is the nicest kind of a
boy."

The letter was sent, and in course of time there came a response with a
draft for two thousand dollars, the whole to be used for the noble lad
who had saved the life of the father’s only child. Wild with delight
Jessie listened while Aunt Debby, the only one in the secret, spelled
out the words, then seizing the draft, she hastened out in quest of
Walter, whom she found in the barn, milking the speckled cow. Running up
to him she cried:

"It’s come,—the money! You’re going to school,—to college, and to be a
great big man like father. Here it is," and thrusting the paper into his
hand she crouched so near to him that the milk-pail was upset, and the
white drops spattered her jet black hair.

At first Walter could not understand it, but Jessie managed to explain
how she had asked her father for money to pay for his education.

"Because," she said, "if it hadn’t been for you I should have been a
little dead girl now, and the boys, next winter, would have skated right
over me lying there on the bottom of the pond."

Walter’s first emotion was one of joy in having within his reach what he
had so greatly desired, but considered impossible. Then there arose a
feeling of unwillingness to receive his education from Mr. Graham, to
whom they were already indebted. It seemed too much like charity, and
that he could not endure. Still he did not say so to Jessie,—he would
wait, he thought, until he had talked with his grandfather. Greatly
surprised, Deacon Marshall listened to the story, saying, when it was
finished:

"You’ll accept it, of course."

"No, I shan’t," returned Walter. "We owe Mr. Graham now more than we can
ever pay, and I would rather work all my life on the old homestead than
be dependent on his bounty. You may send it back to your father," he
added, giving the draft to Jessie. "Tell him I thank him, but I can’t
accept his favor."

"Oh, Walter!" and climbing into a chair, for Walter was standing up,
Jessie wound her arms around his neck and poured forth a torrent of
entreaties which led him finally to waver, and at last to decide upon
accepting it, provided Mr. Graham would allow him to pay it back as soon
as he was able.

To this Mr. Graham, who was immediately written to upon the subject,
assented, for he readily understood the feeling of pride which had
prompted the suggestion.

"I do not respect you less," he wrote to Walter in reply, "for wishing
to take care of yourself, and the time may come when the money so
cheerfully loaned to you now will be sorely needed by me and mine. Until
then, give yourself no trouble about it, but devote all your energies to
the acquirement of an education. Were my advice asked in reference to a
college, I should tell you Yale, but you must do as you think best. I
shall need a partner by-and-by, perhaps, and nothing could please me
more than to see the names of Graham and Marshall associated together in
business again. God bless your father, wherever he may be."

This letter touched the right chord, and often in his sleep Walter saw
the sign whose yellow letters read "Graham & Marshall," and the junior
partner of this firm sometimes was himself, but oftener a mild-faced man
wearing the sad, weary look he always saw in dreams upon his father’s
face. The day would come, too, he said, when the honor of the Marshall
name would be redeemed, and he looked eagerly forward to the time when
he was to enter as a student the Wilbraham Academy, where it was decided
that he should fit himself for college.

Very delightful was the bustle and confusion attendant upon the
preparations in the deacon’s household, the entire family entering into
the excitement with a zest which told how much the boy was beloved.
Every one wished to do something for him, even to little Jessie, who,
having never been taught to do a really useful thing until she came to
Deerwood, worked perseveringly, but with small hope of success, upon a
pair of socks like those which Ellen had knit for the deacon the winter
before. But alas for Jessie! knitting was not her forte, and Walter
himself could not forbear a smile at the queer-looking thing which grew
but slowly in her hands. At last, in despair, she gave it up, and one
night, when no one was near, threw it into the fire.

"I must give him something for a keepsake," she thought, and remembering
that he had sometimes smoothed her hair as if he liked it, she seized
the shears, and cutting from her head the longest, handsomest curl, gave
it to him with the explanation that "her father had taken a lock of her
hair when he went away, and perhaps he would like one too."

Affecting an indifference he did not feel, Walter laughingly accepted a
gift which in future years would be very dear to him, because of the
fair donor.

The bright April morning came at last on which Walter left his home, and
with tearful eyes the family watched him out of sight, and then, with
saddened hearts, went back to their usual employments, feeling that the
sunshine of the house had gone with the stirring, active boy, who, in
one corner of the noisy car, was winking hard and counting the fence
posts as they ran swiftly past, to keep himself from crying. Anon this
feeling left him, and with the hopefulness of youth he looked eagerly
into the far future, catching occasional glimpses of the day which would
surely come to him when the names of Graham and Marshall would be
associated together again.

CHAPTER III.—EIGHT YEARS LATER.

It is the pleasant summer time, and on the college green groups of
people hurry to and fro, some seeking their own pleasure beneath the
grateful shade of the majestic elms, others wending their way to the
hotel, while others still are hastening to the Center Church to hear the
valedictory, which rumor says will be all the better received for the
noble, manly beauty of the speaker chosen to this honor. Flushed with
excitement, he stands before the people, his clear hazel eye wandering
uneasily over the sea of upturned faces, as if in quest of one from
whose presence he had hoped to catch his inspiration. But he looked in
vain. Two figures alone met his view,—one a bent and gray-haired old man
leaning on his staff, the other a mustached, stylish-looking youth of
nearly his own age, who occupied a front seat, and with his glass coolly
inspected the young orator.

With a calm, dignified mien, Walter returned the gaze, wondering where
he had seen that face before. Suddenly it flashed upon him, and with a
feeling of gratified pride that it was thus they met again, he glanced a
second time at the calm, benignant expression of the old man, who had
come many miles to hear the speech his boy was to make. In the looks of
the latter there was that which kindled a thrill of enthusiasm in
Walter’s frame, and when at last he opened his lips, and the tide of
eloquence burst forth, the audience hung upon his words with breathless
interest, greeting him at the close with shouts of applause which shook
the solid walls and brought the old man to his feet. Then the tumult
ceased, and amid the throng the hero of the hour was seen piloting his
aged grandfather across the green to the hotel.

"I wish your father was here to-day," the deacon said, as they reached
the public parlor; but before Walter could reply he saw approaching them
the stranger who had so leisurely inspected him with his quizzing-glass,
and who now came forward, offering his hand and saying, laughingly:

"Allow me to congratulate you upon having become yourself a _lion_."

It did not need this speech to tell Walter that his visitor was William
Bellenger, and he answered in the same light strain:

"Yes, I’m not afraid of the lion now;" "nor of the baboon, either," was
his mental rejoinder, as he saw the wondrous amount of hair his cousin
had brought back from Europe, where for the last two years he had been
traveling.

William Bellenger could be very gracious when he tried, and as his
object in introducing himself to Walter’s notice was not so much to talk
with him particularly, as to inquire after a certain young girl and
heiress, whose bright, sparkling beauty was beginning to create
something of a sensation, he assumed a friendliness he did not feel, and
was soon conversing familiarly with Walter of the different people they
both knew, mentioning incidentally Mr. Graham, the wealthy New York
banker, whom he had met in Europe, for Mr. Graham had remained abroad
six years. From him William had heard the warmest eulogies of Walter
Marshall, and there had been kindled in his bosom a feeling of jealous
enmity, which the events of the day had not in the least tended to
diminish. Still if his cousin had not interfered with him in another
matter of greater importance than the being praised by Mr. Graham and
the people, he was satisfied, and it was to ascertain this fact that he
had followed young Marshall to the hotel.

Before going to New Haven William had called at the home of Jessie’s
grandmother in the city, to inquire for the young lady. The house was
shut up and the family were in the country, the servant said, who
answered William’s ring, but the sharp eyes of the young man caught the
outline of a figure listening in the upper hall, and readily divining
who the figure was, he answered:

"Yes, but Mrs. Bartow is here. Carry her my card and say that I will
wait."

The name of Bellenger brought down at once a bundle of satin and lace,
which Jessie called her grandmother, and which was supposed to be
showing off its diamonds at some fashionable hotel, instead of fanning
itself in the back chamber of that brownstone front. From her William
learned that Jessie was in Deerwood, and would probably attend the
commencement exercises at Yale, as a boy of some kind, whom Mr. Graham
had taken up, was to be graduated at that time. To New Haven, then, he
went, examining the books at every hotel, and scanning the faces of
those he met with an eager gaze, and at last, as he became convinced she
was not there, he determined to seek an interview with his cousin, and
question him of her whereabouts. After speaking of the father as a man
whose acquaintance every one was proud to claim, he said, quite
indifferently:

"By the way, Walter, his daughter Jessie is in Deerwood, is she not?"

"Yes," returned Walter; "she has been there for some weeks. She lived
with us all the time her father was in Europe, except when she was away
at school," and Walter felt his pulses quicken, for he remembered what
Mr. Graham had said of Mrs. Bartow’s having set her heart on William as
her future grandson.

William knew as well as Walter that Jessie had lived at Deerwood, but he
seemed to be surprised, and continued:

"I wonder, then, she is not here to-day. She must feel quite a sisterly
interest in you," and the eyes, not wholly unlike Walter’s, save that
they had in them a sinister expression, were fixed inquiringly upon
young Marshall, who replied:

"I did expect her, and my cousin too; but my grandfather says that Ellen
was not able to come, and Jessie would not leave her."

"She must be greatly attached to her country friends," returned William,
and the slight sneer which accompanied the words prompted Walter to
reply:

"She is attached to some of us, I trust. At all events, I love her as a
sister, for such she has been to me, while Mr. Graham has been a second
father. I owe him everything——"

"Not your education, certainly. You don’t mean that?" interrupted
William, who had from the first suspected as much, for he knew that
Deacon Marshall was comparatively poor.

Walter hesitated, for he had not yet outlived the pride which caused him
to shrink from blazoning it abroad that a stranger’s money had made him
what he was. Deacon Marshall, on the contrary, had no such
sensitiveness, and observing Walter’s embarrassment, he answered for
him:

"Yes, Mr. Graham did pay for his education, and an old man’s blessing on
his head for that same deed of his’n."

"Mr. Graham is very liberal," returned William, with a supercilious bow,
which brought the hot blood to Walter’s cheek. "Do you go home
immediately?" he continued, and Walter replied:

"My grandfather has a desire to visit Medway, in Massachusetts, where he
married his wife, and as I promised to go with him in case he came to
New Haven, I shall not return to Deerwood for a week."

