hurch.

If Ada Lee's intention had been to escape her thoughts by rapid walking,
she soon found that her efforts were useless. She sought the wild open
moorland where she had walked the previous day with her cousin; but
every step seemed to recall some portion of their conversation. Philip
Norton's name was constantly repeating itself in her ears, even out
there in the free open waste where she had told herself that she could
find peace. She hurried into the pine grove, walking amidst the tall,
sombre pillars of the great natural temple, whose darkly interlacing
roof was far above, and where her footsteps were silent amidst the pine
needles. There was the tree upon which they had rested when they had
talked of the past; and had she not there avowed her own love?

It was cruel--most cruel, she told herself, to feel as she did when two
hearts were breaking; growing every moment more agitated in her vain
efforts to flee, as it were, from self. She had wished for solitude,
but the silence of the wood, only broken now and again by the faint
whispering roar amidst the pine tops, frightened her. There was a dread
solemnity in the place that she could not bear, and hurrying once more
to the edge of the marsh, she stopped, gazing across it for a few
minutes, with the soft summer wind playing pleasantly upon her heated
cheeks, toying with her hair, and fluttering the light dress which
draped her form. For the wedding-garments had been hurriedly put aside,
and at times it almost seemed that the sorrows of the morning, her
troubled night, and gloomy forebodings were things of months ago, while
this hurried beating, this anxiety of mind, were things only of the
present.

She turned to hurry in another direction, hoping that by thoroughly
tiring herself sleep would come to her early, bringing with it calm,
when her eyes fell to the ground, but only to fill with tears, as once
more the morning scene rushed through her mind; for, with her feet each
crushing some of the simple blue flowers, she was standing in the midst
of the forget-me-nots, and, recalling Philip Norton's words, in spite of
herself, she knelt down to gather a bunch.

True blue! the flowers that had seemed to give him life in those sore
perils; the little bunch that he had so treasured--and for what? To
come back to find her wedded to another. But then, had not she herself
counselled that Norton should be forgotten, since they believed him
dead?

Ada Lee