← catalogue

Pretty Madcap Dorothy; Or, How She Won a Lover

by Laura Jean Libbey · English · Gutenberg #29776 · 384,104 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Pretty Madcap Dorothy; Or, How She Won a Lover
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Pretty Madcap Dorothy; Or, How She Won a Lover

Author: Laura Jean Libbey


        
Release date: August 24, 2009 [eBook #29776]
                Most recently updated: January 5, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29776

Credits: Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRETTY MADCAP DOROTHY; OR, HOW SHE WON A LOVER ***




Produced by Steven desJardins and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net







PRETTY MADCAP DOROTHY

OR
How She Won a Lover


A Romance of the Jolliest Girl in the Book-Bindery, and
a magnificent Love Story of the life of a Beautiful,
Willful New York Working Girl.


BY MISS LAURA JEAN LIBBEY


HART SERIES No. 19.

COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY GEO. MONRO'S SONS

Published by
THE ARTHUR WESTBROOK COMPANY,
CLEVELAND, O., U.S.A.




CONTENTS.
                                    PAGE
Chapter I                              5
Chapter II                            12
Chapter III                           20
Chapter IV                            32
Chapter V                             38
Chapter VI                            45
Chapter VII                           53
Chapter VIII                          60
Chapter IX                            66
Chapter X                             73
Chapter XI                            79
Chapter XII                           86
Chapter XIII                          92
Chapter XIV                           98
Chapter XV                           105
Chapter XVI                          111
Chapter XVII                         118
Chapter XVIII                        124
Chapter XIX                          131
Chapter XX                           138
Chapter XXI                          144
Chapter XXII                         151
Chapter XXIII                        157
Chapter XXIV                         163
Chapter XXV                          168
Chapter XXVI                         174
Chapter XXVII                        180
Chapter XXVIII                       186
Chapter XXIX                         192
Chapter XXX                          198
Chapter XXXI                         204
Chapter XXXII                        209
Chapter XXXIII                       214
Chapter XXXIV                        220
Chapter XXXV                         226
Chapter XXXVI                        232
Chapter XXXVII                       238
Chapter XXXVIII                      242
Chapter XXXIX                        247




Pretty Madcap Dorothy

OR

How She Won a Lover




CHAPTER I.


"It's so hard for working-girls to get acquainted. They never meet a
rich young man, and they don't want a poor one. It seems to me that a
girl who has to commence early to work for her living might just as well
give up forever all hopes of a lover and of marrying," declared Nadine
Holt, one of the prettiest girls in the immense book-bindery, to the
group of companions who were gathered about her. "It's get up at
daylight, swallow your breakfast, and hurry to work; and it's dark
before you are out on the street again. How can we ever expect to meet a
marriageable fellow?"

"Do you know what _I_ think, girls?" cried a shrill but very sweet young
voice, from the direction of the window-ledge, adding breathlessly: "I
believe if fate has any lover in store for a girl, that he will be sure
to just happen to come where she is, on one mission or another. That's
the way that it all happens in novels, I took particular pains to
notice. These people who write must know just how it is, I reckon."

"Well, now, who would ever have imagined that a chit of a thing like
_you_, Dorothy Glenn, would have the impudence to put in your oar, or
that you ever thought of lovers, or marrying, and you only sixteen a day
or so ago?" cried one. "It's absurd!"

"I wasn't saying anything about _my_ ever marrying, I was just telling
you what I thought about ever meeting the fellow who is intended for
you--'_the_ right _one_'--as you call it."

"What if you were in a desert?" suggested Nadine, with a curl of her red
lip. "Surely you couldn't expect a young man would ever find a business
that would bring him out there to you, could you?"

"Why not?" cried pretty little Dorothy. "Of course fate would send my
Prince Charming even into a desert to find me," cooed Dorothy. "And as
to the business that would bring him--why, he could come there to
capture the ostriches which are to be found only in the heart of the
desert--so there! You know the old adage: 'People meet where hills and
mountains don't.' I tell you there's some truth in that."

"It's a good thing to have so much assurance and hope," said Nadine,
with a curl of her lip. "I trust that you may find plenty of lovers in
the future, though I doubt it."

"I have plenty now," declared Dorothy, waltzing nimbly about the floor,
as only a bright, happy, thoughtless young girl can who is free from
care. "I couldn't count all who make eyes at me now, so what will it be
when I get as old as the rest of you girls?"--this a trifle maliciously,
for every one of them was at least twenty, and that seemed rather
_passée_ to this bit of femininity of sweet sixteen.

Some one noticed that the huge clock on the mantel wanted just three
minutes to one, so the fragments of luncheon were crammed back into
their baskets, and the girls, chatting and laughing, went back to their
work, for they had a very particular foreman. But one of their number,
Jessie Staples, hung back to have a word with Dorothy.

"I hope that you will not grow into a flirt," she said, slipping her arm
about Dorothy's waist and looking into the young girl's flushed face
with serious eyes, adding: "This brings me to the question that I
intended asking you this noon. Where did you meet that young car
conductor who walked up as far as your home with you last night? Do tell
me, little Dorothy."

"Were you spying upon me, you mean thing?" cried Dorothy Glenn, blushing
as fiery red as the crimson heart of a peony, and stamping angrily the
tiniest of little feet; and she flung her companion's arm from her as
though it had stung her.

"Can't you tell me?" pleaded Jessie, earnestly. "Remember, you have no
one to warn you. You are an orphan in this great, cold world, and--and
you are so young that you don't know life, and can not realize that
every young man who smiles into your eyes and says flattering things is
_not_ in love. When you have no relative to confide in, you ought to
have a girl friend older and wiser than yourself. Let me be that friend
to you, Dorothy."

As she listened, the momentary anger died out of the girl's face. She
couldn't keep angry with anybody very long, and quite before Jessie had
finished her sentence a pair of plump white arms were thrown round her
neck and Dorothy's soft, peachy pink cheek was nestling against her own,
while the sweet young voice whispered:

"Won't you breathe it, Jess, if I tell you the greatest secret in the
whole wide world? Promise on your word and honor that you won't and I'll
tell you, and it will fairly make you hold your breath. It's just like
those grand love stories all of us girls like to crowd around together
at lunch hour and read in the Fireside Companion, when we pick up the
special copies they throw around; only this is in real life, you know."

"I promise," returned Jessie Staples, gravely; "only I hope this isn't a
ruse to turn off the question about the young car conductor whom I saw
you with."

"Oh, no! the secret is about him," laughed Dorothy, gleefully, "and it
will make you open your eyes wider than they are now when you hear it;
and it's so dreadfully romantic, too. You know how Nadine Holt has been
boasting of late about the handsome new conductor on the Broadway car,
on whom she has 'made a mash,' as she phrases it. Well, the young man
you saw me talking to--is he."

"What?" gasped Jessie. "Do you mean it was Nadine's beau to whom you
were talking?"

"He's _not_ her beau!" declared Dorothy, flushing up redly and angrily.
"He doesn't care a snap of his finger for Nadine. He told me so."

"He--told--you--so?" repeated Jessie Staples, too amazed at the instant
to frame any other remark, while the thought flashed through her brain
how deeply Nadine Holt loved this handsome young man, and that she was
confident of a proposal of marriage from him sooner or later. She had
often told Jessie as much as that of late.

"It was only last week that I first met him," Dorothy went on, "and it
happened in this way: I came down, just by chance, on his car, and--and
I noticed that he looked at me rather admiringly, as he changed my
fifty-cent piece, while standing beside me; and--and I noticed, too,
that he leaned against me a little more than the occasion demanded, or
at least I fancied so; but perhaps it was the jolting of the car. I took
little shy peeps at him. I wanted to see what he looked like, Nadine had
been sounding his praises so. I found he was dreadfully nice, quite the
handsomest young fellow I had ever seen--elegantly formed, straight as
an arrow, with such a beautiful dark mustache, dark hair, and laughing
black eyes, and the whitest of white hands. When he helped me off the
car he held my hand so tightly and so long that I felt terribly
embarrassed and did not know what to do or say. But, oh! he was _so_
polite! I dropped my eyes and never looked at him as I stepped off. How
I ever got into the other car I never knew. A moment later the other
conductor came around for my fare, and then--oh, horrors! I could not
find my pocket-book. I searched frantically in every pocket. 'I--I must
have _lost_ my purse,' I faltered, beginning to cry, for I saw he did
not believe me, and thought that I meant to beat my way, as they call
it, when just at that instant puffing and panting, up came the other
conductor--the handsome fellow whom I had just left.

"'You dropped your purse on the seat of my car,' he said, raising his
hat from his dark curls. 'Permit me to return it to you.'

"I was so overjoyed to get it that I forgot to thank him. I remembered
later that I had not done so. And what do you think? that very evening
he called with a book I had also left on the seat, and which I had
entirely forgotten. My name and address were written on the fly-leaf.
Just at that moment one of the young men from the book-bindery happened
along who knew him, and he introduced us. I did not invite him in, but
we stood and talked for an hour or more on the steps, and he asked at
length for the pleasure of my company to go with him to the theater the
following evening, if my folks were willing.

"I told him I had no relatives to consult, and that I'd like ever so
much to go, but--but I had heard that he was Nadine Holt's regular
company. Oh, Jess, how angry he got when I said that! He flushed to the
very roots of his dark hair. You ought to have seen him.

"'Pardon me, but I am _not_!' he replied, 'though I hear that she is
circulating such a story; but there is no better authority on the
subject than myself. I have spoken to her a few times; but it is
ridiculous for a girl to presume, if a man is pleasant to her, that he
wants to marry her. I cannot even say that I admire Miss Nadine Holt. As
a rule a man like myself does not admire a girl whose acquaintance he
can form through a handkerchief flirtation.

"I thought of telling Nadine that, but you know what a fury she is. Why,
she would almost kill me, I believe, if she once got an inkling that I
knew about it.