Instantly the face of William Bellenger brightened, and Walter felt a
strong desire to knock him down when he said:

"Allow me, then, to be the bearer of any message you may choose to send,
for I am resolved upon seeing Miss Graham, and shall, accordingly, go to
Deerwood. She will need a gallant in your absence, and trust me, I will
do my best, though I cannot hope to fill the place of a _lion_."

Involuntarily Walter clenched his fist, while in the angry look of
defiance he cast upon his cousin, the impudent William read all the
withering scorn he felt for him. Ay, more, for he read, too, or thought
he did, that the beautiful Jessie Graham, whose father was worth a
million, had a warm place in the young plebeian’s heart, and this it was
which brought the wrathful scowl to his own face as he compelled himself
to offer his hand at parting.

"What message did you bid me carry?" he asked, and taking his extended
hand, Walter looked fiercely into his eyes as he replied:

"None; I can tell her myself all I have to say."

"Very well," said William, with another bow, and stroking the little
forest about his mouth, he walked away.

"I don’t put much faith in presentiments," said the deacon, when he was
gone, "but all the time that chap was here I felt as if a snake were
crawling at my feet. Believe me, he’s got to cross my path or yourn,
mebby both," and the deacon resumed his post by the window, watching the
passers-by, while Walter hurriedly paced the floor with a vague, uneasy
sensation, for though he knew of no way in which the unprincipled
Bellenger could possibly cross his grandfather’s path, he did know how
he could seriously disturb himself.

Not that he had any confessed hope of winning Jessie Graham. She was far
above him, he said. Yet she was the one particular star he worshiped,
feeling that no other had a right to share the brightness with him, and
when he remembered the shady, winding paths in the pleasant old woods at
Deerwood, and the long afternoons when Ellen would be too languid to go
out, and William and Jessie free to go alone, he longed for his
grandfather to give up his favorite project and go back with him to
Deerwood. But when he saw how the old man was set upon the visit,
wondering if he should know the place, and if the thorn-apple tree were
growing still where he sat with Eunice and asked her to be his wife, he
put aside all thoughts of self, and went cheerfully to Medway, while his
cousin, with an eye also to the shadowy woods and the quiet mountain
walks, was hurrying on to Deerwood.

CHAPTER IV.—JESSIE AND ELLEN.

It was a glorious afternoon, and not a single feathery cloud flecked the
clear blue of the sky. The refreshing rain of the previous night had
cooled the sultry August air, and all about the farm-house the grass had
taken a brighter green and the flowers a brighter hue. Away to the
westward, at the distance of nearly one-fourth of a mile, the woods were
streaked with an avenue of pines, which grew so closely together that
the scorching rays of the noontide sun seldom found entrance to the
velvety plat where Walter had built a rustic bench, with Jessie looking
on, and where Jessie and Ellen now were sitting, the one upon the seat
and the other on the grass filling her straw hat with cones, and talking
to her companion of the young graduate, wondering where he was, and if
he didn’t wish he were there with them beneath the sheltering pines.

Eight years had changed the little girls of nine and eight into
grown-up, graceful maidens, and though of an entirely different style,
each was beautiful in her own way, Jessie as a brunette, and Ellen as a
blonde. Full of frolic, life and fun, Jessie carried it all upon her
sparkling face, and in her laughing eyes of black. Now, as of old, her
raven hair clustered in short, thick curls around her forehead and neck,
giving her the look of a gypsy, her father said, as he fondly stroked
the elfin locks, and thought how beautiful she was. Five years she had
lived in Deerwood, and then, at her father’s request, had gone to a
fashionable boarding-school, for the only child of the millionaire must
have accomplishments such as could not be obtained among the New England
mountains. No process of polishing, however, or course of discipline had
succeeded as yet in making her forget her country home, and when Mr.
Graham, whose business called him West, offered her the choice between
Newport and Deerwood, she unhesitatingly chose the latter, greatly to
the vexation of her grandmother, who delighted in society now even more
than she did when young. If Jessie went to Deerwood she must remain at
home, for she could not go to Newport alone, and what was worse, she
must live secluded in the rear of the house for Mrs. Bartow would not
for the world let her fashionable acquaintances know that she passed the
entire summer in the city. She should lose _caste_ at once, she thought,
and she used every possible argument to persuade Jessie to give up her
visit to Deerwood, and go with her instead. But Jessie would not listen.
"Grandma could accompany old Mrs. Reeves," she said, "they’d have a
splendid time quarreling over their respective granddaughters, herself
and Charlotte, but as for her, she should go to Deerwood;" and she
accordingly went there, and took with her a few city airs and numerous
city fashions.

The former, however, were always laid aside when talking to Ellen, who
was by some accounted the more beautiful of the two, with her wealth of
golden hair, her soft eyes of violet blue, and her pale, transparent
complexion. As gentle and quiet as she was lovely, she formed a striking
contrast to the merry, frolicsome Jessie, with her darker, richer style
of beauty, and neither ever appeared so well as when they were together.
In all the world there was no one, except her father, whom Jessie loved
as she did Ellen Howland, and though, amid the gay scenes of her city
home, she frequently forgot her, and neglected to send the letters which
were so precious to the simple country girl, her love returned the
moment the city was left behind, and she breathed the exhilarating air
of the Deerwood hills.

She called Walter her brother, and had watched him through his college
course with all a sister’s pride, looking eagerly forward to the time
when he would be in her father’s employ, for it was settled that he was
to enter Mr. Graham’s bank as soon as he was graduated. And as on that
summer afternoon she sat upon the grassy ridge and talked with Ellen of
him, she spoke of the coming winter when he would be with her in the
city.

"It will be so nice," she said, "to have such a splendid beau, for I
mean to get him introduced right away. I shall be seventeen in a month,
and I’m coming out next season. I wish you could spend the winter with
me, and see something of the world. I mean to ask your mother. Father
will buy your dresses to wear to parties, and concerts, and the opera.
Only think of having a box all to ourselves,—you and I and Walter, and
maybe Charlotte Reeves once in a great while, or cousin Jennie. Wouldn’t
you love to go?"

"No, not for anything," answered Ellen, who liked early hours and quiet
rooms, and always experienced a kind of suffocation in the presence of
fashionable people, and who continued: "I don’t believe Walter will like
it either, unless he changes greatly. He used to have a horror of city
folks, and I do believe almost hated _you_ before you came to Deerwood,
just because you were born in New York."

"Hated _me_, Ellen!" repeated Jessie. "He shook me, I know, and I’ve
been a little afraid of him ever since, but it did me good, for I
deserved it, I was such a high-tempered piece; but I did not know he
hated me. Do you suppose he hates me now?" and Jessie’s manner evinced a
deeper interest in Walter than she herself believed existed.

Ellen saw it at once, and so did the man who for the last ten minutes
had been watching the young girls through the pine tree boughs. William
Bellenger had reached Deerwood on the afternoon train, and gone at once
to the farm-house, whose gable roof, small window panes, and low walls
had provoked a smile of derision, while he wondered what Jessie Graham
could find to attract her there. Particularly was he amused with the
quaint expressions of Aunt Debby, who, in her high-crowned cap, with
black handkerchief smoothly crossed in front, and her wide check apron
on, sat knitting by the door, stopping occasionally to take a pinch of
snuff, or "shoo" the hens when they came too near.

"The gals was in the woods," she said, when he asked for Miss Graham,
and she bade him "make Ellen get up if he should find her setting on the
damp ground, as she presumed she was. Ellen was weakly," she said, "and
wasn’t an atom like Walter, who was as trim a chap as one could wish to
see. Did the young man know Walter?"

"Oh, yes," returned William. "He is my cousin."

"Your cousin!" and the needles dropped from the old lady’s hands. "Bless
me!" and adjusting her glasses a little more firmly upon her nose she
peered curiously at him. "I want to know if you are one of them
Bellengers? Wall, I guess you do favor Walter, if a body could see your
face. It’s the fashion, I s’pose, to wear all that baird."

"Yes, all the fashion," returned William, who was certainly
good-natured, even if he possessed no other virtue, and having asked
again the road to the woods, he set off in that direction.

Following the path Aunt Debby pointed out, he soon came near enough to
catch a view of the white dress Jessie wore, and wishing to see her
first, himself unobserved, he crept cautiously to an opening among the
pines, where he could see and hear all that was passing. Jessie’s
sparkling, animated face was turned toward him, but he scarcely heeded
it in his surprise at another view which greeted his vision. A slender,
willowy form was more in accordance with Will’s taste than a fat chubby
one, and in Ellen Howland his idea of a beautiful woman was, if
possible, more than realized. She was leaning against a tree, her blue
gingham morning gown,—for she was an invalid,—wrapped gracefully about
her her golden hair, slightly tinged with red, combed back from her
forehead, her long eyelashes veiling her eyes of blue, and shading her
colorless cheek, while her lily-white hands were folded together, and
rested upon her lap.

"Jupiter!" thought William, "I did not suppose Deerwood capable of
producing anything like that. Why, she’s the realization of what I’ve
often fancied my wife should be. Now, if she were only rich I’d yield
the black-eyed witch of a Jessie to my milksop cousin. But, pshaw! it
shan’t be said of me that I fell in love at first sight with a vulgar
country girl. What the deuce, they talk of Walter, do they! I’ll try
eavesdropping a little longer," and bending his head, he listened while
their conversation proceeded.

He heard what Ellen said of Walter; he saw the startled look upon the
face of Jessie as she exclaimed, "Does he hate me now?" and in that look
he read what Jessie did not know herself.

"The wretch!" he muttered, between his teeth; "why couldn’t he take the
other one? I would, if the million were on her side," and in the glance
he cast on Ellen there was more than a mere passing fancy.

She must have felt its influence, for as that look fell upon her she
said:

"It’s cold,—I shiver as with a chill. Let’s go back to the house," and
she arose to her feet, just as the pine boughs parted asunder, and
William appeared before them.

"Mr. Bellenger!" Jessie exclaimed. "When did you come?"

