It cost me a
struggle, but I knew he must learn it from some source e'er long, and
better from my lips than those of strangers. He will visit Wimbledon,
and then, O horrible thought! I shall be the bride of another; for
father tells me Col. Malcome is desirous the marriage should be
consummated the approaching winter. I got a long, foolish letter from
Rufus yesterday. O dear, how sick and sorry it made me! It is strange
mother never writes. Col. Malcome says she is not as well as when we
left, and this intelligence disposes father to hasten home. O, my poor
bleeding heart! How soon this little day of happiness has past." She
closed the book, and threw herself on the bed. After a while she fell
asleep, and was roused by Ellen, knocking for admittance.

In the morning she met Edgar in the parlor with her father and young
Williams, the three in earnest conversation about their proposed
excursion to the Profile Mountain. He made her a distant bow. She
returned to her room, and not the most urgent entreaties of her father
could induce her to join the party. She pleaded a violent headache, and
Ellen announced her resolve to remain with her. She cared nothing about
the 'Old Man;' she would stay at home and nurse Florence. So the three
gentlemen departed together, and in a few days the Howards had left the
mountain region and set out for Wimbledon.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

"Once more the sound
Of human voices echoes in our ears;
And some commotion dire hath roused
The female ranks. Let's pause and learn
The drift of all this wordy war of tongues."

Back to the Mumbles, the Wimbles and Pimbles, and their clamorous voices
again dinning in our ears. Will we ever be quit of them?

As cold weather approached, and the atmospheric thermometer descended to
the freezing point, the philanthropic one mounted suddenly to blood
heat.

Mrs. Pimble and Mrs. Lawson assumed their green legs and strode over
Wimbledon with pompous, majestic tread. The Woman's Rights Reform shook
off its sluggish torpor, and rose a mighty shape of masculine vigor,
strength and power. As in atonement for past sloth and inertness, the
reformists became more active in their several departments than ever
before. Lectures were delivered, clubs formed, and committees appointed
to visit the people from house to house, and stir them up by way of
remembrance, to