ked inquiringly into
her eyes.

"The letter," I said, "for Judge Hubbard?" hoping that she would go to
the house for it, and then I could follow her for a word.

"Oh! I had almost forgotten. Here it is;" and she drew it from her
pocket and held it out to me in her gloved hand. I pressed the hand to
my lips, riding-glove and all, and sprang in beside Fanny, who was
with some difficulty making her horse stand still.

"Good-bye!" from the little figure at the gate. "Don't forget, Fanny,
to-morrow at ten;" and we were off.

By the wretched kerosene lamp of the car, going down, I read my
letter, for it was for me: "I will not go to Europe, and I forbid you
to mention it again. I shall never, never forget that _I_ proposed it,
and that you--_accepted_ it. Come up to Lenox once more before you
go."

This was written in ink, and was sealed. It was the morning's note.
But across the envelope these words were written in pencil: "Go to
Europe with Fanny Meyrick, and come up to Lenox, both of you, when you
return."

CHAPTER VI.

I had a busy week of it in New York--copying out instructions, taking
notes of marriages and intermarriages in 1690, and writing each day a
long, pleading letter to Bessie. There was a double strain upon me:
all the arrangements for my client's claims, and in an undercurrent
the arguments to overcome Bessie's decision, went on in my brain side
by side.

I could not, I wrote to her, make the voyage without her. It would be
the shipwreck of all my new hopes. It was cruel in her to have raised
such hopes unless she was willing to fulfill them: it made the
separation all the harder. I could not and would not give up the plan.
"I have engaged our passage in the Wednesday's steamer: say yes, dear
child, and I will write to Dr. Wilder from here."

I could not leave for Lenox before Saturday morning, and I hoped to be
married on the evening of that day. But to all my pleading came "No,"
simply written across a sheet of note-paper in my darling's graceful
hand.

Well, I would go up on the Saturday, nevertheless. She would surely
yield when she saw me faithful to my word.

"I shall be a sorry-looking bridegroom," I thought as I surveyed
myself in the little mirror at the office. It was Friday night, and we
were shutting up. We had worked late by gaslight, all the clerks had
gone home long ago, and only the porter remained, half asleep on a
chair in the hall.

It was striking nine as I gather