"Well, to make a long story short, it so chanced that he happened along
our street every night after that, and always found me, quite by chance,
sitting out on the steps, and so he stopped for a chat. And now comes
the most wonderful part of the affair. He is no _real_ street-car
conductor at all. I don't mean just that, but--oh, Jess! this is what I
mean: he--he bet with a number of young gentlemen the last election and
lost the wager. If he lost he was to come to New York and be a
street-car conductor for three months, and that is what he did. He is a
young lawyer in a small town near here, and has great expectations, he
says.

"His time will be up to-morrow, Jessie, and then he is going back to his
home, and--and I shall never see him again. He is like a prince in
disguise--such as we read about. I always thought him too grand and
polite to be only a street-car conductor."

Jessie Staples felt greatly relieved in her heart that he was going away
so soon, but she was too wise to say so to Dorothy, knowing that if one
attempts to break up an infatuation on the part of a girl of that age,
ten to one it makes matters only worse.

"Life will never be the same to me after Harry Langdon goes, for,
Jessie, I--I have learned to care for him. I couldn't help myself though
I tried hard not to, and to be gay and jolly before all the girls. But,
oh, Jessie, pity me! My heart is breaking! I wish I could die!"

They did not notice, as they moved on, that the door near where they had
stood talking was partly ajar, nor did they see the girl who had paused
in the entry outside almost at the very beginning of their
conversation. It was Nadine Holt, and she had heard every word, from
beginning to end, that Dorothy had uttered; and even after they had
passed on she stood there, cold and motionless as a statue cut in
marble.

"Great God in heaven! this explains Harry Langdon's sudden coolness,"
she muttered, with a great, choking sob; "but if Dorothy Glenn attempts
to take my lover from me--let her beware! this earth will not be broad
enough to hold the two of us. It will be war to the very death between
us, and we shall see which one of us shall win him!"

By a violent effort Nadine controlled her wild grief and passed into the
work-room. It was only her indomitable pride that kept her from taking
her hat and sacque and going straight home and to her bed, there to weep
her very heart out--aye, weep her very life out, if she could. If her
lover was fickle, Nadine told herself that she did not care to live and
face the dull, cold world, for what is life and the world to a young
girl if the lover on whom she has set her heart and her hopes proves
false to her?




CHAPTER II.


From the moment that Nadine Holt heard the story of the perfidy of her
lover she was a changed being.

She went wearily enough to the lodging-house she called home, and paced
the floor up and down the live-long night.

"He was pleased enough with me before Dorothy Glenn's pink-and-white
baby face came between us," she moaned, clinching her hands tightly
together and bursting ever and anon into a flood of tears.

She looked around at the little, stuffy room, and thought of all her
girlish day-dreams--of the sweet hopes she had had of soon leaving those
dingy four walls, and of having a little bower of a cottage to call
"home," with a handsome young husband all her own to love her.

She had pictured every scene to herself--just how each cozy room should
be furnished, and what vines and flowers should grow in the garden, and
the pretty dresses she would wear, and how she would stand at the window
and watch for handsome Harry to come home each night, and what a dear,
cozy life they would lead, loving each other so dearly.

And now what of those vanished day-dreams? Ah! God in heaven pity her!
they lay in ruins around her, and heart-wrecked, heart-broken, she was
facing the cold, bleak world again.

It had been by the greatest effort that she had looked in Dorothy's face
during the day that followed without betraying her bitter hatred of her;
but as the hours crept on, and she saw Dorothy's glance wander uneasily
now and then toward the clock, her intense rage grew almost
uncontrollable.

"She is longing for the hours to pass, so that she may join _him_,"
thought Nadine, and her black eyes fairly scintillated at the thought.

Suddenly Dorothy raised her curly head from her work.

"Girls!" she exclaimed, shrilly and eagerly, "have you all forgotten
that Monday is Labor Day? What are you going to do with yourselves?"

A score or more of voices answered at random that they thought it had
been decided long since that they were all going up the Hudson on an
excursion.

"I can't go on the excursion with you, girls," returned Dorothy, "for
I've got another engagement."

"Bring your company with you," chorused a dozen or more of the girls.

Dorothy glanced up hastily and met Nadine's burning eyes fixed intently
upon her.

She started, turned deathly pale, and then turned defiantly away,
wondering if Nadine could by any means suspect that the engagement she
had was to accompany handsome Harry Langdon to the matinée.

She wondered vaguely if Jessie, to whom she had confided this, had
betrayed her.

The look in Nadine Holt's eyes as they met her own startled her.

The bell which released the girls from the work-room that night had
scarcely rung ere Dorothy had on her sacque and sailor hat and was
fairly flying down the steps and out into the street.

"I hope to goodness that I shall escape Jack to-night!" she muttered.
"He can not get out as soon as I do, and I will be almost home while he
is waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs;" and a little, light,
airy laugh bubbled from her red lips.

Jack, as she called him, was one of the gilders in the book-bindery--a
tall, handsome, manly young fellow of four-and-twenty, whose only
failing was that he loved little Dorothy Glenn to distraction.

"Yes, I shall escape Jack, sure, to-night!" laughed Dorothy again.

But the laugh died from her lips, for at that instant there was the
sound of hurried footsteps behind her--footsteps she knew but too
well--and the next instant Jack Garner stood beside her.

"Dorothy!" he panted, "Why didn't you wait for me, little girl?"

Dorothy started guiltily.

"Why, gracious! is it you, Jack?" she cried. "I certainly thought you
had gone home long ago, and so I hurried away."

His handsome face brightened; the dark shadow was quickly dispelled from
his earnest, brown eyes.

"Do you know, Dorothy," he said, "I was half afraid that you had run
away from me intentionally; and yet I could hardly bring myself to
believe it, the thought gave me such a sharp pang of pain at the heart."
The girl laughed a little nervously.

"I wanted to talk to you about Labor Day," he said earnestly; "but I
fear what I have to say will grieve you, dear." ("Oh, gracious goodness,
that's just what I expected!" was the thought that flashed through her
guilty little brain.) "Dorothy," he said, huskily, "I'm afraid that I
will not be able to get off Labor Day, although it is a legal holiday
and I had set my heart upon taking you somewhere. We have found that
there is some work which must be got out, or it will mean a heavy loss
to our employers. I was the only one whom they felt they could call upon
to help them in their dilemma, and I could not refuse them, even though
a vision of your pretty, disappointed face rose up before my mind's eye.
I knew you would be expecting me to take you somewhere on Labor Day. Oh!
Dorothy, how can I make amends for it?"

To his great surprise, she laughed gayly.

"Don't trouble yourself about me, Jack," she exclaimed. "I won't mind it
one bit;" and her pink-and-white face fairly dimpled over with smiles.

He opened his brown eyes wide and looked at her in surprise, remembering
quite well that for many a week past Dorothy had been looking forward to
this holiday and calculating how she should spend it.

"But you will be so disappointed, little one," he reiterated, earnestly,
and not a little puzzled by the way she took it.

Again she laughed--a little, light, airy laugh that somehow grated on
his nerves.

"I was thinking," he continued, "that perhaps you would like to go
somewhere with my cousin Barbara--go up the river, or to a matinée, or
some place like that. I would pay all the bills, of course, and--"

"Go with your cousin Barbara?" she cut in. "No, I guess not. It's just
like you not to want me to have a good time. If _you_ can't be there,
Jack Garner, pray excuse me from going with _her_!"

He looked down at her with grieved eyes.

"Barbara is not as young and gay as you are, I know, dear," he said,
huskily; "but, oh! if you only knew what a good, gentle soul she is, and
how kind her heart is! She would go out of her way--do anything she
could to give you a few hours' pleasure, because--because she knows how
dear you are to me."

Dorothy shrugged her shoulders and curled her pretty red lips
scornfully. Barbara Hallenbeck, his quiet, sedate cousin, was
four-and-twenty. No wonder that gay little Dorothy did not consider her
quite companionable for a day's outing.

"She would be very glad to take you to the matinée, Dorothy," he
persisted. "_Do_ consent to go with her, and then I will feel quite
happy, for I shall feel sure that you are having a pleasant day, even if
I am not with you. Otherwise, I should be so troubled, thinking of you
sitting all alone in the house."

She looked up innocently into his face.

"I need not stay in the house if I do not like," she retorted. "There's
a number of girls from the bindery going on an excursion up the river,
and they have invited me."

Poor, innocent Jack! it did not occur to him then that, although she had
remarked she was invited, she had not said she was going. He jumped at
conclusions readily enough.

"I am so glad, Dorothy!" he exclaimed, joyfully. "I know if you are with
a crowd of the girls the day will pass pleasantly for you. But you will
not forget in the midst of all your happiness to give a thought to me,
will you?" he whispered, with a world of tenderness in his voice.

"Of course not," she said, promptly.

"Especially when your eye rests upon our betrothal-ring," he added,
wistfully.

Dorothy blushed alarmingly red, then paled as quickly, at the mention of
the ring.

The truth may as well be told here and now: Dorothy, like many another
silly, thoughtless young girl, had drifted into an engagement with Jack
just to get the ring which he wore on his finger, which she had admired
with all her heart and longed to possess.

But with Dorothy, possession had dimmed her appreciation for the little
turquois and pearl affair which adorned her finger, and at which
handsome Harry Langdon had glanced so contemptuously only the evening
before, and then down at the elegant monogrammed diamond ring which
glistened on his own white, shapely hand.

Only that very day Dorothy had wished with all her heart that she could
get up some excuse to break what Jack considered an engagement, and give
him back his little cheap pearl and turquois ring; but the occasion did
not seem to be quite ripe, and Jack, poor fellow! had been kinder to her
than ever that day.

At the corner she hesitated. It would never do to walk much farther with
Jack and stand a chance of meeting handsome Harry Langdon, she told
herself.

"I have a little shopping to do, and I shall have to leave you here,"
she said, hastily; and she made her parting very brief with Jack.

He noticed it, and a sudden fear stirred his heart. He looked after the
slender figure flitting away through the slanting sunshine, with his
soul in his eyes.

"She is so dear to me," he murmured. "I--I often think I would go mad if
I were to lose her."

He walked slowly down the street, but, contrary to his usual custom, he
did not turn his footsteps homeward, but proceeded aimlessly along the
crowded thoroughfare.

