mind, the doctor did look at Anna's carpet, admiring its pattern, and
having a kind of pleasant consciousness that everything was in keeping,
from the handsome drapery which shaded the windows to the marble hearth
on which a fire was blazing.

In Adah Hastings' dream that night there were visions of a little room
far up in a fourth story, where her fair head was pillowed again upon
the manly arm of one who listened while she chided him gently for his
long delay, and then told him of their Willie boy so much like him, as
the young mother thought.

In Dr. Richards' dreams, when at last he slept, there were visions of a
lonely grave in a secluded part of Greenwood, and he heard again the
startling words:

"Dead, both she and the child."

He did not know there was a child, and he staggered in his sleep, just
as he staggered down the creaking stairs, repeating to himself:

"Lily's child--Lily's child. May Lily's God forgive me."

CHAPTER VI

ALICE JOHNSON

The Sabbath dawned at last. The doctor had not yet made his appearance
in the village, and Saturday had been spent by him in rehearsing to his
sisters and the servants the wonderful things he had seen abroad, and in
lounging listlessly by a window which overlooked the town, and also
commanded a view of the tasteful cottage by the riverside, where they
told him Mrs. Johnson lived. One upper window he watched with peculiar
interest, from the fact that, early in the day, a head had protruded
from it a moment, as if to inhale the wintry air, and then been quickly
withdrawn.

"Does Miss Johnson wear curls?" he asked, rather indifferently, with his
eye still on the cottage by the river.

"Yes; a great profusion of them," was Mrs. Richards' reply, and then the
doctor knew he had caught a glimpse of Alice Johnson, for the head he
had seen was covered with curls, he was sure.

But little good did a view at that distance afford him. He must see her
nearer ere he decided as to her merits to be a belle. He did not believe
her face would at all compare with the one which continually haunted his
dreams, and over which the coffin lid was shut weary months ago, but
fifty thousand dollars had invested Miss Alice with that peculiar charm
which will sometimes make an ugly face beautiful. The doctor was
beginning to feel the need of funds, and now that Lily was dead, the
thought had more than once crossed his mind that to set himself at once
to the task of finding a wea