"Half an hour since," he returned, "and not finding you in the house I
came this way, little thinking I should stumble upon two wood nymphs
instead of one," and again the peculiar glance rested upon Ellen, who
had sunk back upon her seat, and whose soft eyes fell beneath his gaze.

The brief introduction was over, and then Ellen rose to go, complaining
that she was cold and tired.

"We will go, too," said Jessie, putting on her hat, when Mr. Bellenger
touched her arm, and said in a low voice of entreaty:

"Stay here with me."

"Yes, stay," rejoined Ellen, who caught the words. "It is pleasant here,
and I can go alone."

So Jessie stayed, and when the slow footsteps had died away in the
distance William sat down beside her, and after expressing his delight
at meeting her again, said, indifferently as it were:

"By the way, I have just come from New Haven, where I had the pleasure
of hearing the charity boy’s valedictory. It is strange what assurance
some people have."

"Charity boy!" repeated Jessie; "I thought Walter Marshall was to
deliver the valedictory."

"And isn’t he a charity scholar? Don’t your father pay his bills?" asked
William, in a tone which Jessie did not like.

"Well, yes," she answered, "but somehow I don’t like to hear you call
him that, because——" she hesitated, and William’s face grew dark while
waiting for her answer, which, when it came, was, "because he saved my
life;" and then Jessie told her companion how, but for Walter Marshall,
she would not have been sitting there that summer afternoon.

"Was Walter’s speech a good one?" she asked, her manner indicating that
she knew it was.

Not a change in her speaking face escaped the watchful eye of William,
and knowing well that insinuations are often stronger and harder to
refute than any open assertion, he replied, with seeming reluctance:

"Yes, very good; though some of it sounded strangely familiar, and I
heard others hinting pretty strongly at plagiarism."

This last was in a measure true, for one of Walter’s class, chagrined
that the honor was not conferred upon himself, had taken pains to say
that the valedictory was not all of it Walter’s,—that an older and wiser
head had helped him in its composition. William did not believe this,
but it suited his purpose to repeat it, and he watched narrowly for the
effect. Jessie Graham was the soul of truth, and no accusation could
have been brought against Walter which would have pained her so much as
the belief that he had been dishonorable in the least degree.

"Walter would never pass off what was not his own!" she exclaimed. "It
isn’t like him, or like any of the Marshall family."

"You forget his father," said the man beside her, carelessly thrusting
aside a cone with his polished boot.

"What did his father do?" Jessie asked in some surprise, and her
companion replied:

"You astonish me, Miss Graham, by professing ignorance of what Walter’s
father did. You know, of course."

"Indeed I do not," she returned. "I only know that there is something
unpleasant connected with him,—something which annoys Walter terribly,
but I never heard the story. I asked my father once and he seemed
greatly agitated, saying he would rather not talk of it. Then I asked
Ellen, but if she knew she would not tell, and she evaded all my
questioning, so I gave it up, for I dare not ask Deacon Marshall or
Walter either. What was it, Mr. Bellenger?"

William understood just how proud Jessie Graham was, and how she would
be shocked at the very idea of public disgrace. Once convince her of the
parent’s guilt, and she will sicken of the son, he thought, so when she
said again, "What was it? What did Mr. Marshall do?" he replied:

"If your father has kept it from you, I ought not to speak of it,
perhaps; but this I will say, if Seth Marshall had his just deserts, he
would now be the inmate of a felon’s cell."

"Walter’s father a felon!" Jessie exclaimed, bounding to her feet. "I
never thought of anything as bad as that. Is it true? Oh! is it true?"
and in the maiden’s heart there was a new-born feeling, which, had
Walter been there then, would have prompted her to shrink from him as if
he, too, had been a sharer of his father’s sin.

"You seem greatly excited," said William. "It must be that you are more
deeply interested in young Marshall than I supposed."

"I am interested," she replied. "I have liked him so much that I never
dreamed of associating him with dishonor."

"Why need you now?" asked the wily Will. "Walter had nothing to do with
it, though, to be sure, it is but natural to suppose that the child is
somewhat like the father, particularly if it does not inherit any of its
mother’s virtues, as Walter, I suppose, does not. He is a Marshall
through and through," and William smiled exultingly as he saw how well
his insinuation was doing its work.

"Tell me more," Jessie whispered. "_What_ did Mr. Marshall do?"

"I would rather not," returned William, at the same time hinting that it
was something she ought not to hear. "If your father had good reason for
keeping it from you, so have I. Suffice it to know that it killed his
young wife, my father’s sister, and that our family since have scarcely
recognized Walter as belonging to us. It wasn’t any fault of mine," he
continued, as he saw the flash of Jessie’s eyes, and readily divined
that she did not wish to have Walter slighted. "I cannot help it. Our
family are very proud, my grandmother particularly; and when my aunt
married a poor ignorant country youth, it was natural that she should
feel it, and when the disgrace came it was ten times worse. There is
such a thing as marrying far beneath one’s station, and you can imagine
my grandmother’s feelings by fancying what your own father’s would be if
you were to throw yourself away upon—well, upon this Waiter, who may be
well enough himself, but who can never hope to wipe away the stain upon
his name," and William looked at her sideways, to see the effect of what
he had said.

Jessie Graham was easily influenced, and she attached far more
importance to William’s words than she would have done had she known his
real design; so when he spoke of her marrying Walter as a preposterous
and impossible event, she accepted it as such, and wondered why her
heart should throb so painfully or why she should feel as if something
had been wrested from her,—something which, all unknown to herself, had
made her life so happy. She had taken her first lesson in distrust, and
the poison was working well.

For a long time they sat there among the pines, not talking of Walter,
but of the city and the wondrous sights which Will had seen in his
foreign travels. There was something very soothing to Jessie in
William’s manner, so different from that which Walter assumed toward
her. Like most young girls she was fond of flattery, and Walter had more
than once offended her by his straightforward way of telling her faults.
William, on the contrary, sang her praises only; and, while listening to
him, she wondered she had never thought before how very agreeable he
was. He saw the impression he was making, and when at last, as the sun
was nearing the western horizon, she arose to go, proposing that they
should take the Marshall grave-yard in their route, he assented, for
this, he knew, would keep him longer with her alone.

"Your aunt is buried here," Jessie said, as they drew near to the fence
which surrounded the home of dead; "that is hers," and she pointed to
the monument gleaming in the sunlight.

"Do you bury your bodies above the ground?" asked William, directing her
attention to the flutter of a blue morning dress, plainly visible beyond
the taller stone.

"Why, that is Ellen!" cried Jessie, hurrying on until she reached the
gate, where she stopped suddenly, and beckoned her companion to approach
as noiselessly as possible.

Ellen also had come that way, and seating herself by her grandmother’s
grave, had fallen asleep, and like some rare piece of sculpture, she lay
among the tall, rank grass—so near to a rose tree that one of the fading
blossoms had dropped its leaves upon her face.

"Isn’t she beautiful?" Jessie said to her companion, who replied; "Yes,
wonderfully beautiful," so loud that the fair sleeper awoke and started
up.

"I was so tired," she said, "that I sat down and must have gone to
sleep, for I dreamed that I was dead, and that the man who came to us in
the pines dug my grave. Where is he, Jessie!"

"I am here," said William, coming forward, "and believe me, my dear Miss
Howland, I would dig the grave of almost any one sooner than your own.
Allow me to assist you," and he offered her his hand.

Ellen was really very weak, and when he saw how pale she was he made her
lean upon him as they walked down the hillside to the house. And once,
when Jessie was tripping on before, he slightly pressed the little
blue-veined hand trembling on his arm, while in a very tender voice he
asked if she felt better. Ellen Howland was wholly unaccustomed to the
world, and had grown up to womanhood as ignorant of flattery or deceit
as the veriest child. Pure and innocent herself, she did not dream of
treachery in others. Walter to her was a fair type of all mankind, and
she could not begin to fathom the heart of the man who walked beside
her, touching her hand more than once before they reached the farm-house
door.

They found the supper table neatly spread for five, and though William’s
intention was to spend the night at the village hotel, he accepted Mrs.
Howland’s invitation to stay to tea, making himself so much at home, and
chatting with all so familiarly, that Aunt Debby pronounced him a clever
chap, while Mrs. Howland wondered why people should say the Bellengers
of Boston were proud and overbearing. It was late that night when
William left them, for there was something very attractive in the blue
of Ellen’s eyes, and the shining black of Jessie’s, and when at last he
left them, and was alone with himself and the moonlight, he was
conscious that there had come to him that day the first unselfish, manly
impulse he had known for years. He had mingled much with fashionable
ladies. None knew how artificial they were better than himself, and he
had come at last to believe that there was not among them a single true,
noble-hearted woman. Jessie Graham might be an exception, but even she
was tainted with the city atmosphere. Her father’s purse, however, would
make amends for any faults she might possess, and he must win that purse
at all hazards; but while doing that he did not think it wrong to pay
the tribute of admiration to the golden-haired Ellen, whose modest,
refined beauty had impressed him so much, and whose artless, childlike
manner had affected him more than he supposed. "Little Snow-Drop" he
called her to himself, and sitting alone in his chamber at the hotel, he
blessed the happy chance which had thrown her in his way.

"It is like the refreshing shower to the parched earth," he said, and he
thought what happiness it would be to study that pure girl, to see if,
far down in the depths of her heart, there were not the germs of vanity
and deceit, or better yet, if there were not something in her nature
which would sometime respond to him. He did not think of the harm he
might do her. He did not care, in fact, even though he won her love only
to cast it from him as a useless thing. Country girls like her were only
made for men like him to play with. No wonder then if in her dreams that
night Ellen moaned with fear of the beautiful serpent which seemed
winding itself, fold on fold, about her.

Jessie, too, had troubled dreams of felon’s cells, of clanking chains,
and even of a gallows, with Walter standing underneath beseeching her to
come and share the shame with him. Truly the serpent had entered this
Eden and left its poisonous trail.

