ld not
have served you so."

There was a roll of wheels before the door, and Hugh knew by the sound
that it was the carriage for the cars. She was going. They would never
meet again, Hugh said, and she would never know that the youth who saved
her life was the same for whose coming they would wait and watch in vain
at Spring Bank--the Hugh for whom his mother would weep a while; and for
whose dark fate even Ad might feel a little sorry. She was not wholly
depraved--she had some sisterly feeling, and his loss would waken it to
life. They would appreciate him after he was gone, and the poor heart
which had known so little love throbbed joyfully, as Hugh thought of
being loved at last even by the selfish 'Lina.

Meantime Alice and Densie proceeded on their way to the Big Spring
station, where Colonel Tiffton was waiting for them, according to his
promise. There was a shadow in the colonel's good-humored face, and a
shadow in his heart. His idol, Nellie, was very, very sick, while added
to this was the terrible certainty that he and he alone must pay that
$10,000 note on which he had foolishly put his name, because Harney had
preferred it. He was talking with Harney when the cars came up, and the
villain, while expressing regret that the colonel should be compelled to
pay so much for what he never received, had said, with a relentless
smile: "But it's not my fault, you know. I can't afford to lose it."

From that moment the colonel felt he was a ruined man, but he would not
allow himself to appear at all discomposed.

"Wait a while," he said; "do nothing till my Nell lives or dies," and
with a sigh as he thought how much dearer to him was his youngest
daughter than all the farms in Woodford, he went forward to meet Alice,
just appearing upon the platform.

The colonel explained to Alice why she must go to Spring Bank, adding,
by way of consolation, that she would not be quite as lonely now Hugh
was at home.

"Hugh at home!" and Alice shrank back in dismay, feeling for a moment
that she could not go there.

But there was no alternative, and after a few tears, which, she could
not repress, she said, timidly:

"What is this Hugh? What kind of a man, I mean?"

She could not expect the colonel to say anything bad of him, but she was
not prepared for his frank response.

"The likeliest chap in Kentucky. Nothing dandified about him, to be
sure. Wears his trouser legs in his boots as often as any way, and don't
stand a