sometimes clashed with young
Carlyle's.

The clock struck ten. Mrs. Hare took her customary sup of brandy and
water, a small tumbler three parts full. Without it she believed
she could never get to sleep; it deadened unhappy thought, she said.
Barbara, after making it, had turned again to the window, but she did
not resume her seat. She stood right in front of it, her forehead bent
forward against its middle pane. The lamp, casting a bright light, was
behind her, so that her figure might be distinctly observable from the
lawn, had any one been there to look upon it.

She stood there in the midst of dreamland, giving way to all its
enchanting and most delusive fascinations. She saw herself, in
anticipation, the wife of Mr. Carlyle, the envied, thrice envied, of all
West Lynne; for, like as he was the dearest on earth to her heart, so
was he the greatest match in the neighborhood around. Not a mother but
what coveted him for her child, and not a daughter but would have said,
"Yes, and thank you," to an offer from the attractive Archibald Carlyle.
"I never was sure, quite sure of it till to-night," murmured Barbara,
caressing the locket, and holding it to her cheek. "I always thought he
meant something, or he might mean nothing: but to give me this--to kiss
me--oh Archibald!"

A pause. Barbara's eyes were fixed upon the moonlight.

"If he would but say he loved me! If he would but save the suspense
of my aching heart! But it must come; I know it will; and if that
cantankerous toad of a Corny--"

Barbara Hare stopped. What was that, at the far end of the lawn, just in
advance of the shade of the thick trees? Their leaves were not causing
the movement, for it was a still night. It had been there some minutes;
it was evidently a human form. What _was_ it? Surely it was making signs
to her!

Or else it looked as though it was. That was certainly its arm moving,
and now it advanced a pace nearer, and raised something which it wore
on its head--a battered hat with a broad brim, a "wide-awake," encircled
with a wisp of straw.

Barbara Hare's heart leaped, as the saying runs, into her mouth, and
her face became deadly white in the moonlight. Her first thought was to
alarm the servants; her second, to be still; for she remembered the fear
and mystery that attached to the house. She went into the hall, shutting
her mamma in the parlor, and stood in the shade of the portico, gazing
still. But the figure evidently followed h