For nearly a week William staid in town, and the village maidens often
looked wistfully after him as he drove his fast horses, sometimes with
Jessie at his side, and sometimes with Ellen, but never with them both,
for the words he breathed into the ear of one were not intended for the
other. Drop by drop was he infusing into Jessie’s mind a distrust of one
whom she had heretofore considered the soul of integrity and honor. Not
openly, lest she should suspect his motive, but covertly, cautiously,
always apparently seeking an excuse for anything the young man might
hereafter do, and succeeding at last in making Jessie thoroughly
uncomfortable, though why she could not tell. She did not blame Walter
for his father’s sins, but she would much rather his name should have
been without a blemish.

Gradually the brightness of Jessie’s face gave way to a thoughtful,
serious look, her merry laugh was seldom heard, and she would sit for
hours so absorbed in her own thoughts as not to heed the change which
the last few days had wrought in Ellen, too. Never before had the latter
seemed so happy, so joyous, so full of life as now, and Aunt Debby said
the rides with Mr. Bellenger upon the mountains had done her good.
William had pursued his study faithfully, and, in doing so, had become
so much interested himself that he would have asked Ellen to be his wife
had she been rich as she was lovely. But his bride must be an heiress;
and so, though knowing that he could never be to Ellen Howland other
than a friend, he led her on step by step until at last she saw but what
he saw, and heard but what he heard. He was not deceiving her, he said,
sometimes when conscience reproached him for his cruelty. She knew how
widely different their stations were; she could not expect that one whom
half the belles of Boston and New York would willingly accept could
think of making her his wife. He was only polite to her, only giving a
little variety to her monotonous life. She would forget him when he was
gone. And at this point he was conscious of an unwillingness to be
forgotten.

"If we were only Mormons," he thought, the last night of his stay at
Deerwood, when out under the cherry trees in the garden he talked with
her alone, and saw the varying color on her cheek, as he said, "We may
never meet again." "If we were only Mormons, I would have them both,
Nellie and Jessie, the one for her gilded setting, the other because——"

He did not finish the sentence, for he was not willing then to
acknowledge to himself the love which really and truly was growing in
his heart for the fair girl beside him.

"But you’ll surely come to us again," Nellie said. "Jessie will be here.
You’ll want to visit her," and a tear trembled on her long eyelashes.

"I can see Jessie in the city, and if I come to Deerwood it will be you
who brings me. Do you wish me to come and see you, Nellie?" and the
dark, handsome face bent so low that the rich brown hair rested on the
golden locks of the artless, innocent girl, who answered, in a whisper,

"Yes, I wish you to come."

"Then you must give me a kiss," he said, "as a surety of my welcome, and
when the trees on the mountain where we have been so happy together are
casting their dense leaves in the autumn, I will surely be with you
again."

The kiss was given—not one—not two—but many, for William Bellenger was
greedy, and his lips had never touched aught so pure and sweet before.

"I wouldn’t tell Walter that I’m coming," he said, "for he does not like
me, I fancy, and I cannot bear to have him prejudice you against me. I
wouldn’t tell my mother either, or any one——"

"Not Jessie?" Ellen asked, for she had a kind of natural pride in
wishing her friend to know that she, who never aspired to notice of any
kind, had succeeded in pleasing the fastidious William Bellenger.

"No, not Jessie," he said, "because,—well, because you better not," and
knowing well his power over the timid girl, he felt sure that his wishes
would be regarded, and with another good-by, he left her.

He had hoped that Jessie would be induced to accompany him to New York,
and as there was a secret understanding between himself and Mrs. Bartow,
the old lady had written, entreating her granddaughter to return with
William.

"You have stayed in the country long enough," she wrote, "and I dare say
you are as sunburnt and freckled as you can be, so pray come home.
Everybody is gone, I know, and New York is just like Sunday, while I
stay like a guilty thing in the rear of the house, to make folks think
I’m off to some watering place. I wouldn’t for the world let old Mrs.
Reeves know that I have been cooped up here the blessed summer. It’s all
owing to your obstinacy, too, and I think you ought to come back and
entertain me. Mr. Bellenger will attend to you, and you couldn’t ask for
a more desirable companion. Old Mrs. Reeves says he is the most eligible
match in the city, his family are so aristocratic. There isn’t a single
mechanic or working person in the whole line, for she spent an entire
season in tracing back their ancestry, finding but one blot, and that an
unfortunate marriage of a Miss Ellen Bellenger with some ignorant
country loafer she met at boarding-school, and who she says was hung, or
sent to State prison, I forgot which. I am sorry she discovered this
last, as in case you cut out Charlotte, and of course you will, it will
be like the spiteful old wretch to blazon it abroad, though William
ain’t to blame, of course."

"I wonder I never told grandma that Walter was connected with the
Bellengers," Jessie thought, as she finished reading this letter, which
came to her the night when William, beneath the cherry trees, was
whispering words to Ellen which should never have been spoken. "It’s
probably because I’ve not been much with her of late, and she never
seemed at all interested in him, except indeed, to say that pa ought to
get him a situation in a grocery, or something to pay him for saving my
life. I wish she wasn’t so foolishly proud," and as Jessie read the
letter again, she felt glad that her grandmother did not know how nearly
Walter Marshall was connected with the man who "was hung, or sent to
State prison."

Gradually, too, there arose before her mind the whole array of her city
friends, with old Mrs. Reeves and Charlotte at their head, and the idea
of having Walter with her in the city the coming winter was not as
pleasant as it once had been. Her grandmother might find out who he was;
William would tell, perhaps, and she could not bear the thought of
seeing him slighted, as he was sure to be if the tide, of which the old
lady Reeves was the under-current, should set in against him.

"I’ve half a mind to go home," she thought, "before anything definite is
arranged, and persuade father to secure Walter just as good a situation
in some other place where he won’t be slighted."

This allusion to her father was a fortunate one, for in her cool moments
of reflection there was no one whose judgment Jessie regarded so highly
as her father’s. He knew Walter,—he respected him, too, and had often
spoken with pleasure of the time when he would be with him.

"People dare not laugh if father takes him up," she thought, while
something whispered to her that she, too, could, if she would, do much
toward helping Walter to the position in society he was fitted to
occupy. "I won’t go," she said, at last. "I’ll stay and see Walter
again, at all events, though I do wish Will hadn’t told me about his
speech, and his father, too. I mean to ask him some time to tell me the
exact truth." And having reached this resolution Jessie sat down and
wrote to her grandmother that she could not come yet, she was so happy
in the country.

This she intended taking to William in the morning, for she had promised
to meet him at the depot and see him off. "I shall be rather lonely when
he is gone," she thought, and walking to the window of her room, she
wondered if Charlotte Reeves would succeed in winning William Bellenger.

"Her grandmother will strain every nerve," she thought, "but by just
saying a word I can supplant her, I know, else why has he stayed here a
whole week? Nell, is that you?" and Jessie started as the young girl
glided into the room, her face unusually pale, and her whole appearance
indicative of some secret agitation. "Where have you been?" asked
Jessie, "and who was it that shut the gate?"

"Where? I didn’t hear any gate," Ellen replied, trembling lest she
should betray what she had been forbidden to divulge.

Had she confessed it then it would have saved her many a weary
heartache, and her companion from many a thoughtless act, but she did
not, and when Jessie, caressed her white cheek, and said laughingly,
"Has my prudish Nell a secret love affair?" she made some incoherent
answer, and, seeking her pillow, lived over again the scene in the
garden, blushing to herself as she recalled the dark face which had bent
so near to hers, and the tender voice which had whispered in her ear the
name so recently given to her. "Little Snow-Drop," he called her when he
bade her adieu, and the moon went down behind the mountain ere she fell
asleep thinking of that name and the time when the forest tree would
cast its leaf and he be with her again.

CHAPTER V.—WALTER AND JESSIE.

"So you won’t go with me," William said to Jessie, next morning, when
she met him at the depot and gave him the note intended for her
grandmother.

"No," she replied. "The city is dull as yet, and I’d rather remain here
with Ellen."

"Oh, yes, Ellen," and William spoke quite indifferently. "Why didn’t she
come to bid me good-by?" and he looked curiously at Jessie to see how
much she knew.

But Jessie suspected nothing, and replied at once:

"She has a headache this morning and was still in bed when I left her."

The heartless man was conscious of a pleasurable sensation,—a feeling of
gratified vanity,—for he knew that headache was for him. But he merely
said:

"Tell her that I’m sorry she’s sick; she is a pleasant, quiet little
girl, quite superior to country girls in general."

"There’s the train," cried Jessie, and in a moment the cars rolled up
before them.

"It will seem a young eternity until you come home," said William,
clasping Jessie’s hand. "Good-bye," he added, as "all aboard" was
shouted in his ear, and as he turned away his place was taken by
another, who had witnessed the parting between the two, and at whom
Jessie looked wonderingly, exclaiming:

"Why, Walter, I didn’t expect you to-day."

"And shall I infer that I am the less welcome from that?" the young man
asked, for with his inborn jealousy, which no amount of discipline could
quite subdue, he thought he detected in Jessie’s tone and manner
something cold and constrained.

Nor was he wholly mistaken, for Jessie did not feel toward him just as
she had done before. Still she greeted him cordially,—thought how
handsome he was, and came pretty near telling him so,—but told him
instead, that she thought he resembled his cousin William. This brought
the conversation to a point Walter longed to reach, and as they walked
slowly towards home he questioned her of William,—asking when he came,
and if she had seen much of him previous to his visit there.

"I saw him almost every day before he went to Europe," she replied. "You
know he lives in New York now, and grandma thinks there’s nobody like
him."

"Yes," returned Walter, "I remember your father told me once that she
had set her heart upon your marrying him."

"People would think it a splendid match," returned Jessie, a little
mischievously, for as she had known that William disliked Walter, so she
now felt that Walter disliked William, and she continued: "Charlotte
Reeves would give the world to have him spend a week in the country with
her," and the saucy black eyes looked roguishly up at Walter, who
frowned gloomily for an instant, and then rejoined:

"Shall I tell you what your father said about it?"

"Yes, do. I think everything of his opinion."

"He said, then, that he would rather see you buried than the wife of any
of that race," and Walter laid a great stress upon the last two words.

For a time Jessie walked on in silence, then stopping short and looking
up from under her straw hat, she said:

"Ain’t _you_ one of that race?"

"I suppose I am," answered Walter, smiling at a question which admitted
of two or three significations.

