h
Mrs. Edwards explained with no delay.

"Belinda Lamb has been here," she said, "and that young man is that
Boston girl's beau; he ain't Lucina's, and Lawrence Prescott ain't
nothing to do with it. He was up there last night, but it wa'n't
anything. Why, Jerome Edwards, you look as pale as death!"

Jerome muttered some unintelligible response, and went out of the
room, with his mother staring after him. He went straight to his own
little chamber, and, standing there in the still, icy gloom of the
winter twilight, repeated the promise which he had made in summer.

"If you are true to me, Lucina," he said, in a straining whisper--"if
you are true to me--but I'll leave it all to you whether you are or
not, I'll work till I win you."

Chapter XXXI

On the evening of the next day Jerome went to call on Lawyer
Eliphalet Means. Lawyer Means lived near the northern limit of the
village, on the other side of the brook.

Jerome, going through the covered bridge which crossed the brook,
paused and looked through a space between the side timbers. This
brook was a sturdy little torrent at all times; in spring it was a
river. Now, under the white concave of wintry moonlight, it broke
over its stony bed with a fierce persistency of advance. Jerome
looked down at the rapid, shifting water-hillocks and listened to
their lapsing murmur, incessantly overborne by the gathering rush of
onset, then nodded his head conclusively, as if in response to some
mental question, and moved on.

Lawyer Eliphalet Means lived in the old Means house. It upreared
itself on a bare moon-silvered hill at the right of the road, with a
solid state of simplest New England architecture. It dated back to
the same epoch as Doctor Prescott's and Squire Merritt's houses, but
lacked even the severe ornaments of their time.

Jerome climbed the shining slope of the hill to the house door, which
was opened by Lawyer Means himself; then he followed him into the
sitting-room. A great cloud of tobacco smoke came in his face when
the sitting-room door was thrown open. Through it Jerome could
scarcely see Colonel Jack Lamson, in a shabby old coat, seated before
the blazing hearth-fire, with a tumbler of rum-and-water on a little
table at his right hand.

"Sit down," said Means to Jerome, and pulled another chair forward.
"Quite a sharp night out," he added.

"Yes, sir," replied Jerome, seating himself.

Lawyer Means resumed his own chair and his pipe,