How far he went Jack Garner never knew. Suddenly in turning a corner the
first object his eyes fell upon was Dorothy, and by her side a tall,
handsome dark-eyed young man whose arm was linked with hers, and they
were walking along, deeply engaged in conversation, oblivious to the
whole world.

He stood quite still; the heart in his bosom seemed to almost tear
itself asunder with one mighty throb. Was it Dorothy, or did his eyes
deceive him? He quickened his pace until he stood beside them. The
impulse was strong within him to seize the girl's hand and tear her from
her companion. The blood surged like fire through his veins.

But before he could put his mad thought into execution the crowd on the
thronged thoroughfare swept between them.

In that instant Dorothy's companion called a cab and placed the girl in
it. The door closed with a bang, and the next instant the vehicle was
whirling down the avenue, and turning around the first corner was
instantly lost to sight.

Quick as the lightning's flash Jack leaped upon a passing car. He felt
intuitively that the stranger was taking Dorothy to her home. This car
would pass the door. He would confront them there, even though they had
gone by another street.

By a strange fatality he had in his breast pocket a small revolver which
a friend had asked him to call for that day at a store where it was
being repaired, and bring to him, as Jack would be passing that way. It
was an unlucky moment for Jack, Heaven knows, when he consented to call
for the fatal revolver for his friend.

As his hand touched it in his breast pocket a terrible thought flashed
across his excited brain.

Ten minutes later he reached the cottage where Dorothy boarded. One of
the bindery girls was sitting on the porch as he came up.

"Why, hello, Jack!" she cried. "What are you doing here?"

"Where's Dorothy?" he interrupted, quickly. "Is she in the house yet? I
want the truth. You must tell me!"

The girl looked in Jack's face, and dared not tell him all.




CHAPTER III.


Jessie Staples--for it was she--looked at Jack Garner with troubled
eyes. She knew how much he cared for Dorothy, and she realized that it
would never do to tell him that his fickle sweetheart had gone riding
with another man. He was hot-tempered, and in jealousy there is little
reason. Like the wise girl that she was, Jessie made excuses for her
friend.

"No, Dorothy is not here, Jack," she said, presently; "but I feel sure
she would have been had she known you were coming. She has gone to spend
the evening with one of the girls, who sent her lover specially to bring
Dorothy over, with the request that he was not to come back without her;
and no doubt Dorothy will pass Sunday with her."

"Which one of the girls is it?" he inquired.

"I don't really know that," said Jessie, a little faintly.

Jack Garner drew a great, long breath of relief, and the old happy
smile lighted up his face in an instant.

What a foolish fellow he had been to mistrust Dorothy! he told himself.
But, after all, he was glad he had come and seen Jessie and thus had the
horrible doubt removed from his mind.

"Well, it does not matter so much, Jess, that I did not see her. I did
not want anything in particular. I am glad she will have a pleasant time
this evening and to-morrow. And about your holiday. I suppose you will
be going on the excursion with the rest of the girls on Monday?"

"Oh, yes!" replied Jessie lightly but constrainedly.

He drew nearer and looked wistfully into her face.

"I can not go, unfortunately," he said, "but I hope, Jess, that you will
see that Dorothy has as good a time as the rest of the girls." He
stopped a moment, and looked down confusedly, as if at a loss to know
how to proceed with the rest of his sentence, but concluded at length to
break right into it boldly. "If I were there I would treat all you girls
to as much ice-cream as you could eat," he went on with a laugh. "But,
seeing that I am _not_ to be one of the party, I want you to do the
honors for me, Jess, and here's the money to pay for it, with my
compliments to the crowd."

And as he spoke he drew a crisp bill from his vest pocket and thrust it
into Jessie's hand.

"Oh, Jack," cried the girl, "you are too good and too kind!" and she
felt rather guilty as she took it, for she knew that he was giving it
solely that they would make it pleasant for pretty little Dorothy, and
she knew that Dorothy was not to be there.

Only that day she had confessed to her that she had made an engagement
to go to the matinée with the handsome car conductor.

But there would be a tragedy if Jack got an inkling of this, she well
knew. She had deceived him, poor fellow; but was it not for the best,
under the circumstances?

Jack went to his home with a light heart, and much relieved in feelings.
It was well for him that he did not know just how Dorothy was passing
those very moments.

When Harry Langdon had met Dorothy on the street that afternoon he had
quite hoped to slip by her unnoticed. Not that he was displeased to see
her; but the girl was dressed so cheaply, and, to make matters worse,
she carried her little dinner-basket on her arm, and he knew that if any
of his friends were to see him they would smile in derision, for they
could not help knowing by the dinner-basket that his companion was a
working-girl.

His pride was the one fault of his life. He felt that he was quite
handsome enough to woo and win an heiress, if one chanced in his way. In
fact, that was what he was looking for.

It would never do to be seen walking along the streets with this pretty
little working-girl, and it was for this very reason that Langdon had
called a cab to take her home.

"The ride is too short," he said, as they reached the cottage where
Dorothy lived, and where Jessie Staples was awaiting her on the porch.
"Let us go around a few blocks; I want to talk to you about the
arrangements for the outing."

Nothing loath, Dorothy consented, and away they whirled down the street;
and it was very fortunate too, for in less than three minutes later Jack
had appeared at the cottage.

"I have been wondering if you really cared to go to the matinée on Labor
Day," said Langdon, in his low, sweet, smooth voice, which had never yet
failed to capture the hearts of susceptible young girls. "I was
wondering if you would not prefer a sail up the river. I understand that
there is to be quite an excursion to West Point."

The truth is Langdon had just discovered that several of his
acquaintances were to be at the matinée on that day, and he regretted
that he had invited Dorothy to go, realizing how terribly ashamed he
would be of the shabby clothes of the girl whose only recommendation was
her pretty young face, and he had determined that he should not take
Dorothy to that matinée, at any cost.

"Why, I would just as soon go to the excursion as to the matinée,"
declared Dorothy; "but there's one objection--all the rest of the girls
in the book-bindery are going up on the boat to West Point, and among
them Nadine Holt."

Langdon smothered back a fierce imprecation behind his silky curled
mustache.

"Then we will abandon the West Point trip." he said, laughingly. "But we
can go to Staten Island, besides, I think it will be quite as enjoyable,
for, now that I think of it, there will be an immense crowd there. The
picnic grounds are to be thrown open to the public, and they are to have
a grand garden _fete_, with dancing and so forth."

"Oh, I should enjoy that more than I could tell you!" cried Dorothy,
clapping her hands, her blue eyes expanding wide with expectancy. "I
adore dancing, and I was never at a garden-party in all my life, and I
have read so much about them."

"We can remain all the afternoon and evening, have refreshments, and
then come home on the steamer. It will be a beautiful moonlight night,
and when the band plays on the deck you will enjoy it hugely, Dorothy."

The girl's eyes sparkled and her cheeks glowed.

Soon afterward the cab stopped before Dorothy's cottage again, and, with
a shy, sweet smile, she bade her admirer "good-night," and flitted up
the steps and into the hall, and directly into the arms of Jessie
Staples, who was awaiting her there.

"Oh, Dorothy!" she began, reproachfully, "how _could_ you do it?"

"Do what?" cried Dorothy, with a very innocent air.

"Come riding home from work with that stranger!" cried Jessie,
reproachfully.

The gayest laugh that ever was heard broke from Dorothy's ripe red lips,
and her blue eyes fairly danced.

"I did not think that _you_, of all other girls, would be jealous,
Jessie Staples!" she declared.

"I am not jealous," responded the girl, quietly--"only I pity you for
your want of sense in being fascinated by a handsome stranger, when you
have such a lover as honest, warm-hearted Jack Garner, who fairly
worships the ground you walk on. Every one knows that--and--and pities
him."

Dorothy's red lips curled scornfully, and she turned away on her heel.

"He is only a gilder in the bindery," she declared, "while the one I
came home with is a grand high-toned, wealthy young fellow, and so
aristocratic. He thought nothing of bringing me home in a cab, while
Jack Garner would have fainted at the idea. He is so frightened if he
spends a dollar of his hard-earned wages. It's no fun going around with
a _poor_ fellow. I hate them! So there!"

With that Jessie took the bill from her pocket, and told all that poor
Jack had said about treating to the ice-cream.

Dorothy looked astounded, but turned the matter off by saying:

"It is a good thing to have him stand treat once in his life-time, I
declare!"

But, nevertheless, she felt ashamed deep down in her own heart for the
way she had spoken of poor Jack. Still she would not listen to Jessie's
admonition, declaring, too, that she meant to go on an excursion on
Labor Day with Harry Langdon, even though it made an enemy of Jack for
life. She was tired of Jack, anyhow.

"You will rue it if you go with that stranger. Trouble will come of it
as sure as you live." Those were Jessie's last words to Dorothy as they
parted an hour later, and they rang in Dorothy's brain for many and many
a long day afterward; and these two girls, who had been such steadfast
friends parted from each other in coldness and in anger for the first
time in their lives.

The sun rose bright and golden on the eventful morning, and Dorothy was
in high glee as she looked out from her curtained window, and the
visions of a joyous day flitted before her.

At two o'clock Langdon put in a prompt appearance, and Dorothy was quite
ready, and he could not help but own to himself that she looked as fair
and pretty and quite as stylish as any young girl you would meet in a
day's travel in her neat navy-blue merino dress, with its white duck
vest and broad, white cuffs and sailor collar, and the white sailor hat,
with the white silk band about it to match. And nothing could have been
more dainty than her neat kid boots and gloves.

Langdon raised his hat to this fair young vision of loveliness with all
the gallantry he was capable of, and away they went in high spirits and
high glee, and with never a thought in Dorothy's heart of poor Jack
toiling at that moment in the book-bindery.

It was a delightful sail down the bay, and when they arrived at their
destination they found the island thronged with a merry group of
pleasure seekers.

The hours flew by on golden wings. Dusk gathered. Night soon drew her
sable curtains, and pinned them with a star.