Jessie thought of but one. Her father liked Walter very much, even
though his mother was a Bellenger; consequently it must be something
about William himself which prompted that remark, and as Jessie usually
echoed her father’s sentiments, she felt, the old disagreeable sensation
giving way, and before they reached the farm-house she was chatting as
gayly with Walter, as if nothing had ever come between them.

That night Walter and Jessie sat together in the little portico, which
was securely shaded from the sun by Aunt Debby’s thrifty hop vines.
Walter was telling Jessie of his recent visit, and how his grandfather
cried when he stood in the room where he was married nearly fifty years
before.

"I supposed old people outlived all their romance," said Jessie, adding
laughingly, as she plucked the broad green leaves growing near her head,
"I don’t think I could love any body but father fifty years,—could you?"

"It would depend a good deal upon the person I loved," returned Walter,
and the look he gave Jessie seemed to say that it would not be a hard
matter to love her through all time.

Jessie saw the look, and while it thrilled her with a sudden emotion of
pleasure, it involuntarily reminded her of what William had said of the
valedictory, and abruptly changing the conversation she said:

"Mr. Bellenger told me your speech was very good. May I see it for
myself?"

Walter was a fine orator, and knew that the favor with which his speech
had been received was in a great measure owing to the manner in which it
was delivered. He was willing for Jessie to have heard it, but he felt a
natural reluctance in permitting her to read it. Jessie saw his
hesitancy, and it strengthened the suspicion which before had hardly
existed.

"Yes, let me see it," she said. "You are surely not afraid of me!" and
she persisted in her entreaties until he gave it into her hands, and
then joined his grandfather, while she returned to her room, and
striking a light, abandoned herself to the reading of the valedictory;
and as she read it seemed even to her that she had heard some portion of
it before.

"Yes, I have!" she exclaimed, as she came upon a strikingly expressed
and peculiar idea. "I have read that in print," and in Jessie’s heart
there was a sore spot, for the losing confidence in Walter was terrible
to her. "He is not strictly honorable," she said, and laying her face
upon the roll of paper, she cried to think how she had been deceived.

The next morning Walter was not long in observing her cold distant
manner, and he accordingly became as cold and formal toward her,
addressing her as Miss Graham, when he spoke to her at all, and after
breakfast was over, going to the village, where he remained until long
past the dinner hour, hearing that which made him in no hurry to return
home and make his peace with the little dark-eyed beauty. Everybody was
talking of Miss Graham’s city beau, who had taken her to ride so often,
and who, when joked by his familiar landlord, had partially admitted
that an engagement actually existed between them.

"So you’ve lost her, sleek and clean," said the talkative Joslyn to
Walter, who replied that "it was difficult losing what one never had,"
and said distinctly that "he did not aspire to the honor of Miss
Graham’s hand."

But whether he did or not, the story he had heard was not calculated to
improve his state of mind, and his dejection was plainly visible upon
his face when he at last reached home.

"Jessie was up among the pines," Aunt Debby said, advising him "to join
her and cheer her up a bit, for she seemed desput low spirited since Mr.
Bellenger went away."

Had Aunt Debby wished to keep Walter from Jessie, she could not have
devised a better plan than this, for the high spirited young man had no
intention of intruding upon a grief caused by William Bellenger’s
absence, and hour after hour Jessie sat alone among the pines, starting
at every sound, and once, when sure a footstep was near, hiding behind a
rock, "so as to make him think she wasn’t there." Then, when the
footstep proved to be a rabbit’s tread, she crept back to her seat upon
the grass, and pouted because it was not Walter.

"He might know I’d be lonesome," she said, "after receiving so much
attention, and he ought to entertain me a little, if only to pay for all
father has done for him. If there is anything I dislike, it is
ingratitude," and having reached this point, Jessie burst into tears,
though why she should cry, she could not tell.

She only knew that she was very warm and very uncomfortable, and that it
did her good to cry, so she lay with her face in the grass, while the
rabbit came several times very near, and at last fled away as a heavier,
firmer step approached.

It was not likely Jessie would stay in the pines all the afternoon,
Walter thought, and as the sun drew near the western horizon, he said to
his grandfather:

"I will go for the cows to-night just as I used to do," and though the
pasture where they fed lay in the opposite direction from the pines, he
bent his footsteps toward the latter place, and came suddenly upon
Jessie, who was sobbing like a child.

"Jessie," he exclaimed, laying his hand gently upon her arm, "what _is_
the matter."

"Nothing," she replied, "only I’m lonesome and homesick, and I wish I’d
gone to New York with Mr. Bellenger."

"Why didn’t you then?" was Walter’s cool reply, and Jessie answered,
angrily:

"I would, if I had known what I do now."

"And pray what do you know now?" Walter asked, in the same cold, calm,
tone, which so exasperated Jessie that she replied:

"I know you hate me, and I know you didn’t write all that valedictory,
and everything."

"Jessie," Walter said, sternly, "what do you mean about that
valedictory. Come, sit by me and tell me at once."

In Walter’s voice there was a tone which, as a child, Jessie had been
wont to obey, and now at his command she stole timidly to his side upon
the rustic bench, and told him all her suspicions, and the source from
which they originated.

There was a sudden flash of anger in Walter’s eye at his cousin’s
meanness, and then, with a merry laugh, he said:

"And it sounded familiar to you, too, did it? Some parts of it might,
I’ll admit, for you had heard them before. Do you remember being at any
examination in Wilbraham, when I took the prize in composition, or
rather declamation? It was said then that my essay was far beyond my
years, and I am inclined to think it was; for I have written nothing
since which pleased me half so well. I was appointed valedictorian, as
you know, and in preparing my oration I selected a few of those old
ideas and embodied them in language to suit the occasion. I am hardly
willing to call it plagiarism, stealing from myself, and I am sure you
would never have recognized it either if Mr. Bellenger had not roused
your suspicions. Is my explanation satisfactory?"

It was perfectly so, for Jessie now remembered where she had heard
something like Walter’s valedictory, and with her doubts removed she
became much like herself again, though she would not admit that
William’s insinuations were mere fabrications of his own. He never heard
it before, she knew, but some of Walter’s old Wilbraham associates might
have been present and said in his hearing that it seemed familiar, and
then it would be quite natural for him to think so too.

Walter did not dispute her, but said:

"What else did my amiable cousin say against me?"

Clasping her hands over her burning face, Jessie answered faintly:

"He told me that your father had done a horrible thing, though he didn’t
explain what it was. I knew before that there was something unpleasant,
and once asked father about it, but he wouldn’t tell, and I want so much
to know. What was it, Walter?"

For a moment Walter hesitated, then drawing Jessie nearer to him, he
replied:

"It will pain me greatly to tell you that sad story, but I would rather
you should hear it from my lips than from any other," and then,
unmindful of the cows, which, having waited long for their accustomed
summons, were slowly wending their way homeward, he began the story as
follows:

"You know that old stone building on the hill near the village, and you
have heard also that it was a flourishing high school for girls. There
one pleasant summer my mother came. She was spending several months with
a family who occupied what is now that huge old ruin down by the river
side. Mother was beautiful, they say, and so my father thought, for
every leisure moment found him at her side."

"But wasn’t she a great deal richer than he," Jessie asked, unconscious
of the pang her question inflicted upon her companion, who replied:

"Yes, he was poor, while Ellen Bellenger was rich, but she had a soul
above the foolish distinction the world will make between the wealthy
and the working class. She loved my father, and he loved her. At last
they were engaged, and then he proposed writing to her parents, as he
would do nothing dishonorable; but she begged him not to do it, for she
knew how proud they were, and that they would take her home at once. And
so, in an unguarded moment, they went together over the line into New
York, where they were married. The Bellengers, of course, were fearfully
enraged, denouncing her at once, and bidding her never cross their
threshold again. But this only drew her nearer to her husband, who
fairly worshiped her, as did the entire family,—for she lived in the old
gable-roofed house,—and was happy in that little room which we call
yours now. Father was anxious that she should have everything she
wanted, and it is said was sometimes very extravagant, buying for her
costly luxuries which he could not well afford."

"But _my_ father," said Jessie. "What had he to do with it?"

"Everything," returned Walter, with bitterness. "Old Mr. Graham had a
bank in Deerwood. Your father was cashier, while mine was teller, and in
consideration of a large remuneration, performed a menial’s part, such
as sweeping the rooms, building the fires in winter, and of course he
kept the keys. They were great friends, Richard Graham and Seth
Marshall, and people likened them to David and Jonathan. At last one of
the large bills my father had made came due, and on that very night the
bank was robbed of more than a thousand dollars."

"Oh, Walter, how could he do it?" cried Jessie, and Walter replied:

"He didn’t! He was as innocent as I, who was then unborn. Listen while I
tell you. There was in town a dissipated, good-natured fellow, named
Heyward, who had sometimes taught singing-school, and sometimes fiddled
for country dances. No one knew how he managed to subsist, for he
dressed well, traveled a great deal, and was very liberal with his
money, when he had any. Still none suspected him of dishonesty; he did
not know enough for that, they said. Everybody liked him, and when on
that night he came to our house, apparently intoxicated, and asked for a
shelter, grandfather bade him stay, and assigned him a back room in
which was an outer door. In the morning he was, or seemed to be, still
in a drunken sleep. Your father brought the news of the robbery, and
while he talked he looked suspiciously at mine, especially when my
mother said innocently:

"’The burglars must have tried this house, too, for I woke in the night,
and finding my husband gone, called to him to know where he was.
Presently he came in, saying he thought he heard a noise and got up to
find what it was.’

"When she said this Mr. Graham changed color, and pointing to my
father’s shoes, which stood upon the hearth, he asked:

"’How came these so muddy? It was not raining at bedtime last night.’

