ed upon him as her husband,
and loved him so well, that life would be nothing without him. What
should she do? Would I advise her?

I didn't know, until long afterward, that it was a consummate piece of
acting, dictated by the mother, and that she was as heartless as it was
possible for a young girl to be; and while she lay weeping at my feet, I
pitied her, and wondered if, perhaps, there might not be some spring of
generous feeling in her heart, that a happy love would unlock. The next
morning I went out alone, for a ride, in a direction where I thought I
could not be disturbed. Up hill and down, over roads, pastures, and
streams, I tore until the fever within was allayed, and then I stopped
to rest, and look upon the beauties of the bright October day. All
overhead and around, the sky and patches of water were of that
far-looking blue which seems all ready to open upon new and wonderful
worlds. Big, bright drops of a night-shower lay asleep in the curled-up
leaves, as though the trees had stretched out a million hands to catch
them. And such hands! What comparison could match them? Clouds of
butterflies, such as sleep among the flowers of Paradise,--forgotten
dreams of children, who sleep and smile,--fancies of fairy laureates,
strung shining together for some high festival,--anything most rich or
unreal, might furnish a type for the foliage that was painted upon the
golden blue of that October day. I could almost have forgotten my
trouble in the charmed gaze.

"You turn up in strange places, Rachel!" said a voice behind me.

This was what I had dreaded; but I swallowed love and fear in one great
gulp, and shut my teeth with a resolution of iron. I would not be guilty
of the meanness of standing in that child's way, if she were but a fool;
so I answered him gayly.

"'The same to yourself,' as Neighbor Dawkins would say. Why didn't you
all go to the lake, as you planned last night?"

"For some good reasons. Were you bewitched, that you stood here so
still?" He looked brightly into my face, as he came up.

"No,--but the trees are. Shouldn't you think that Oberon had held high
court here over-night?"

"And that they had left their wedding-dresses upon the boughs? Yes, they
are gay enough! But where have you been these four weeks, that I haven't
got speech with you?"

"A pretty question, when you've been at my house almost every day! Where
are your senses, man?"

"I know too well where they are," he said. "But