unch of violets in her hair, and no other
ornament than the handsome pearls her aunt had given to her. Standing
at the open window, with the drapery of the lace curtain sweeping
gracefully behind her, she did not look much like the Anna who led the
choir in Hanover and visited the Widow Hobbs, nor yet much like the
picture which Thornton Hastings had formed of the girl who he knew was
there for his inspection. He had been absent the entire day, and had
not seen Mrs. Meredith, when she arrived early in the morning, but he
found her card in his room, and a strange smile curled his lip as he
said:

"And so I have not escaped her."

Thornton Hastings had proved a most treacherous knight and overthrown
his general's plans entirely. Arthur's letter had affected him
strangely, for he readily guessed how deeply wounded his sensitive
friend had been by Anna Ruthven's refusal, while added to this was a
fear lest Anna had been influenced by a thought of him and what might
possibly result from an acquaintance. Thornton Hastings had been
flattered and angled for until he had grown somewhat vain, and it did
not strike him as at all improbable that the unsophisticated Anna
should have designs upon him.

"But I won't give her a chance," he said, when he finished Arthur's
letter. "I thought once I might like her, but I shan't, and I'll be
revenged on her for refusing the best man that ever breathed. I'll go
to Newport instead of Saratoga, and so be clear of the entire Meredith
clique, the Hethertons, the little Harcourt, and all."

This, then, was the secret of his being there at the Ocean House. He
was keeping away from Anna Ruthven, who never had heard of him but
once, and that from Lucy Harcourt. After that scene in the Glen, where
Anna had exclaimed against intriguing mothers and their bold,
shameless daughters, Mrs. Meredith had been too wise a maneuverer to
mention Thornton Hastings, so that Anna was wholly ignorant of his
presence at Newport, and looked up in unfeigned surprise at the tall,
elegant man whom her aunt presented as Mr. Hastings. With all
Thornton's affected indifference, there was still a curiosity to see
the girl who could say "no" to Arthur Leighton, and he had not waited
long after receiving Mrs. Meredith's card before going down to find
her.

"That's the girl, I'll lay a wager," he thought of a high-colored,
showily-dressed hoyden, who was whirling around the room with Ned
Peters, from Boston, and whose c