They dined sumptuously at the Hotel Castleton, and then went back to the
picnic grounds, which were ablaze with light and color, resounding to
the merry strains of music, the babble of gay voices and joyous
laughter, and the sound of feet keeping step in the dance.

Never had Dorothy enjoyed herself so well. Harry Langdon was the prince
of escorts. He knew how to make himself agreeable and entertaining. He
whispered tender words into his companion's ears, held her little hand,
and conveyed to her in a thousand different ways that this was the
happiest day of his life, because she was by his side.

At length the hour drew near for the picknickers to leave the grounds,
for the boat had already steamed into the dock. In twenty minutes' time
she was to start back to the city.

"Have you had a pleasant time, Dorothy?" asked her companion, smiling
down into her pleased, flushed face.

"I have had the most pleasant hours of my life!" declared Dorothy. "It
has been like heaven here; I am sorry to go. And oh! how dark and drear
to-morrow will be in the bindery, after such a pleasant outing here."

"You need not return to the bindery to-morrow unless you wish,"
whispered Langdon, still holding the girl's little hand in his.

Dorothy's heart beat high. Was handsome Harry Langdon about to propose
to her? she wondered.

But no! the words she was waiting for did not fall from his lips,
although he had plenty of opportunity as they walked down the gayly
festooned path that led to the wharf.

"Perhaps he means to wait until he gets on the boat," she thought, with
a fluttering heart.

Poor little Dorothy! there was no one to warn her against him. How was
she to realize that the thought of marriage had never entered his head,
and that he was of the kind who smile on and flatter women and then ride
away, little caring how many broken hearts are left behind?

Dorothy's pretty, innocent face had captivated his fancy, but he would
never have dreamed of making her his wife.

As they neared the boat, so great was the crowd clambering on board that
Dorothy would have been separated from her companion had she not clung
to his arm.

"You need never go back to the book-bindery, Dorothy," he managed to
whisper again.

At that moment they stepped aboard the steamer and started toward the
upper deck.

It had been a happy day for Dorothy, but a most miserable one for poor
Jack. Contrary to his expectations, he finished the task allotted to him
much sooner than he had anticipated, and by two o'clock he was ready to
quit the book-bindery for the day.

Hurrying home, he quickly changed his clothing, smiling the while as he
thought of putting the wish into execution that had been in his heart
all day, of joining the crowd up at West Point; and how delighted
Dorothy would be to see him--what a surprise it would be to her!

His mother and his cousin watched him out of sight from their humble
cottage door, and then turned back to their duties with a sigh. They had
hoped that he would spend the day with them.

With a joyful heart Jack boarded the boat for West Point, but when he
reached there and found that Dorothy was not among the group, his
disappointment knew no bounds.

"My tender-hearted little darling!" he thought. "She would not join them
for a day's pleasure because she thought I could not go, and she is
having a lonely time of it at home."

Back to the city Jack posted in all haste, and although the hour was
late when he reached there--the clocks in the belfries sounding the hour
of nine--still he could not refrain from stopping a moment at the
cottage, just to let Dorothy know how cruelly fate had tricked him.

To his great consternation, he learned there, from the lady who kept the
boarding-house, that Dorothy--his Dorothy--had left the house at two
o'clock that afternoon with handsome Mr. Langdon, and that they had
started for Staten Island for a day's outing.

He stood quite still, stupefied with amazement too great for words, and
a white, awful horror broke over his face and shone in his eyes.

"Tell me about him again!" he cried, hoarsely. "What was he like--this
man who took Dorothy away?" And as he listened to the description his
face grew stormy with terrible wrath, for it tallied exactly with that
of the man who had put Dorothy in the cab and rode away with her.

Like a lightning's flash Jack tore down to the Staten Island wharf, and
was just in time to catch the out-going boat. He would surprise them, he
told himself, and tear little Dorothy, his promised bride, from his
rival's arms, or die in the attempt.

All the way down the bay Jack paced the deck in a tumult of fury that
increased with every breath he drew.

The half hour that it took to reach his destination seemed as endless as
the pangs of purgatory to lost souls. He never knew how the journey was
made, or how he reached the island--flaming with lights on this gala
night, and gorgeous with flags and gilded banners.

There were few passengers going down to Staten Island. The steamer had
come to take the revellers back to the city, and the gang-plank was no
sooner lowered than the crowd rushed aboard with happy laughter and gay
repartee. Among the first to gain a foothold on the stairway that led to
the upper deck were Harry Langdon and Dorothy; and here, face to face,
they met--Jack!

"Unhand that young girl!" he cried, sternly, facing Langdon. "You have
no right to be here with her."

Langdon started back, and glanced in haughty amazement at the
broad-shouldered, fair-haired young man confronting him.

But without waiting for him to answer, Jack turned to Dorothy, holding
out his hands to her, saying huskily:

"Leave him, little one, and come with me."

But Dorothy threw back her head with rising anger.

"How _dare_ you, Jack Garner!" she cried, stamping her tiny foot, her
blue eyes flashing. "I shall never speak to you again for
this--_never_!"

"Step out of our way," cried Dorothy's companion, "and allow this young
lady and myself to pass!"

"You shall never pass me with her!" cried Jack, furiously, his hand
stealing involuntarily to his breast pocket.

"Step aside; we wish to go on deck!" returned Langdon, haughtily, "and
we intend to do so!"

"You will never go on deck with her, unless it be over my dead body!"
cried Garner, his face white as death, his voice trembling with
excitement, and his brown eyes flashing like living coals of fire.

"_You_ can not prevent me," retorted Langdon, in a sneering,
contemptuous voice. Then, turning to Dorothy, he added: "I am glad that
I am here to stand between you and this intrusive fellow. Come; I will
thrust him aside, and we will go on deck, my dear."

The familiarity with which he addressed his companion stung Jack to
madness.

"You can pass on deck alone, but not one step shall you proceed with
that young girl! Try it at your peril!" shouted Jack, hoarsely.

Langdon did not heed the terrible warning, but attempted to push past
with his companion; and in that instant the passengers crowding up from
below heard the wild, piercing, terrified cry of the young girl ring out
on the night air, and mingled with it the report of a revolver--three
shots in quick succession--and the voice of a man crying out in mortal
agony: "My God! I am shot!" and the next instant a beautiful,
fair-haired girl plunged from the deck down, down into the dark, mad
waves, and the seething waters closed quickly over her golden head and
white, lovely, childish face.

In an instant there was the most intense excitement and confusion on
board the steamer. Young girls fainted, women cried aloud, and strong
men stood fairly paralyzed with horror. Great God! the steamer was
backing slowly over the spot where the girl had gone down, and where she
would reappear. Nothing could save her now.




CHAPTER IV.


All in an instant the cry rang from lip to lip: "There's a man
overboard!" Will he save her? Oh, heavens, is he too late to save the
life of the beautiful, rash girl who had plunged into the mad waters
scarcely a moment before, or will it mean death for both of them?

He had disappeared beneath the steamer. The next moment that passed
seemed the length of eternity to the horrified spectators who lined the
dock and the decks, straining their eyes looking down into the dark
waters lighted up so fitfully by the pallid moonlight.

He rose, and a great cry broke from every lip. He was alone, and almost
instantly he disappeared again. And again he rose, still alone. Every
heart sank. People held their breath. Useless, useless to hope. The poor
girl's fate was sealed.

Then a mighty cheer broke forth. The waters parted, and they saw him
again. This time he was making for the shore, holding in one arm the
body of the luckless young girl whom he had risked his own life to save.

Suddenly they heard him utter a sharp cry.

"A rope! A rope! I am sinking!"

In less time than it takes to tell it, a score or more of strong arms
hurled one out to him, and he caught it in the nick of time.

Then amidst the greatest excitement he was drawn to the deck with his
inanimate burden.

So intense had been the excitement that the passengers who had stood
nearest the principals in the bitter quarrel which had taken place had
lost track entirely of the fact that a tragedy had almost been enacted
in their midst.

And when they began to inquire into the matter no one could tell what
had become of the man who had cried out that he had been shot, and they
considered it a false alarm.

Had this lovely young girl anything to do with this matter, or was it a
coincidence that at the self-same moment she had flung herself into the
water?

Meanwhile, kindly hands took the burden from the young man's arms. As he
was drawn on deck some one in the crowd cried out in consternation:

"Great Heavens! It's Jack Garner! And the girl whom he has saved is
little Dorothy Glenn!"

There was much speculation as to why the girl had attempted to commit
suicide; but Jack's friend, a fellow-workman in the book-bindery,
declared quickly that it never could have been a case of attempted
suicide--the girl must have fallen overboard, and Jack had of course
sprung to the rescue.

This looked plausible enough; and what they had all expected to be a
great sensation seemed to turn out but an accident pure and simple.

As for Langdon, he had suddenly disappeared in the crowd after striking
at the revolver which Jack had drawn upon him and crying out mockingly
that he was shot when it was discharged, simply to get Jack into trouble
and to get sympathy for himself.

They found it no easy matter to restore the girl to consciousness, and
at this juncture an old gentleman, a retired doctor who had been in the
cabin when the accident had happened, came hurriedly to her assistance
when he heard that she was beyond the skill of those attending her in
the ladies' cabin.

"Stand back!" he cried, forcing his way through the crowd of women. "How
do you suppose you can bring her to while you stand round her and
exclude the air? And by all that's wonderful, although you poured brandy
down her throat, no one seemed to know enough to open her dress!"

And forthwith he began hurriedly to open the dress at the throat. But as
he did so a low cry broke from his lips, and his florid old face turned
deathly white.

"My God, it is she!" he cried, hoarsely; and despite the curious throng
about him, the old doctor burst into tears and wept like a child.

He felt that some explanation was due, and in a broken, husky voice he
said, pointing to a small, irregular mark over the girl's chest:

"I have been searching for her for sixteen years by night and by day,
and finally abandoned all hope of finding her. She--she is not a
relative, as you may suppose. A few words will explain:

"Some sixteen years ago I had a beautiful ward, as fair a young girl as
ever the sun shone on, and I, a lonely old man who had outlived all his
kinsfolk, loved her with all the devotion of my heart.

