,
quick tone, and dashing his half-burnt cigar from the window; "the
authority of one who, if he had chosen to perjure himself and profess a
faith which he could not entertain, and wear sanctimonious airs, might
have won her heart."

"I don't believe it!" said Phil, with a great burst of voice. "There's
no hypocrisy could win Adele."

Reuben paced up and down the chamber, then came and took the hand of his
old friend:--

"Phil, you're a noble-hearted fellow. I never thought any one could
convict me of injustice to Adele. You have done it. I hope you'll always
defend her; and whatever may betide, I hope your mother and Rose will
always befriend her. She may need it."

Again there was a little burst of song from below, and it lingered upon
the ear of Reuben long after he had left the Elderkin homestead.

The next day he was gone,--to try his new taste of the world.

XLVIII.

It was in no way possible for the simple-hearted Doctor to conceal from
the astute spinster the particular circumstances which had hurried
Reuben's departure, and the knowledge of them made her humiliation
complete. During all the latter months of Reuben's stay she had not
scrupled to drop occasional praises of him into the ear of Adele, as in
the old times. It was in agreement with her rigid notions of
retribution, that this poor social outlaw should love vainly; and a
baffling disappointment would have seemed to the spinster's narrow mind
a highly proper and most logical result of the terrible ignominy which
overhung the unconscious victim. Indeed, the innocent unconsciousness of
anything derogatory to her name or character which belonged to Adele,
and her consequent cheery mirthfulness, were sources of infinite
annoyance to Miss Eliza. She would have liked to see her in sackcloth
for a while, and to enjoy her own moral elevation by such a contrast.
Nor was this from sheer malice; in that sense she was not malicious; but
she deluded herself with the idea that this was a high religious view of
sin and its consequences,--a proper mortification to befall one on whom
Heaven's punishment (of the fathers through the children) must needs
descend. And like many another of her iron purpose, she would not have
shrunk from being herself the instrument of such punishment, and would
have gloated over its accomplishment,--as if by it the Devil's devices
had received rebuke, and the elect found cause for comfort. Many good
people--as the world goes--hav