chosen a
companion for life, she was amazingly spiritless and sombre. As she
looked at her pale cheeks and heavy eyes in the mirror, she felt ashamed
that she had no fairer countenance to offer to her destined lord. She
had lost her single beauty, her smile; and she would make but a ghastly
figure at the altar. "I ought to wear a calico dress and an apron," she
said to herself, "and not this glaring finery." But she continued to
wear her finery, and to lay out her money, and to perform all her old
duties to the letter. After the lapse of what she deemed a sufficient
interval, she went to see Mrs. Martin, and to listen dumbly to her
narration of her brother's death, and to her simple eulogies.

Major Luttrel performed his part quite as bravely, and much more
successfully. He observed neither too many things nor too few; he
neither presumed upon his success, nor mistrusted it. Having on his side
received no prohibition from Richard, he resumed his visits at the farm,
trusting that, with the return of reason, his young friend might feel
disposed to renew that anomalous alliance in which, on the hapless
evening of Captain Severn's farewell, he had taken refuge against his
despair. In the long, languid hours of his early convalescence, Richard
had found time to survey his position, to summon back piece by piece the
immediate past, and to frame a general scheme for the future. But more
vividly than anything else, there had finally disengaged itself from his
meditations a profound aversion to James Luttrel.

It was in this humor that the Major found him; and as he looked at the
young man's gaunt shoulders, supported by pillows, at his face, so livid
and aquiline, at his great dark eyes, luminous with triumphant life, it
seemed to him that an invincible spirit had been sent from a better
world to breathe confusion upon his hopes. If Richard hated the Major,
the reader may guess whether the Major loved Richard. Luttrel was amazed
at his first remark.

"I suppose you're engaged by this time," Richard said, calmly enough.

"Not quite," answered the Major. "There's a chance for you yet."

To this Richard made no rejoinder. Then, suddenly, "Have you had any
news of Captain Severn?" he asked.

For a moment the Major was perplexed at his question. He had assumed
that the news of Severn's death had come to Richard's ears, and he had
been half curious, half apprehensive as to its effect. But an instant's
reflection now assured hi