"This was true. A heavy storm had arisen after ten and subsided before
twelve, so that the shoes must have been worn since that hour, as there
was fresh dirt still upon them. The robber had been tracked to our door,
while there were corresponding marks from our door to the bank. My
father’s shoes just fitted in these tracks, for they measured them with
the wretched man looking on in a kind of torpid apathy, as if utterly
unable to comprehend the meaning of what he saw; but when Richard, his
best friend, whispered to him softly, ’Confess it, Seth. Give up the
money and it won’t go so hard against you,’ the truth burst upon him,
and he dropped to the ground like one scathed with the lightning’s
stroke. For hours he lay in that death-like swoon, and when he came back
to consciousness he was guarded by the officers of the law. They led him
off in the care of a constable, he all the time protesting his
innocence, save at intervals when he refused to speak, but sat with a
look upon his face as if bereft of reason.

"The examination came on, and the upper room, where the court was held,
was crowded to overflowing, all anxious to gain a sight of my father,
though they had known him from boyhood up. Grandpa was there, and close
behind sat or rather crouched my wretched mother. She would not be kept
back, and with a face as white as marble, and hands locked firmly
together, she sat to hear the testimony. Once the counsel for my father
thought to clear him by throwing suspicion upon Heyward, who with a most
foolish expression upon his face had declared that he heard nothing
during the night. People would rather it had been he than Seth Marshall,
and the tide was turning in favor of the latter when Richard Graham was
called to the stand. He was known to be my father’s dearest friend, and
the audience waited breathlessly to hear what he would say. He testified
that, having been very restless, he got up about two o’clock in the
morning, and as his window commanded a full view of the bank, he
naturally looked in that direction. The moon was setting, but he could
still discern objects with tolerable distinctness, and he saw a man come
out of the bank, lock the door, put the key in his pocket, and hurry
down the street. My father then wore a light gray coat and cap of the
same color, so did this man, and thinking it must be he, Mr. Graham
called him by name; but if he heard he did not stop. Mr. Graham then
remembered that the day before my father had procured some medicine for
my mother, and had forgotten to take it home. This threw some light upon
the matter, and thinking that mother had probably been taken suddenly
ill and my father had gone for the medicine, Mr. Graham retired again to
rest, and gave it no further thought until the robbery was discovered.

"’Do you believe the man you saw leaving the bank to have been the
prisoner?’ asked the lawyer, and for an instant Mr. Graham hesitated,
for with the white stony face of his early friend upturned to his and
the supplicating eyes of the young wife fixed upon him, how could he
answer yes? But he did, Jessie,—he did it at last. He said, ’I do,’ and
over the white face there passed a look of agony which wrung a groan
even from your father’s lips, while the pale young creature not far away
rocked to and fro in her hopeless desolation."

"Oh, Walter, Walter!" cried Jessie, "don’t tell me any more. I see now
so plain that fair girl-wife crouching on the floor and my father
testifying against her. How could he?"

Walter had asked himself that question many a time, and his bosom had
swelled with resentment at the act; but now, when Jessie, too,
questioned the justice of the proceeding, he answered:

"It was right I suppose,—all right. Mr. Graham believed that to which he
testified, and when he left the stand he wound his arms around my
father’s neck and said:

"’God forgive me, Seth, I couldn’t help it.’"

"But he could," said Jessie; "he needn’t have told all he knew."

Walter made no reply to this; he merely went on with his story:

"Then the decision came. There was proof sufficient for the case to be
presented before the grand jury, and unless bail could be found to the
amount of one thousand dollars, my father must go to jail, there to
await his trial at the county court, which would hold its next session
in three weeks. When the decision was made known, my father pressed his
hands tightly over his heart for a moment, and then he clasped them to
his ears as the deep stillness in the room was broken by the plaintive
cry:

"’Save my husband, somebody. Oh, save my darling husband!’

"The next moment my mother fell at his feet, a crushed, lifeless thing,
her hair falling down her face and a blue, pinched look about her lips,
while my father bent over her, his tears falling like rain upon her
face. Everybody cried, and when the question was asked, ’Who will go the
prisoner’s bail?’ your father answered aloud:

"’I will.’"

"Oh, I am so glad!" gasped Jessie, while Walter continued:

"With Mr. Graham for security, they let my poor father go home; but a
mighty blow had fallen upon him, benumbing all his faculties; he could
neither think, nor talk, nor act, but would sit all day with mother’s
hands in his, gazing into her face and whispering sometimes:

"’What will my darling do when I am in State prison?’

"Such would be his fate, everybody said. It could not be avoided, and in
a kind of feverish despair he waited the result. Your father was with
him often, ’keeping watch,’ the villagers said; but if so, he was not
vigilant enough, for one dark, stormy night, the last before the
dreadful sitting of the court, when the wind roared and howled about the
old farm-house, and the heavy autumnal rain beat against the windows, my
father drew his favorite chair, the one which always stands in that dark
corner, and which none save you has ever used since then, he drew it, I
say, to my mother’s side, and winding his arms about her neck, he said:

"’Ellen, do you believe me guilty?’

"’No, never for a moment,’ she replied, and he continued:

"’Heaven bless you, precious one, for that. Teach our child to think the
same, and give it a father’s blessing.’

"My mother was too much bewildered to answer, and with a kiss upon her
lips, my father turned to his father and standing up before him, said:

"’I know what’s in your heart; but, father, I swear to you that I am
innocent. Bless me, father—bless your only boy once more.’

"Then grandpa put his trembling hand upon the brown locks of his son and
said:

"’I would lay down my life to know that you are not guilty; but I bless
you all the same, and may God bless you too, my boy!’

"In the bedroom grandmother lay sick, and kneeling by her side, my
father said to her:

"’Do you believe I did it?’

"’No,’ she answered faintly, and without his asking it, she gave him her
blessing.

"He kissed his sister,—kissed Aunt Debby, and then he went away. They
saw his face, white as a corpse, pressed against the window pane, while
his eyes were riveted upon his beautiful young wife,—then the face was
gone, and only the storm went sobbing past the place where he had stood.
All that night the light burned on the table, and they waited his
return, but from that hour to this he has not come back. He could not go
to prison, and so he ran away. Mr. Graham paid the bail, and was heard
to say that he was glad poor Seth escaped. I did not quite understand
the matter when I was a boy, and I almost hated your father for
testifying against him, but I know now he did what he thought was right.
It is said he loved my Aunt Mary, Ellen’s mother, and that she loved him
in return, but after this sad affair there arose a coolness between
them. He went to New York and married a more fashionable woman, while
she, too, chose another."

"Did they ever find the money?" Jessie asked, and Walter replied:

"Never, though Aunt Debby says that Heyward indulged in a new suit of
clothes soon after, and gave various other tokens of being abundantly
supplied. No one knows where he is now, for he left Deerwood years ago."

"And your mother," interrupted Jessie, "tell me more of her."

The night shadows were falling, and she could not see the look of pain
on Walter’s face as he replied:

"For a few days she watched to see father coming back, for suspense was
more terrible than reality, and those who were his friends before said
his going off looked badly. From Boston her proud relatives sent her a
double curse for bringing this disgrace upon them, and then she took her
bed, never to rise again. The first October frosts had fallen when they
laid me in her arms and bade her live for her baby’s sake. But five days
after I was born she lay dead beneath that western window where you so
often sit. Then the proud mother relented and came to the funeral, but
she has never been here since. Your father was present, too,—he bought
the monument; he cried over me, and wished that he could fill my
father’s place."

"I wish he could, too," cried the impulsive Jessie, "I wish you were my
brother," and she involuntarily laid her hand in his. "Have you never
heard from your father?" she asked, and Walter replied:

"Only once. Six months after mother died he wrote to Mr. Graham from
Texas, and that is the very last. But, Jessie, I shall find him. I shall
prove him innocent, and until then there will always be a load in my
heart,—a something which makes me irritable, cross and jealous of those
I love the best, lest they should despise me for what I cannot help."

"And is that why you speak so coldly to me sometimes when I don’t
deserve it?" Jessie asked, twining her snowy fingers about his own.

Oh, how Walter longed to fold her in his arms and tell her how dear she
was to him, and that because he loved her so much he was oftenest harsh
with her. But he dared not. She would not listen to such words, he knew.
She thought of him as her brother, and he would not disturb the dream,
so he answered her gently:

"Am I cross to you, Jessie? I do not mean to be, and now that you know
all, I will be so no longer. You do not hate me, do you, because of my
misfortune?"

"Hate you, Walter! Oh, no! I love,—I mean I like you so much better than
I did when I came up here this afternoon and cried with my face in the
grass. I pity you, Walter, for it seems terrible to live with that
disgrace hanging over you."

Walter winced at these last words, and Jessie, as if speaking more to
herself than him, continued:

"I hope Will won’t tell grandma who you are, for she is so proud that
she might make me feel very uncomfortable by fretting every time I spoke
to you. Walter," and the tone of Jessie’s voice led Walter to expect
some unpleasant remark, "you know father has intended to have you live
with us, but if William tells grandma, it will be better for you to
board somewhere else,—grandma can be very disagreeable if she tries, and
she would annoy us almost to death."

Jessie was perfectly innocent in all she said, but in spite of his
recent promise Walter felt his old jealousy rising up, and whispering to
him that Jessie spoke for herself rather than her grandmother. With a
great effort, however, he mastered the emotion and replied:

"It will be better, I think, and I will write to your father at once."

Jessie little dreamed what it cost Walter thus deliberately to give up
seeing her every day, and living with her beneath the same roof. It had
been the goal to which he had looked forward through all his college
course, for when he entered on his first year Mr. Graham had written:

"After you are graduated I shall take you into business, and into my own
family, as if you were my son."

And Jessie herself had vetoed this,—had said it must not be.

For an instant Walter felt that he would not go to New York at all; but
when he saw how closely Jessie nestled to his side, and heard her say,
"You can come to see me every day, and when I am going to concerts, or
the opera, I shall always send word to you by father," he rejected his
first suspicions as unjust.

She was not ashamed of him,—she only wished to screen him from her
grandmother’s ill nature, and, winding his arm around her, he said:

"You are a good girl, Jessie, and I’m glad you think of me as a
brother."

But he was not glad. He did not wish her to be his sister, but he tried
to make himself believe he did, and as in the pines where they sat it
was already very dark, he proposed their returning home. Jessie was
unusually silent during the walk, for she was thinking of Walter’s young
mother, and as they passed the grave-yard in the distance, she sighed:

"Poor dear lady! I don’t wonder you are often sad with that memory
haunting you."