"She was happy enough in my home--aye, as happy as the day was long,
but, like many another young girl, the bitter trial of life came with
her first dream of love. She fell in love with a scoundrel. I knew the
man better than she, and refused my consent. But young girls are
willful, and the upshot of the whole matter was--she eloped with him. It
was the most terrible blow of my life. Two years went by, in which I
neither saw nor heard of her. Then unexpectedly I received a short,
hastily written letter from my heart-broken Alice.

"'When you read this I shall be no more,' she wrote. 'Oh, Doctor Bryan,
I have paid the penalty of my folly with my life. I am slowly dying of
starvation. For myself, I bow to the fate I have brought upon my own
head. But the result of my folly does not rest here. It falls upon the
head of an innocent little babe whom I must leave behind me. Oh, Doctor
Bryan, this is the prayer that in the last moments of my life I make to
you:

     "'Plead with the little one's father to let her come to
     you. If he keeps her, may God in heaven pity her
     future. He will blast her life as he did mine, or--if
     it suits his pleasure, he will abandon her on the
     streets to starve, as I am doing now. If I could think
     that she would be with you, I would die without this
     heavy load on my heart. She is so fair and
     beautiful--my poor little baby! She has only one
     blemish--the same scar is upon her bosom that is upon
     mine, and which I have heard you say was upon the bosom
     of my mother--the birthmark of the three spears.

     "'I can not write any more. My hand trembles so that I
     can scarcely hold the pen.

     "'Good-bye, Doctor Bryan. Never forget your poor,
     heart-broken                                    ALICE.'

"I searched for her night and day," repeated the old man, with a sob in
his voice. "Alice died at sea, and the fate of the little one could not
be learned, nor that of the father. I never ceased searching until the
last year. Then I said to myself, 'It is useless--useless. Alice's baby
is dead.' But I have found her most miraculously at last, thank God!"

This revelation created the most intense excitement among the women, who
had listened breathlessly to the _dénouement_.

He had scarcely ceased speaking ere Dorothy opened her eyes. She found
to her great consternation a crowd surrounding her.

But in an instant memory returned to her, and with a startled cry she
struggled up to a sitting posture, gazing in blank bewilderment upon the
crowd that had gathered about her.

"I--I fainted and fell backward," she began; but the old gentleman bent
quickly over her, interrupting, hastily:

"Yes, you fell backward and down into the water, my child, and came near
drowning. Where is the young man who saved her?" he cried. "Will some
one fetch him here at once to me, so that I may thank him? Oh, child,
child!" he cried, again bending over Dorothy, "I would have recognized
you among ten thousand! You look at me with your mother's eyes!"

"My mother?" cried Dorothy, in awe, thinking that she had not heard
aright, or that the gentleman had mistaken her for some one else. "I--I
am an orphan; my name is Dorothy Glenn."

The old gentleman did not utter the words that sprang to his lips when
she mentioned the name Glenn, though his face darkened for an instant
with bitter memory.

"But will you tell me," cried Dorothy, with a piteous sob, "what has
become of my escort, Mr. Langdon?"

Nobody seemed to know, and it soon became apparent to everyone--even to
the girl herself--that in her peril he had miserably deserted her rather
than risk his life to save hers.

"Another young man periled his life for you," some one answered; but who
it was Dorothy could not learn, and in that moment she was glad enough
to call for Jack--poor, faithful Jack Garner.

But he did not come this time at her bidding. No one told her that he
was suffering from a severe contusion on the side of the head, and was
scarcely conscious of the message that was sent him at that time.

"You have no need of their protection. From this time henceforth you
shall be under my watchful care, little Dorothy;" and very briefly, and
to her intense amazement, Mr. Bryan told her the story that he had
already related to those about her. "I shall take you home with me," he
said, "and you shall never again know want."

To the girl it seemed as though what she had heard was but the wild
vagaries of a dream, from which she should awaken presently and find
herself back in the old book-bindery with the other girls. But the
exclamations of the people who pressed around her congratulating her
upon her good fortune, which read so much like a romance, were real
enough, for they all knew Doctor Bryan, the wealthy old retired
physician, whose elegant country place was just outside of New York.

The loss of Dorothy's handsome lover, who had forsaken her in so
shameful a manner, would have been a terrible blow to her had she had
time to think and brood over the matter. But this new excitement that
had come so suddenly upon her, making part and parcel of her life, threw
her thoughts in quite a different channel. How surprised Harry Langdon
would be when he heard the wonderful news, and how all the book-bindery
girls would hold their breath in astonishment too great for words when
she did not come to work on the following day, but got a letter from her
instead, explaining the wonderful change in her fortunes! Nadine Holt
would be green with envy, and so would the rest of the girls, down in
the secret depths of their hearts. There was only one among them who
would rejoice because her working-days among them were over, and that
was Jessie Staples, who had always declared Dorothy was born to be a
real lady.




CHAPTER V.


Great was the consternation at Gray Gables, as the Bryan mansion was
called, when the doctor drove up to the door in the old family carriage,
and the housekeeper, looking from the window, saw a young girl seated by
his side.

For many years past he had had the strongest aversion to young girls,
and it was over sixteen years since one had crossed that threshold. No
wonder that the housekeeper was amazed to see him assist her from the
carriage and lead her by the hand up the broad walk toward the porch.

"Great Heaven!" cried Mrs. Kemp, as they drew nearer, "it looks like
Miss Alice; but it couldn't be her; for long years have passed
since--since the night she ran away. It must be her daughter--yes, that
is it!"

All of a tremble, she hastened to the door, and flung it open wide. She
could see by Mr. Bryan's face that something unusual had occurred, even
before her eyes rested on the fair young creature beside him.

"Mrs. Kemp," he said, huskily, "I have here with me one who will
surprise you greatly when you hear her name--nay, astound you."

"I can see for myself that she bears a striking resemblance to--to--"
and the rest of the sentence was lost in a choking sob.

"I am sorry that I make you feel so bad," said the fresh young voice;
and the next instant a pair of plump arms were about the old lady's neck
and a soft, velvety cheek was pressed close to hers. "Doctor Bryan has
told me all my history," the girl cried in the same breath--"how he has
been searching for me all these years, finding me at last; and that I am
hereafter to live in this grand old place. And I have been fairly crying
with joy all the way up from New York to-day. I could not help but
scream with delight, though I know it quite horrified Doctor Bryan, when
I saw the house and the magnificent grounds around it. As soon as I take
off my hat I want to run into the garden and see the rose-bushes with
real roses growing on them, and see what a house is like. I've always
lived in a tenement flat or boarding-house."

It made Mrs. Kemp laugh, even through her tears, at the girl's wild
enthusiasm. She was like an untrained, untutored child, despite her
years, she thought.

The doctor's eyes grew moist as he listened, and during the few days
that followed he watched her from his study window with unfeigned
delight. She appeared to him more like a child of seven than a young
lady of seventeen.

She was too busy in looking over the place, for the next fortnight, to
carry out her intention of writing to the girls.

She seemed to have been lifted into a different world, where the dark
past lay far behind her.

At this juncture an event happened which cast a dark shadow over all
poor Dorothy's after life.

She was out in the garden one day with Mrs. Kemp, when the doctor joined
them, holding a telegram in his hand.

"I have just received word from Harry that he will be here to-morrow,"
he said, with a pleased expression on his face. "I hope that you will
see that a room is put in readiness for him."

"To be sure, sir," responded the housekeeper, with a little courtesy.

His footsteps had scarcely died away ere Dorothy turned eagerly to her
companion.

"Who is Harry?" she asked, with all a young girl's curiosity.

"He is a young gentleman who has been studying medicine with Dr. Bryan
for the last year," returned the housekeeper, adding, with a slight
frown on her comely face: "The doctor is quite fond of him. He has been
away for the last three months, and the house has been so nice and quiet
without him."

"By the way you speak one wouldn't fancy that you liked this Mr. Harry,"
laughed Dorothy.

The housekeeper turned grimly away.

"But what is he like?" persisted Dorothy, pursuing the subject.

"Is he young--is he handsome?"

"Handsome is as handsome does," replied Mrs. Kemp, ominously.

"Doesn't he do handsome?" retorted Dorothy, throwing back her curly head
with a rich mellow laugh, adding: "But what is he like, anyhow? Is he
dark or fair, young or old?"

"No doubt he will strike you as being quite handsome," returned Mrs.
Kemp, thoughtfully. "He has very dark eyes and dark waving hair. Young
girls would consider him quite good looking."

"And will he, too, live in the house with us?" asked Dorothy, curiously.

"You had better ask Doctor Bryan," responded Mrs. Kemp, evasively.

The next morning, as Dorothy stepped out into the garden to gather
flowers for the breakfast-table, she came suddenly upon a young man
pacing up and down under the trees with his hands in his pockets,
smoking a cigar.

When he heard the light, pattering footsteps he wheeled round, and was
just about to raise his hat to the vision of girlish loveliness before
him when a low cry of intense astonishment broke from his lips.

"Dorothy Glenn, by all that is wonderful!" he exclaimed.

The amazement was mutual.

"Harry Langdon!" the girl shrieked, turning pale as death.

"What in the name of Heaven brings you to this house?" he cried,
hoarsely, catching her wrist and holding it in a tight grip.

"You have no right to know, after the way you deserted me in my peril,"
flashed Dorothy.

"But how came you here," he repeated, "of all places in the world? I
must know!"

The girl briefly outlined how it happened, her anger rising against her
questioner with every word; and as he listened his face was a study.

"Dorothy," he said, in his low, smooth voice, "you accuse me of not
trying to save you when you fell overboard. But let me speak just one
word in my own defense: You remember just what was taking place as we
reached the deck. You heard the shot, but you fainted and did not know
what happened. The bullet whizzed by me, and I fell back on the deck
stunned--unconscious. I did not recover until long after the steamer
reached New York. All the people had dispersed long before I returned to
consciousness. I made diligent search for you, and to my great horror it
soon dawned upon me that not one whom you knew could tell me whither you
had gone."

Dorothy was young and guileless, or he could never have fooled her so
easily. But the story seemed very plausible to her ears, and her face
brightened.

