orn-colored dress swept against his
boots as he entered the parlor.

How, then, was he disappointed in the apparition Mrs. Meredith
presented as "my niece," the modest, self-possessed young girl, whose
cheeks grew not a whit redder, and whose pulse did not quicken at the
sight of him, though a gleam of something like curiosity shone in the
brown eyes which scanned him so quietly. She was thinking of Lucy, and
her injunction "not to speak to the hateful if she saw him;" but she
did speak to him, and Mrs. Meredith fanned herself complacently as she
saw how fast they became acquainted.

"You do not dance," Mr. Hastings said, as she declined an invitation
from Ned Peters, whom she had met at Saratoga. "I am glad, for now you
will, perhaps, walk with me outside upon the piazza. You won't take
cold, I think," and he glanced thoughtfully at the white neck and
shoulders gleaming beneath the gauzy muslin.

Mrs. Meredith was in rhapsodies and sat a full hour with the tiresome
dowagers around her, while up and down the broad piazza Thornton
Hastings walked with Anna, talking to her as he seldom talked to
women, and feeling greatly surprised to find that what he said was
fully appreciated and understood. That he was pleased with her he
could not deny himself, as he sat alone in his room that night,
feeling more and more how keenly Arthur Leighton must have felt at her
refusal.

"But why did she refuse him?" he wished he knew, and ere he slept he
had resolved to study Anna Ruthven closely, and ascertain, if
possible, the motive which prompted her to discard a man like Arthur
Leighton.

The next day brought the Hetherton party, all but Lucy Harcourt, who,
Fanny laughingly said, was just now suffering from clergyman on the
brain, and, as a certain cure for the disease, had turned my Lady
Bountiful, and was playing the pretty patroness to all Mr. Leighton's
parishioners, especially a Widow Hobbs, whom she had actually taken to
ride in the carriage, and to whose ragged children she had sent a
bundle of cast-off party dresses; and the tears ran down Fanny's
cheeks as she described the appearance of the elder Hobbs, who came to
church with a soiled pink silk skirt, her black, tattered petticoat
hanging down below and one of Lucy's opera hoods upon her head.

"And the clergyman on the brain? Does he appreciate the situation? I
have an interest there. He is an old friend of mine," Thornton
Hastings asked.

He had been an amused li