"I should not be sad," he returned, "if I could bring the world to my
opinion; but nearly all except Aunt Debby believe him guilty."

"Does my father?" asked Jessie, and as Walter replied, "Yes," she
rejoined: "Then I’m afraid I think so too, for father knows; but," she
hastily added, as she felt the gesture of impatience Walter made, "I
like you just the same,—yes, a great deal better than before I heard the
story. It isn’t as bad as I supposed, and I am so glad you told it. Will
Bellenger won’t make me distrust you again."

By this time they had reached the house, where the deacon sat smoking
his accustomed pipe, and saying to Walter as he entered:

"Where are the cows you went after more than three hours ago?"

Walter colored, and so did Jessie, while the matter-of-fact Aunt Debby
rejoined:

"Why, Amos, the cows is milked and the cream is nigh about riz."

That night, after all had retired except the deacon and Walter, the
former said to his grandson:

"What kept you and Jessie so late?"

"I was telling her of my father, and why he went away," returned Walter.

The deacon groaned as he always did when that subject was
mentioned,—then after a moment he added:

"I am glad it was no worse,—that is, I’m glad you are not betraying Mr.
Graham’s trust by making love to his daughter."

Walter was very pale, but he did not speak, and his grandfather
continued:

"I am old, Walter, but I have not forgotten the days when I was young;
and remembering my disposition then, I can see why you should love
Jessie Graham. God bless her! She’s worthy of any man’s best love, and
she’s wound herself round my old heart till the sound of her voice is
sweet to me almost as Ellen’s; but she isn’t for you, Walter. I know Mr.
Graham better than you do. He’s noble and good, but very proud, and the
daughter of a millionaire must never marry the son of a poor——"

"Don’t!" cried Walter, catching his grandfather’s arm. "I understand it
all,—I know that I am poor, know what the world says of my father, and I
will suffer through all time sooner than ask the bright-faced Jessie to
share one iota of our shame. But were my father innocent, I would never
rest until I made myself a name which even Jessie Graham would not
despise, for I love her, grandpa,—love her better than my life," and as
after this confession he could not look his grandfather in the face, he
stared hard at the candle dying in its socket, as if he would fain read
there some token that what he so much desired would one day come to
pass.

And he did read it too, for with a last great effort the expiring flame
sent up a flash of light, which shone on Walter’s face and that of the
gray-haired man regarding him with a look of tender pity. Then it passed
away, and the darkness fell between them just as the old man said,
mournfully:

"There is no hope, my boy,—no hope for you."

CHAPTER VI.—OLD MRS. BARTOW.

The good lady sat in her chamber wiping the perspiration from her ruddy
face, and occasionally peering out into the pleasant street, with a
longing desire to escape from her self-imposed prison, and breathe the
air again in her accustomed walks. But this she dared not do, lest it
should be discovered that she was not away from home and enjoying some
little pent-up room in the third story of a crowded hotel. Occasionally,
too, she thought with a sigh of the clover fields, the fresh, green
grass and shadowy woods, where Jessie was really enjoying herself,
without the trouble of dressing three times a day, and then swelling
with vexation because some one else out-did her.

"If she don’t come with William, I mean to go down there and see what
this family are like that she makes such a fuss about," she said.
"Marshall? Marshall? The name sounds familiar, but it isn’t likely I
ever knew them. If I supposed I had, I wouldn’t stir a step."

At this point in her soliloquy a servant appeared, saying "Mr. Bellenger
wished to see her," and putting in her teeth, for it tired her to wear
them all the time, and adjusting her lace cap, the old lady went down to
meet the young man, who had just returned from Deerwood. Numberless were
the questions she asked concerning her granddaughter. Was she well? was
she happy? was she sun-burned? were her hands scratched with briers? and
what kind of people were these Marshalls?

To this last William hastened to reply:

"Clever country people, very kind to Jessie, and well they may be, for
if I’ve the least discernment, they hope to have her in their family one
of these days."

"What can you mean?" and the old lady’s salts were brought into frequent
use, while William, in his peculiar way, told her of Walter Marshall,
who he said "was undoubtedly presuming enough to aspire to Jessie’s
hand."

"What, that boy that Richard educated?" Mrs. Bartow asked, growing very
red and very warm withal.

"Yes," returned William; "but the fact of his being a charity student is
not the worst feature in the case. It pains me greatly to talk upon the
subject, but duty requires me to tell you just who Walter is," and
assuming a half-reluctant, half-mortified tone, Will told Mrs. Bartow
how Walter was connected with himself and the "terrible disgrace" of
which she had written to Jessie in her last letter.

For a moment the old lady fancied herself choking to death, but she
managed at last to scream:

"You don’t say that he has dared to think of Jessie, the daughter of a
millionaire, and the granddaughter of a——"

She was too much overcome to finish the sentence, and she sank back in
her chair, while her cap-strings floated up and down with the rapid
motion of her fan.

"I’ll go for her at once," she said, when at last she found her voice.
"I’ll see this Mr. Impudence for myself. I’ll teach him what is what.
Oh, I hope Mrs. Reeves won’t find it out. Don’t tell her, Mr.
Bellenger."

"I am as anxious to conceal the fact as you are," he replied, "for he,
you know, is a relative of mine, although our family do not acknowledge
him." And having done all he came to do, the nice young man departed,
while the greatly disturbed lady began to pack her trunk preparatory to
a start for Deerwood.

In the midst of her preparations she was surprised by the unexpected
return of Mr. Graham, to whom she at once disclosed the cause of her
distress, asking him "if he wished his daughter to marry Walter
Marshall, whose father was a——"

She didn’t quite know what, for William had not made that point very
clear.

"I do not wish her to marry any one as yet," returned Mr. Graham, at the
same time asking if Walter had proposed, or shown any signs of so doing.

"Of course he’s shown signs," returned Mrs. Bartow, "but I trust Jessie
has enough of the Stanwood about her to keep him at a proper distance."

"Enough of the what?" asked Mr. Graham, with the least possible smile
playing about his mouth.

"Well, enough of the Bartow," returned the lady. "The very idea of
receiving into our family a person of his antecedents!"

In a few words Mr. Graham gave her his opinion of Walter Marshall,
adding:

"I do not say that I would like him to marry Jessie,—very likely I
should not,—and still, if I knew that she loved him and he loved her, I
should not think it my duty to oppose them seriously, though I would
rather, of course, that the unfortunate affair of his father’s had never
occurred."

This was all the satisfaction Mrs. Bartow could gain from him, and
doubly strengthened in her determination to remove Jessie from Walter’s
society, she started the next morning for Deerwood, reaching there
toward the close of the day succeeding Jessie’s interview with Walter in
the pines.

"Not this tumble-down shanty, surely?" she said to the omnibus driver
when he stopped before the gate of the farm-house.

"Yes’m, this is Deacon Marshall’s," he replied, and mounting his box
again he drove off, while she went slowly up the walk, casting
contemptuous glances at the well-sweep, the smoke-house, the bee-hives,
the hollyhocks, poppies and pinks, which, in spite of herself, carried
her back to a time, years and years and years ago, when she had lived in
just such a place as this, save that it was not so cheerful or so neat.

Aunt Debby was the first to spy her, and she called to her niece:

"Why, Mary, just look-a-here! There’s a lady all dressed up in her
meetin’ clothes, a-comin’ in. I wish we had mopped the kitchen floor
to-day. There, she’s gone to the front door. I presume the gals has
littered the front hall till it’s a sight to behold."

Mrs. Bartow’s loud knock was now distinctly heard, and as Mrs. Howland
had not quite finished her afternoon toilet, Aunt Debby herself went to
answer the summons. Holding fast to her knitting, with the ball rolling
after her, and Jessie’s kitten running after that, she presented herself
before her visitor, courtesying very low, and asking if "she’d walk into
the t’other room, or into the kitchen, where it was a great deal
cooler."

Mrs. Bartow chose the "t’other room," and taking the Boston rocker,
asked "if Miss Graham was staying here?"

"You mean Jessie," returned Aunt Debby. "It’s so cool this afternoon
that she’s gone out ridin’ hossback in the mountains with Walter and
Ellen. Be you any of her kin?"

"I’m her grandmother, and have come to take her home," answered the
lady, frowning wrathfully at the idea of Jessie’s riding with Walter
Marshall.

"I want to know!" returned Aunt Debby. "We’ll be desput sorry to lose
her jest as Walter has come home, and he thinks so much of her, too."

Mrs. Bartow was too indignant to speak, but Aunt Debby, who was not at
all suspicious, talked on just the same, praising first Walter, then
Ellen, then Jessie, and then giving an outline history of her whole
family, even including Seth, who she said "allus was a good boy."

If Aunt Debby expected a return of confidence she was mistaken, for Mrs.
Bartow had nothing to say of her family, and after a little Aunt Debby
began to question her. Was she city-born, and if not, where was she
born?

"That red mark on your chin makes me think of a girl, Patty Loomis by
name, that I used to know in Hopkinton," she said, and the mark upon the
chin grew redder as she continued: "I did housework there once, in
Squire Fielding’s family, and this Patty that I was tellin’ you about
done chores in a family close by. She was some younger than me, but I
remember her by that mark, similar to your’n, and because she was
connected to them three Thayers that was hung in York State for killin’
John Love. There was some han’some verses made about it, and I used to
sing the whole of ’em, but my memory’s failin’ me now. I wonder what’s
become of Patty. I haven’t thought of her before in an age. I heard that
a rich old widder took her for her own child, and that’s all I ever
knew. She was smart as steel, and could milk seven cows while I was
milkin’ three. There they come, on the full canter of course. Ellen ’ll
get her neck broke some day," and greatly to the relief of Mrs. Bartow
she changed the conversation from Patty Loomis and the three Thayers who
were hung, to the three riders dashing up to the gate, Jessie a little
in advance, with her black curls streaming out from under her riding
hat, and her cheeks glowing with the exercise.

"Why, grandma!" she exclaimed, as holding up her long skirt, she bounded
into the house, and nearly upset the old lady before she was aware of
her presence. "Where in the world did you come from? Isn’t it pleasant
and nice out here?" and throwing off her hat, Jessie sat down by the
window to cool herself after her rapid ride.

