of little dogs with
bead eyes, baskets of flowers, wreaths, and birds on sprays. She had
an ambition to embroider a whole set of parlor-chairs, as some young
ladies in her school had done, and there was in her mind a dim and
scarcely admitted fancy that these same chairs might add state to
some future condition of hers.

Lucina had always innocently taken it for granted that she should
some day be married and have a house of her own, and very near her
father's. When she had begun the embroidery she had furnished a
shadowy little parlor of a shadowy house with the fine chairs, and
admitted at the parlor door a dim and stately presence, so shadowy to
her timid maiden fancy that there was scarcely a suggestion of
substance.

Now, however, the shadow seemed to deepen and clear in outline.
Lucina fell to wondering if Jerome Edwards thought embroidered chairs
pretty or silly. Often she would pause in her counting and setting
even cross-barred stitches, lean her soft cheek on her slender white
hand, and sit so a long while, with her fair curls drooping over her
gentle, brooding face. Her mother often noticed her sitting so, and
thought, partly from quick maternal intuition, partly from knowledge
gained from her own experience, that if it were possible, she should
judge her to have had her heart turned to some maiden fancy. But she
knew that Lucina had cared for none of her lovers away from home, and
at home there were none feasible, unless, perhaps, Lawrence Prescott.
Lawrence had not been to see her lately; could it be possible the
child was hurt by it? Abigail sounded cautiously the depths of her
daughter's heart, and found to her satisfaction no image of Lawrence
Prescott therein.

"Lawrence is a good boy," said Lucina; "it is a pity he is no taller,
and looks so like his father; but he is very good. I do think,
though, he might go to ride with me sometimes and save father from
going. I would rather have father, but I know he does not like to
ride. Lawrence had been planning to go to ride with me all through
the summer. It was strange he stopped--was it not, mother?"

"Perhaps he is busy. I saw him driving with his father the other
day," said Abigail.

"Well, perhaps he is," assented Lucina, easily. Then she asked advice
as to this or that shade in the ears of the little poodle-dog which
she was embroidering.

"Lucina is as transparent as glass," her mother thought. "She could
never speak of Lawrence Prescott in t