beside her, and she had been sure then, but had long since
grown to doubt the evidence of her senses, that he, too, vibrated with
pleasure at the nearness. Was there not a summer morning when his hand
touched her white lace mitt as they held the hymn-book together, and the
lines of the

Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings,
Thy better portion trace,

became blurred on the page and melted into something indistinguishable
for a full minute or two afterward? Were there not looks, and looks,
and looks? Or had she some misleading trick of vision in those days?
Justin's dark, handsome profile rose before her: the level brows and
fine lashes; the well-cut nose and lovable mouth--the Peabody mouth and
chin, somewhat too sweet and pliant for strength, perhaps. Then the eyes
turned to hers in the old way, just for a fleeting glance, as they had
so often done at prayer-meeting, or sociable, or Sunday service. Was
it not a man's heart she had seen in them? And oh, if she could only be
sure that her own woman's heart had not looked out from hers, drawn from
its maiden shelter in spite of all her wish to keep it hidden!

Then followed two dreary years of indecision and suspense, when Justin's
eyes met hers less freely; when his looks were always gloomy and
anxious; when affairs at the Peabody farm grew worse and worse; when his
mother followed her husband, the old Deacon, and her daughter Esther to
the burying-ground in the churchyard. Then the end of all things came,
the end of the world for Nancy: Justin's departure for the West in a
very frenzy of discouragement over the narrowness and limitation and
injustice of his lot; over the rockiness and barrenness and unkindness
of the New England soil; over the general bitterness of fate and the
"bludgeonings of chance."

He was a failure, born of a family of failures. If the world owed him a
living, he had yet to find the method by which it could be earned. All
this he thought and uttered, and much more of the same sort. In these
days of humbled pride self was paramount, though it was a self he
despised. There was no time for love. Who was he for a girl to lean
upon?--he who could not stand erect himself!

He bade a stiff goodbye to his neighbors, and to Nancy he vouchsafed
little more. A handshake, with no thrill of love in it such as might
have furnished her palm, at least, some memories to dwell upon; a few
stilted words of leave-taking; a halting, meaningless sentence or