"Why, grandma, you are as cross as two sticks," she said, when Aunt
Debby had left the room, and grandma replied:

"That’s a very lady-like expression. Learned it of Mr. Marshall, I
suppose."

"No, I didn’t," returned Jessie. "I learned it of Will Bellenger when he
was here. It’s his favorite expression. Did he bring you my note?"

"Certainly; and I’ve come down to see what the attraction is which keeps
you here so contentedly."

"Oh, it’s so nice," returned Jessie, and Mrs. Bartow rejoined:

"I should think it was. Who ever heard of a bed in the parlor
now-a-days?" and she cast a rueful glance at the snowy mountain in the
corner.

"That’s a little out of date, I know," answered Jessie; "but the house
is rather small, and they keep the spare bed in here for such visitors
as you are. The sheets are all of Aunt Debby’s make, she spun the linen
on a wheel that treads so funny. Did you ever see a little wheel,
grandma?"

The question reminded Mrs. Bartow of Patty Loomis and the three Thayers,
and she did not reply directly to it, but said instead:

"What did you call that woman?"

"Aunt Debby Marshall, the deacon’s sister," returned Jessie, and Mrs.
Bartow relapsed into a thoughtful mood, from which she was finally
aroused by hearing Walter’s voice in the kitchen.

Instantly she glanced at Jessie, who involuntarily blushed; and then the
old lady commenced the battle at once, telling Jessie plainly that "she
had come down to take her home before she disgraced them all by
suffering a boy of Walter Marshall’s reputation to make love to her."

"Walter never thought of making love to me," returned the astonished and
slightly indignant Jessie; "and if he had it wouldn’t have been
anybody’s business but mine and father’s. He isn’t a boy, either. He’s a
splendid-looking man. Pa thinks the world of him; and he knows, too,
about that old affair, which wasn’t half as bad as Will and Mrs. Reeves
seem to think. Walter told it to me last night up in the pines, and I’ll
tell it to you. It wasn’t murder nor anything like it. Now, even I
shouldn’t wish it said that any of my friends were hung."

"Hung!" repeated the old lady. "Who said anybody’s friends were hung?
It’s false!" and the red mark around the lip wore a scarlet hue.

"Of course it’s false," answered Jessie. "That’s what I said. Nobody
knows for certain that he stole, either," and forgetting her own belief,
founded on her father’s, Jessie tried to prove that Seth Marshall was as
innocent as Walter himself had declared him to be.

"Whether he’s guilty or not," returned Mrs. Bartow, "you are going home,
and you’re to have nothing to say to Walter. It would sound pretty,
wouldn’t it, for Mrs. Reeves to be telling that Jessie Graham liked a
poor charity boy?"

Jessie was proud, and the last words grated harshly, but she would stand
by Walter, and she replied:

"Mrs. Reeves forever! I believe you’d stop breathing if she said it was
fashionable. I wonder who she was in her young days. Somebody not half
so good as Walter, I dare say. I mean to ask Aunt Debby. She has lived
since the flood, and knows the history of everybody that ever was born
in New England, or out of it either, for that matter."

Mrs. Bartow was not inclined to doubt this after her own experience, and
as in case there was anything about Mrs. Reeves, she wished to know it,
she secretly hoped Jessie would carry her threat into execution. Just
then they were summoned to supper, and following her granddaughter into
the pleasant sitting-room, Mrs. Bartow frowned majestically upon Walter,
bowed coldly to the other members of the family, and then took her seat,
thinking to herself:

"The boy has a little of the Bellenger look, and, if anything, is
handsomer than William."

The tea being passed, with the biscuit and butter and honey, and the
cheese contemptuously refused by the city guest, Jessie said to Aunt
Debby:

"Did you ever know anybody by the name of Gregory? That was Mrs. Reeves’
maiden name, wasn’t it, grandma?"

Mrs. Bartow nodded, and Aunt Debby, after withdrawing within herself for
a moment, came out again and said:

"Yes, I knew Tim and Ben Gregory in Spencer. Ben was the best of the
two, but he wa’n’t none too likely. He had six boys, and Tim had six
gals."

"What were their names?" asked Jessie, and Aunt Debby replied:

"There was Zeruah, and Lyddy, and Charlotty——"

"That’ll do!" cried Jessie, her delight dancing in her eyes. "What was
their father, and where are the girls now?"

"Their father was a tin peddler, and what he didn’t get that way folks
said he used to steal, though they never proved it ag’in him. Charlotty
and I was 'bout of an age."

"I knew she was older than she pretended," thought Mrs. Bartow, and in
her joy at having probably discovered her dear friend’s genealogy, she
took two biscuits instead of one.

"She worked in Lester factory a spell, and then, after she was quite
along in years, say thirty or more, she married somebody who was a
storekeeper, and went somewhere, and I believe I’ve heard that she
finally moved to New York."

"Can’t you think of her husband’s name," persisted Jessie, and Aunt
Debby replied:

"Twan’t very far from Reed, but it’s so long ago, and I’ve been through
so much since, that I can’t justly remember."

Neither was it necessary that she should, for Mrs. Bartow and Jessie
were satisfied with what she could remember, and nothing doubting that
Charlotte Gregory was now the exceedingly aristocratic and purse-proud
Mrs. Reeves, whose granddaughter was a kind of rival to Jessie, they
returned to the parlor, Mrs. Bartow repeating at intervals:

"A tin peddler and a factory girl, and she holding her head so high."

"She’s none the worse for that, if she’d behave herself, and not put on
such airs," said Jessie. "I wouldn’t wonder if some of my ancestors were
tinkers or chimney sweeps. I mean to ask Aunt Debby. Let’s see. Your
name wasn’t really Martha Stanwood, was it? Weren’t you an adopted
child?"

"Jessie!" and in the startled lady’s voice there was such unmitigated
alarm and distress that Jessie turned quickly to look at her. "Do let
that old crone alone. If there’s anything I hate it’s a person that
knows everybody’s history, they are so disagreeable, and make one so
uncomfortable, though I’m glad to be sure, that I’ve found out who Mrs.
Reeves was. Just to think how she talks about high birth and all
that,—born in a garret, I dare say."

"She don’t put on a bit more than you do," said the saucy Jessie,
thinking to herself that she would some time quiz Aunt Debby concerning
her grandmother’s past.

That night, after Jessie had retired, Mrs. Bartow asked for a few
moments’ conversation with Walter, to whom she had scarcely spoken the
entire evening Quick to detect a slight, he assumed his haughtiest
bearing, and rather overawed the old lady, who fidgetted in her chair,
and pulled at her cap, and then began:

"It is very unpleasant for me to say to you what I must, but duty to
Miss Graham, and justice to you, demands that I should speak. From
things which I have heard and seen, I infer that you,—or rather I’m
afraid that you,—in short, it’s just possible you are thinking too much
of Miss Graham," and having gotten thus far, the old lady gave a sigh of
relief, while the young man, with a proud inclination of the head, said
coolly:

"And what then?"

This roused her, and muttering to herself, "Such impudence!" she
continued:

"I should suppose your own sense would tell you what then! Of course
nothing can ever come of it, for even were you her equal in rank and
wealth, you must know there is a stain upon your name which must never
be imparted to the Grahams."

"Madam," said Walter, "you will please confine your remarks to me
personally, and say nothing of my father."

"Well, then," returned the lady. "You, personally, are not a fit husband
for Jessie."

"Have I ever asked to be her husband?" he said.

"Not in words, perhaps, but you show it in your manner both to me and
others, and this is what brought me here. Jessie is young and easily
influenced, and might possibly, in an unguarded moment, do as foolish a
thing as your mother did."

There was a feeling of intense delight beaming in Walter’s eyes, for the
idea that Jessie could in any way be induced to marry him was a blissful
one; but it quickly passed off as Mrs. Bartow continued:

"It would break her father’s heart should she thus throw herself away,
while you would prove yourself most ungrateful for all he has done for
you."

This was touching Walter in a tender point, and the pride of his nature
flashed in his dark eyes as he replied:

"Let me know Mr. Graham’s wishes, and they shall be obeyed."

"Well, then," returned the lady, "I asked him if he would like to have
his daughter marry you, and he replied—" she hesitated before uttering
the falsehood, while Walter bent forward eagerly to listen. "He said he
certainly would not, and with his approbation I came down to remove her
from temptation."

Walter was very white, and something like a groan escaped him, for he
felt that Jessie was indeed wrested from him, and he began to see that
he had always cherished a secret hope of winning her some day. But the
dream was over now. She, he knew, would never disobey her father, while
he himself would not return the many kindnesses received from his
benefactor with ingratitude.

"Tell Mr. Graham from me," he said at last, almost in a whisper, "that
he need have no fears, for I pledge you my word of honor that I will
never ask Jessie Graham to be my wife, unless the time should come when
I am by the world acknowledged her equal, and when I promise this, Mrs.
Bartow, I tear out, as it were, the dearest, purest affection of my
heart, for I do love Jessie Graham; I see it now as clearly as I see
that I must kill that love. Not because you ask it of me, Madam," and he
assumed a haughty tone, "but because it is the wish of the best friend I
ever knew. He need not fear when I am with her in New York. I will keep
my place, whatever that may be, and when I call on Jessie, as I shall
sometimes do, it will be a brother’s call, and nothing more. Will you be
satisfied with this?"

"Yes, more than satisfied," and Mrs. Bartow offered him her hand.

He took it mechanically, and as he turned away the lady thought to
herself:

"He is a noble fellow, and so handsome, too, but William looks almost as
well. Didn’t he give it up quick when I mentioned Mr. Graham. I wonder
if that was a lie I told. I only left off a little, that was all," and
framing excuses for her duplicity, the old lady retired for the night.

They were to leave in the morning, and Jessie seemed unusually sad when
she came out to breakfast, for the inmates of the farm-house were very
dear to her.

"You’ll come to New York soon, won’t you?" she said to Walter, when,
after breakfast, she joined him under the maple tree.

At the sound of her voice he started, and looking down into her bright,
sunny face, felt a thrill of pain. Involuntarily he took her hand in
his, and said:

"I have been thinking that I may not come at all."