It was a great load lifted from her heart--her trustful belief that
handsome Mr. Langdon had not been false to her after all.

"Now, Dorothy, I have something to say to you," he began. "Walk down
this path with me, for you must listen intently to what I have to say to
you. I have a little confession to make to you, and a favor to ask, and
surely you are too kind of heart and too good a friend to me to refuse.
I had intended telling you this upon our return on the boat. My name is
not Harry Langdon, as you have believed, but Harry Langdon Kendal.

"I am studying medicine with Doctor Bryan, instead of law, as I once led
you to believe. And as to the great expectations I told you about, I
confess that they exist only in my mad hopes that Doctor Bryan, who is
alone in the world, without kith or kin, might take a fancy to leave me
something some day. He does not know of my rash wager, and that by
losing it I was forced to go to New York and place myself on a street
car as conductor for a while. He would disapprove of it if he knew, and,
Dorothy, you must never tell him--promise me that here and now--he must
never know that we have ever met before!"

Dorothy did not hesitate to give him the required assurance, for which
he thanked her so profusely that it brought the warm blushes in a
flood-tide to the girl's dimpled cheeks; and Mrs. Kemp wondered why
Dorothy looked so happy as she entered the house.

Left to himself, Kendal paced excitedly under the trees, puffing away
vigorously at his cigar.

"A devil of a fix this," he muttered, setting his white teeth hard
together. "Great Heaven! this is a romance in real life more strangely
weird than any fiction. Who would have thought of finding this girl
here, of all persons in the world, and under such circumstances! And
then, to make matters worse, I have been making violent love to the
girl. It was all very well to make desperate love to the little New York
working-girl, but to make love to Miss Glenn, the doctor's _protégée_,
is quite another matter. I shall be expected to ask for her hand in
marriage, of course, and she without a dollar. No, thanks! I'd rather
that some other fellow would woo and win the little blue-eyed fairy.
When it comes to marrying I must have a girl with money, who can put up
the needful for both if necessary. If she will only keep my secret I
will be but too grateful!"

Meanwhile, Dorothy had stolen up to her own room, and at that moment was
standing before the mantel, resting her elbows on it, her dimpled chin
upon her hands, gazing wistfully into the mirror's depths at the lovely
young face it reflected.

"Oh, how my cheeks burn!" she cried, excitedly, "and how my heart thumps
even yet. I was sure he would hear it. I thought I should never see him
again, but it is fate that brings us together here. I shall always
believe in it firmly and truly after this. He cares for me. He as much
as told me so on the night that we went to the moonlight picnic on
Staten Island, and the fortune-teller who told my fortune said--when all
of us bindery girls visited her one day--'I see a short journey for you,
miss--a dark young man and a marriage-ring;'" and for the next ten
minutes Dorothy capered around the room, dancing in such hoidenish,
girlish glee that she would fairly have shocked the old housekeeper
could she have seen her. "It's all coming true!" cried Dorothy,
breathlessly, to herself. But not one thought did she give to poor Jack,
whose betrothal-ring she carried pinned to her pocket.




CHAPTER VI.


How the hours passed up to luncheon time Dorothy never afterward
realized, her foolish little heart was in such a flutter of excitement.

She knew she should meet Harry at the table, and oh! it would be so hard
to pretend before Doctor Bryan and the stern, keen-eyed old housekeeper
that they were strangers.

She had but two dresses as yet, which the housekeeper had provided her
with, and she tried on each of them in succession to see which looked
best on her.

Which should it be? The pale-blue merino or the rose-pink cashmere?

After much studying and slipping on and off, Dorothy decided upon
wearing the rose-pink.

She was scarcely dressed ere the luncheon bell rang.

Taking up her handkerchief, Dorothy flew down the stairway, pausing
before the doorway to catch her breath and to summon courage to enter.

But the longer she stood there the more difficult it seemed to get
courage enough to open the door and face the music. At length she heard
Doctor Bryan inquire surprisedly of Mrs. Kent:

"Where can Dorothy be, I wonder?"

And the next instant they heard a faint voice exclaim:

"Here I am, please."

And, turning to see from whence the sound proceeded, they all saw
distinctly that the door was open the space of an inch, and that a
human eye was applied to the crack, while four little fingers clutched
it frantically to keep it open.

"Come in, Dorothy," commanded Mr. Bryan, inwardly highly amused at the
girl's bashfulness in venturing in when she saw a stranger seated at the
board.

Dorothy opened the door, stumbled over the mat, and, with a face red as
a beet, walked awkwardly to the table and took her seat, which happened
to be directly opposite Harry's.

She did not dare for the life of her to look at him, for she knew that
his black eyes were bent upon her. She felt them scorching down into her
soul.

"Dorothy," said Mr. Bryan, pompously, "allow me to present to you my
young friend, Mr. Kendal."

"I am right glad to see him, sir," said Dorothy, faintly, without
raising her eyes.

Noticing her embarrassment, Doctor Bryan quickly turned the conversation
into another channel; but he soon observed that his young friend was
looking at the girl across the table, almost convulsed with laughter.

It took but one glance that way to see the cause.

In her great confusion Dorothy was making dire efforts to eat her soup
with a fork, catching occasionally a stray bean.

"Remove the soup plates!" roared the doctor to the servant who stood in
waiting, and who was also grinning at the girl's discomfiture.

It was the most confusing meal that Dorothy had ever sat down to.

And when she arose from the table she was far hungrier than when she sat
down.

She had scarcely eaten a good solid mouthful.

Oh, it was so hard to act out such a falsehood as handsome Harry had
prevailed upon her to do.

During the fortnight that followed, she became more used to the
situation, but it was no little wonder, both to the housekeeper and
Doctor Bryan, what excellent friends they were getting to be in so short
a time.

It could not be that they were falling in love with each other; and the
doctor looked rather serious at the last thought.

As for Dorothy, it was quite a clear case; she was deeply in love with
Harry Kendal. Like all girls, her day-dreams were rosy. It was so sweet
to wander with him through the grand grounds surrounding Gray Gables, or
sit in the sunshine in the clover meadow beyond, with the babbling brook
at their feet, and the great branches of the oak trees over their heads,
and listen to him while he read such sweet poems to her--poems of how
some lover loved a lassie, and how bright was their future.

But still there was a change in him; he wasn't just like he used to be
when she was only Dorothy Glenn, working for her living in the
book-bindery. And just to show him that she did not notice the change,
and did not care, she was so gay and hoidenish, so full of repartee and
laughter, that she saw him open his eyes in wonder more than once; and
Doctor Bryan gave her the _soubriquet_ of "Madcap Dorothy," which seemed
to suit her exactly.

There was no prank that could ever have entered a roguish girl's brain
which she did not play upon Kendal.

This phase of her character rather annoyed Kendal than pleased him; and
it seemed to him that she took a special delight in teasing him. She hid
his slippers, slipped briars into his couch, turned tack-points upward
in his lounging chairs, and substituted periodicals a month old for his
morning journals and magazines, until he almost grew to detest her for
becoming the torment of his life. Shrewd as he was in the ways of young
girls, he did not know that this is the course which many a young girl
pursues toward a young man with whom she has fallen in love, and would
not have him know it for the whole world.

If there was anything which Kendal detested, it was a girl who was
always on the lookout to turn every word and action into a joke. He
preferred them modest and flower-like; still, he was in duty bound to
treat her as well as he could because she was under that roof.

And there was another reason why he began to abhor Dorothy. Before her
appearance on the scene, there had been a wild hope in his heart that
some day he might possibly inherit a good portion of Doctor Bryan's
money. For two years or more he had left no stone unturned to get into
the old gentleman's good graces.

True, Dorothy was as much of a stranger to Doctor Bryan as he himself
was, but who knew but that, by some freak of unlucky fate, he might take
a notion to leave the girl all of his fortune? He wished to Heaven she
had never crossed the threshold of Gray Gables.

At this turn of affairs it occurred to him that it would not be a bad
idea to test the old gentleman's friendship for himself; and the
greatest of all tests, he believed, was to borrow money from him. If
Doctor Bryan refused this little favor, he reasoned to himself, all his
hopes in regard to inheriting the old gentleman's money, in time to
come, would be dashed. He would ask him for a small loan; and on the
very day this occurred to him he proceeded to put it into execution,
saying to himself:

    "'He either fears his fate too much,
      Or his deserts are small,
    Who fears to put it to, the touch
      To win or lose it all.'"

He knew that he should find the doctor in his study directly after
luncheon, and here he presented himself with some trepidation.

"Come in," called the doctor, in answer to his knock.

"Oh, it's _you_, is it, Harry?" he exclaimed, placing a chair for him,
which the young man took rather awkwardly.

"It is not often I trouble you in your study, sir," began Harry, "but I
have something of importance to say to you, and I beg that you will
pardon the intrusion. I chose a time when we will be least apt to be
interrupted."

"I wouldn't advise you to begin it if it will take long to tell," said
Mr. Bryan, "for we might be interrupted at any moment. I am expecting an
old friend, who is to accompany me on a horse-back ride. He ought to
have been here by this time."

Harry fidgeted nervously about in his chair. It required something of
an effort to make his request carelessly.

"You are the only one," he began, a little disconcertedly, "I feel sure,
who can help me in my present dilemma."

The old doctor wheeled suddenly around in his chair, and all in an
instant the object of the young man's visit flashed over his mind.

"To my mind he is come to tell me that he has fallen head over heels in
love with little Dorothy, and wants to marry her;" and with the thought
a broad smile crept up to the lips the white beard covered.

He had never been in love himself--but, for all that, he always
sympathized with young folks in their tender affairs of the heart, and
many a secret sigh escaped his lips for the lost opportunities of the
past.

"Well," he began, brusquely, "why don't you proceed, my boy?"

"It is such a delicate matter," began Kendal, "that I scarcely know how
to frame the words. You have always been so kind to me in the past, that
the remembrance of it has led me to dare hope that your goodness will
not desert me in the present emergency."

"Well," said the old gentleman, rather enjoying the young man's evident
discomfiture, "pray go on."

