t'll save me a world of trouble in
being polite to a lot of curs that I despise. I'm going to leave
this dull little burg anyhow, as soon as I can get away. I'm going to
Cincinnati, and be with Ned Burnleigh. There is more life there in a day
than here in a year. After all, there's nobody here that I care anything
for, except father and mother--and--Rachel."

A new train of thought introduced itself at this tardy remembrance of
his betrothed. His heat abated. He stopped, and leaning against a shady
silver maple began anew a meditation that had occupied his mind very
frequently since that memorable night under the old apple tree on the
hill-top.

There had been for him but little of that spiritual exaltation which
made that night the one supreme one in Rachel's existence; when the
rapture of gratified pride and love blended with the radiant moonlight
and the subtle fragrance of the flowers into a sweet symphony that would
well chord with the song the stars sang together in the morning.

He was denied the pleasure that comes from success, after harrowing
doubts and fears. His unfailing consciousness of his own worth had left
him little doubt that a favorable answer would promptly follow when he
chose to propose to Rachel Bond, or to any other girl, and when this
came with the anticipated readiness, he could not help in the midst
of his gratification at her assent the intrusion of the disagreeable
suspicion that, peradventure, he had not done the best with his personal
wares that he might. Possibly there would appear in time some other
girl, whom he might prefer to Rachel, and at all events there was no
necessity for his committing himself when he did, for Rachel "would
have kept," as Ned Burnleigh coarsely put it, when made the recipient of
Harry's confidence.

Three months of companionship with Ned Burnleigh, and daily imbibation
of that young man's stories of his wonderful conquests among young women
of peerless beauty and exalted social station confirmed this feeling,
and led him to wish for at least such slackening of the betrothal tether
as would permit excursions into a charmed realm like that where Ned
reigned supreme.

For the thousandth time--and in each recurrence becoming a little
clearer defined and more urgent--came the question:

"Shall I break with Rachel? How can I? And what possible excuse can I
assign for it?"

There came no answer to this save the spurs with which base self-love
was pricking th