with a mocking courtesy to Allen. 'It is fortunate for you--and for you
all, that I have no "big brother."'

"'I beg you will believe no "big brother" could add to my punishment,'
Charlie answered; and I felt included in the confession. Then he offered
to see her home without more delay, but she declined any escort
whatever, only requesting us to remain where we were until she had been
gone half an hour; and rode off into the moonlight and solitude
unattended, with what feelings in her heart God knows. We all watched
her until she was hidden from sight by the shadows of a grove of pines,
and I still remember the shudder with which I saw her plunge recklessly
into the gloom--manlike, careful about her beautiful body, and not
regarding her tender girl heart."

"That must have been a pleasant half hour for you," I could not help
remarking.

"Pleasant! yes; we were like a lot of devils chained. That night
dissolved all friendships between any two of us, except between Darling
and me; and _that_ could never be quite the same again, for had I not
shown him that I believed myself a favored rival? though I afterwards
pretended to impute my belief to vanity."

"How did you account _to yourself_ for the delusion? Had she not
flirted, as it is called, with you?"

"She had certainly caused me to be deluded, innocently or otherwise,
into a belief that she regarded me with peculiar favor; and I had been
accustomed to take certain little liberties with her, which probably
seemed of far greater importance to me than they did to her; for her
passional nature was hardly yet awakened, and among our primitive
society there was no great restraint upon any innocent familiarities."

"What became of her after that night?--did she marry Darling?"

The answer did not come at once. Thought and feeling were with the past;
and I could not bring myself to intrude the present upon it, but busied
myself with the leaves and vines and mosses that I had snatched from the
banks in passing, while my friend was absorbed in his silent
reminiscences.

"You have not heard the saddest part of the story yet," he said at last,
slowly and reluctantly. "She kept her word with each of us; ignoring
Allen and King entirely; and only vouchsafing a passing word to Charlie
and me. Poor Charlie was broken-hearted. He had never been strong, and
now he was weak, ill; in short, fell into a decline, and died in the
following year."

"Did the story never get out?"