"The boon I have to ask," began Kendal, "will either make or mar my
future."

"Is it so bad as that?" returned the old gentleman with assumed
innocence.

"You could never imagine what it is that I wish to ask," continued the
young man.

"I might guess, perhaps," laughed the doctor, with a roguish twinkle in
his eye.

"Surely you--you couldn't have noticed the one great wish of my heart,"
gasped Kendal. "I--"

At that moment the expected visitor was announced.

"Come and see me in my library this evening," said Doctor Bryan,
grasping the young man's hand, "and we will talk over the matter you
have so much at heart, and I will give you my answer in regard to it."

"You are too good, sir," cried Kendal, in bewilderment.

At that moment the entrance of the visitor put a stop to all further
conversation, and Kendal arose and took his leave after an exchange of
greetings.

"How could he possibly have divined that I was thinking of asking him
for money?" he pondered.

He heard Dorothy singing at the top of her voice in the drawing-room,
and he turned on his heel in the hallway, and walked in an opposite
direction with a frown of impatience on his face.

Dorothy saw him pass the door, and she bit her lip with vexation.

"Of course he heard me playing on the piano, for I thumped as loud as
ever I could; but he did not come in. It seems to me he is trying 'to
cool off,' as we girls in the bindery used to say."

Dorothy tiptoed over to the window as she heard the front door slam
after him, and if he had looked back he would have seen a very defiant
though tear-stained face peering earnestly after him from behind the
lace curtains.

Kendal walked disconsolately enough through the spacious grounds and out
into the main road, little dreaming that a strange fate was drawing him
onward with each step he took.

He had traveled a mile or more over the country road, when suddenly he
was startled by the sound of horses' hoofs.

The next instant, from around the bend in the road, a horse dashed
riderless, covered with foam, and so near him that he had to spring
aside or its hoofs would have been buried in his brain. One glance, and
a cry of horror broke from his lips. It was Doctor Bryan's horse.

Great God! where was he? Kendal realized that there had been a terrible
accident, and that at that moment the doctor lay dying--perhaps dead--by
the road-side.

In all haste he rushed down the road in the direction whence the horse
had come, and around the first bend he beheld the prostrate figure of
Doctor Bryan lying covered with dust, his friend bending over him.

In an instant he was by his side. One glance, and his worst fears were
realized--the old gentleman had been mortally injured--he was dying. He
held out his hand when he saw Kendal bending over him, and nodded assent
as his companion briefly and hurriedly related how the terrible accident
had come about.

"I was just about to go for you," said the friend. "The doctor has
something to say to you. Surely it was the work of Providence that you
happened along just now."

Kendal bent over the prostrate form.

"I--I am dying, Harry!" gasped the doctor; "but that--of which we
were--talking--this--afternoon--is--uppermost--in--my--mind.
You--you--wished--me--to--give my--consent--to--to--your--wooing--and
wedding little--Dorothy. I--give--it--to
you--here--and--now--with--my--blessing--for--I--know--she--cares--for
you. Six months--from--to-day--at--noon--my--will--must be read; and on
that day you--must marry her--if ever--aye--you must--be wedded--ere
that noon-hour--shall have waned. Then--then--within that hour--you
shall know--the contents of--my will; and--remember, too,
that--it--is--irrevocable!"

Harry Kendal reeled back, like one dazed by an awful blow.

The suddenness of this affair had taken his breath away. But before he
could raise his voice in protest, or utter one word of the terrible
mistake which the old gentleman was laboring under, Doctor Bryan
breathed his last, and he found himself betrothed, as it were, to
Dorothy, and by the most terrible mistake that ever a man labored under.




CHAPTER VII.


A fortnight had passed since the fatal accident in Brighton Woods, and
life at Gray Gables had once more resumed the even tenor of its regular
routine.

The first words that Doctor Bryan had gasped out to his friend, when he
regained consciousness and found himself fatally injured, were:

"Tell--tell--them at home--that--everything--must go--on--the
same--until--after--my will--has--been read--and that--must not
be--until--six--months--after--my--decease."

The sudden loss of Doctor Bryan, the kind-hearted old gentleman who had
raised her from poverty to great wealth, was a severe blow to Dorothy.
For in that short length of time she had learned to love him, as a
daughter might have done, with all the strength of her passionate,
girlish heart.

The old housekeeper and the servants, who had been in his employ a
quarter of a century or more, mourned for him and refused to be
comforted.

Great was the excitement in the household when the friend who had
accompanied Doctor Bryan on that fatal ride broke to them the strange
compact between the doctor and Kendal, to which he had been a witness.

He readily decided that it was best not to tell Dorothy the exact
situation of affairs, and that it would probably be more in accordance
with a young girl's romantic idea of marriage for Kendal to woo her on
his own account, and gain her consent, ere he breathed to her that this
was Doctor Bryan's wish.

And this was the course that Kendal followed. He allowed fully a month
to transpire ere he made the slightest advances to her. Long and
carefully he had thought the matter over in his own mind, and had
concluded that there was no way out of the strange betrothal into which
he had been forced, as it were, against his will.

He made up his mind to accept the situation gracefully and become
engaged to Dorothy, and if he found out that she had not been remembered
in the old gentleman's will, he could break it without one word of
warning or the least compunction. He noticed, too, that Dorothy was
growing quite shy of him of late. She had been quite fond of him in the
past; it would never do to allow her to grow indifferent to him. He
made up his mind to settle the matter--as far as the engagement was
concerned--at the first opportunity; and one presented itself on the
very day he made this resolve.

Dorothy was in the conservatory that afternoon, when he suddenly
surprised her, stealing up on tip-toe behind her, clasped her in his
arms, holding his hands over her eyes, whispering:

"Guess who it is, Dorothy."

The struggle to escape those firm arms suddenly ceased. The girl was
dumbfounded with amazement.

"Is it--can it be you, Harry--Mr. Kendal?" she gasped, breathlessly.

"Do you wish it were some one else, Dorothy?" he whispered, releasing
her from his arms, but catching her hands in a tight clasp and looking
eagerly down into her eyes.

The girl's face flushed burning red, and her gaze fell beneath a pair of
dark eyes that seemed to search into her very soul. But in an instant
she recovered something of her old hoidenish composure; and in that
moment she remembered, too, how he had seemed to slight her of late, and
her pride rebelled hotly.

"How dare you frighten me so, Harry Kendal?" she cried, drawing back and
stamping her little foot, her blue eyes blazing angrily.

"Are you so very displeased?" he inquired, reproachfully, adding
quietly: "If that is the case, I beg your pardon. I shall never so
trespass again;" and he dropped her hand and turned away, walking
moodily to the window.

"Gracious! I have done it now!" thought Dorothy, repenting on the
instant; and, as he made no effort to turn around or speak to her
again, she advanced slowly to where he stood idly drumming upon the
window-sill.

"I wasn't so very angry," she began, hesitatingly, picking nervously at
the blue ribbons which tied her long, curling hair. "I said I wasn't so
very angry!" repeated Dorothy, nervously. He heard her, but never turned
his head, and Dorothy was at a loss what to say next to mend matters.
"Would you like a rose?" she stammered.

"Thanks--no!" replied Kendal, shortly, still without turning his head.
Then, after a brief pause:

"Or would you like me to show you a new book of poems I just bought?"

"You needn't mind. Pray don't trouble yourself," he responded.

Dorothy looked at him an instant, quite as though she was ready to cry;
then the best thing that could have happened, under the circumstances,
came to her relief.

She grew angry.

"I wouldn't show you the book now, to save your life!" she cried, her
breath coming and going in panting gasps, and her cheeks flaming as
scarlet as the deep-red rose she had brought him as a peace-offering;
"nor would I give you this flower. I'd tear it up and stamp it beneath
my feet first--you are so mean!"

He turned with a very tantalizing smile, and looked at her out of the
corners of his eyes.

She had hidden her face in her hands, but by the panting of her breast
he saw that she was weeping, that a storm of sobs was shaking her
childish frame.

He stooped and passed his arm lightly around the slim waist, his hand
holding hers.

Dorothy trembled.

"Won't you let me comfort you?" he asked, in that low, winning voice of
his.

The thought flashed across Dorothy's brain that, if she pushed him from
her, he would never again put his arms about her, and she meekly endured
the caress for an instant; and not being repulsed, he grew bold enough
to kiss the rosy cheek that peeped out from between the white fingers.

"I have something to say to you, Dorothy," he whispered. "It is this: I
love you! Will you be my wife?"

Dorothy had always imagined just how a lover should propose, but she had
never imagined anything so commonplace as this.

He stooped to caress her again, but she drew back.

"You frighten me!" she cried; and at these words he instantly released
her.

"It is alarming--being kissed--and especially when you're not used to
it. But that does not answer my question. Will you marry me, or will you
not?"

"I don't know!" cried Dorothy, faintly. "You mustn't ask me; you must
talk to Mrs. Kemp about it."

"I might talk to Mrs. Kemp about changing my room in the house, or ask
her concerning anything belonging to the household, but I couldn't think
of asking her to find me a wife and to seal the bargain for me. The
'Yes' or 'No' must be said by the girl herself, as she is the one who is
to live with me and to make the best or the worst of the bargain
through life. Now, Dorothy, I want a plain, straightforward answer.
Tell me, will you be my bride?"

She colored and smiled, and the sort of shy half fear which always
assailed her at his approach came over her now more strongly than ever,
and the quick blood came rushing to her finger-ends.

"I--don't know what to say!" gasped Dorothy. "I couldn't marry anybody,
I think."

His arms dropped from about her.

"Am I to understand, then," he asked, in a constrained voice, "that you
refuse me?"

"Oh, I don't know!" cried Dorothy, melting into fresh, quick tears.
"I--I--should want to ask somebody about it first before I said 'Yes.'"

He had quite believed that she would accept him on the spot the moment
he proposed, and her failure to do this made him almost catch his breath
in astonishment.

This uncertainty in the matter gave more zest to his ardor.

"You dislike me?" he questioned, wondering if that could possibly be.

"Oh, no, no! I like you. Won't you believe me?"

He stepped back and looked at her with a sarcastic smile--looked at the
little figure leaning against the fountain, with one hand resting on the
rim of it, the other held out imploringly toward him.

"Believe you? Why do you insist upon making me uncivil?" he replied. "I
do _not_ believe you! I dare say you fancy that you are telling the
truth; but if another man were to come on the scene with a few thousands
a year more, and a higher position in the social scale, you would have
a very different answer for him at your tongue's end."

He looks at her--looks at the innocently wooing arms--at the
tear-stained, dimpled, tremulous face, and, now that he thinks that he
can not win her, all in an instant he falls madly in love with her.

"You must answer me, here and now!" he cried; but Dorothy turned from
him, and, like a startled fawn, slipped through his outstretched hands,
through the conservatory, and out of the corridor beyond, leaving him
staring after her, his handsome face pale with emotion.

Dorothy never paused until she reached her own room.

She closed and locked the door with trembling hands and beating heart;
then, after the fashion of young girls, she laughed and cried
hysterically all in a breath, dancing around the room in a mad fashion,
clapping her hands and sobbing out:

"Oh, at last--at last, my hero, my ideal has turned from a block of
marble to human clay, and tells me that he loves me and wants me to be
his wife--me--a silly little thing like me!" and she paused before the
glass, wondering what he saw in the pink-and-white face reflected there
to love forever and ever. She wished she knew.




CHAPTER VIII.


Dorothy's merriment was soon interrupted by a loud knock at the door,
and when she opened it, panting with her exertion of dancing around the
room, she found Mrs. Kemp standing there, with a white, frightened face.

"What in the world is the matter here, child?" she cried, in alarm. "I
was afraid there were burglars, or Heaven knows what, up here in this
room."

Dorothy burst into a peal of laughter that amazed the old lady and made
the very walls echo with her bright young voice.

"Oh, something so funny has just happened!" she gasped. "You will be as
much surprised as I was, Mrs. Kemp, when you hear it."

The housekeeper knew just what had happened, for, although unknown to
Dorothy, she was in the conservatory when she had entered; but before
she could make her presence known Kendal had appeared upon the scene,
and the proposal of marriage had followed so quickly upon the heels of
it that she felt she could not leave without embarrassing both, so she
waited there until they had quitted the conservatory.

As soon as she thought it practicable she followed Dorothy to her room
to congratulate her, and the sight that met her view surprised her--the
girl's face, instead of being flushed with tell-tale blushes and covered
with confusion, as she had expected, was convulsed with laughter.

"Oh, do come in!" cried Dorothy, excitedly. "I have something that I
want to tell you--I want you to decide for me what is best to do."

"I will give you the best advice I can," said the old housekeeper,
drawing the girl down beside her on the sofa, and putting her arm about
her.

"I've just had a--a proposal of--of marriage. There! the whole secret is
out!" cried Dorothy, breathlessly.

But the good old lady did not look a particle amazed, much to Dorothy's
surprise.

"You do not ask me who it is that wants me," cried the girl, in bitter
disappointment.

Mrs. Kemp smiled.

"It was very easy to see that for myself," she responded. "Every one
could tell that Harry Kendal was very fond of you, my dear, and that
sooner or later he would ask you to marry him. But tell me, what answer
did you make him?"

"I--I ran away without making any answer at all," confessed Dorothy,
shamefacedly. "I thought I could write him a note and put my answer in
it--ever so much better than to look up into his face and tell him," she
faltered. "I wonder that girls can ever say 'Yes' right up and down,
then and there; it seems so bold a thing to do. Why, I never felt so
embarrassed in my life. When I tried to say something my tongue cleaved
to the roof of my mouth. I trembled from head to foot, and--oh,
gracious!--he must have heard how my heart thumped. I know I must have
acted like the greatest simpleton the world ever held. Wasn't it
wonderful to think that he wanted to marry me? I can't understand it."

"It is not so very wonderful, but very natural," responded Mrs. Kemp,
warmly. "I do not know whether it is wise to tell you so or not, but you
are really beautiful. Every one thinks so hereabouts. And then you are
not too young to marry--you are seventeen."

"But I'm not a bit wise," persisted Dorothy.

"You are quite wise enough to suit the exacting eyes of love," declared
the housekeeper, reassuringly, "and that is all that is needed. The
greatest of all questions, however, is: Do you think you care for Mr.
Kendal? Let me tell you two things, my dear--never marry a man whom you
do not love; and if the one whom you do love asks you, do not coquet
with him."

"Will you help me to write the note to him?" cried Dorothy, drawing up a
hassock, and slipping down upon it at her companion's feet. "I want to
write it stiff and proud, as though I didn't care much, and I want to
get all the big words in it that I can."

"Of course I will help you," replied Mrs. Kemp. "But it's many a year
since I wrote a love letter, and I'm a little awkward at it now. But as
long as it conveys the idea of 'Yes' to him, your ardent lover will
think it the grandest epistle that ever a young girl wrote."

Such a time as there was over that letter!

Over and over again it was copied, this word erased, and that word
inserted, until at the very best it looked more like the map of Scotland
than anything else.

Dorothy was terribly in earnest over it.

One would almost have thought, to have seen her, that her life was at
stake over the result of it; but at last it was finished, and one of
the servants was called to take it to Mr. Kendal's room.

Harry was pacing restlessly up and down when it was delivered to him. He
took it eagerly and broke the seal, for he had recognized Dorothy's
cramped, school-girl chirography at once.

"She is mine!" he cried, triumphantly; and with the knowledge that he
had won her without a doubt, his ardor suddenly cooled; he did not know
whether he was pleased or sorry over the result of his wooing.

After he had read the letter over carefully, he fell to scrutinizing the
chirography.

"The first thing I shall have to do will be to teach the girl how to
write a legible letter," he thought.

Only the day before she had written a letter to Jack, which contained
but the few words that she was well and happy, and that a great change
of fortune had come into her life. But the letter bore neither date,
postmark, nor signature, and he could not tell where it had been posted.

But it was the first intimation which Jack had had that she was in the
land of the living, and to have seen his face as he read it would have
touched a heart of stone.

Tears sprang to his eyes, strong young man though he was, and he covered
the half-written page with burning kisses. To him those irregular,
girlish strokes were dearer than anything else this wide world held,
because they were Dorothy's.

Although she had suddenly disappeared, and all her friends had turned
against her in the bindery, declaring that she had eloped with the
handsome, dark-eyed stranger, he still believed her true. He had been
searching for her ever since, without rest--almost without food--day and
night, until he had almost worn himself out.

He believed she was in the city somewhere, that she had been ashamed to
return to the bindery after that scene on the steamer, and had gone some
place else to work, and he walked the streets for hours at a time,
searching for her among the crowds of working-girls as they trooped down
Broadway in laughing, chattering groups each evening, only to turn away,
alas! disappointed and almost broken-hearted.

And thus another month dragged its slow length by. It was well that he
did not know where Dorothy was, or what was occurring during those days
of suspense.

The news of her betrothal to handsome Harry Kendal had spread over the
entire village, and it caused no little sensation in Yonkers, on the
outskirts of which Gray Gables was situated; for every one had said that
this was the way the affair would terminate when the doctor brought the
handsome young stranger beneath the same roof with dashing, dark-eyed
Harry Kendal, the _beau-idéal_ of all the girls.

But there was some disappointment when they learned that the marriage
would not take place for nearly half a year yet.

"It's all very well _now_, with rosy love in their sky; but delays are
dangerous," said some people, shaking their heads ominously.

Dorothy was as happy as the day was long, for she was learning to fairly
adore her lover, and treated him in a childish fashion which rather
amused every one who saw them together.

If he brought her a box of _bonbons_ she would spring up and throw her
arms about his neck, like an overgrown baby, and end by giving him a
hearty smack straight on the lips--no matter who was present.

Once or twice he had attempted to expostulate with her sternly, coldly,
but his manner so frightened her that she almost went into hysterics,
and turning away with a white, set face, he would say no more.

What could he expect? he asked himself, grimly. He had asked an
untutored school-girl to be his wife--he had sown the wind, and now he
was commencing to reap the whirlwind. Every one else seemed highly
delighted over Dorothy's childish, romping ways; but as for himself,
they rankled upon his proud, sensitive, haughty nature.

He loved her in such a cool, lordly manner, and poor little Dorothy was
always impressed with his superiority. She was obliged to acknowledge
that Harry Kendal was her master. She could never make him her slave.

At this juncture an event happened that changed the current of poor
Dorothy's after life. It was election night, and the bonfires were
blazing on hill and vale, and all the young people of the village were
wild with enthusiasm over the affair.

A great bonfire had been built in the road in front of Gray Gables, as
had been the custom for years. The old doctor had been very patriotic.

"This year there is no one to cheer the boys on in their good work,"
said the housekeeper, sadly, as they were all standing out on the porch.

"I'll do it," cried Dorothy, and before the echo of her words had died
away rousing cheers broke from her lips, that were answered back
heartily by the crowd assembled with an enthusiastic "Hip, hip, hurrah,
and a tiger!" for the young lady of Gray Gables.

Kendal was mortally angry, and his face grew dark. He strode up to her
and grasped her shoulder, his fingers unwittingly clinching deeply into
the soft flesh.

"For Heaven's sake, stop, you tom-boy!" he cried. "Stop disgracing me!"

She flung up her little head proudly. If he had spoken to her alone she
would not have cared, but before all these people! Oh, it was
unbearable. She would resent it if it killed her.




CHAPTER IX.


For an instant their eyes met--his blazing dark and stormy in the clear,
bright moonlight, and his face white and wrathy; even his hands were
clinched fiercely.

All in an instant the old fire and pride blazed up in Dorothy Glenn's
heart.

"You shall not coerce me as if I were your very slave!" she said,
smiting her little hands together and pushing him from her, forgetting
in her great anger whether or not her action accorded well with her
dignity. "They cheered me, and I shall respond!" and before he could
utter one word of protest she had sped like a swallow down the graveled
path and out through the great arched gateway into the very midst of the
throng of merry maidens and young men who were gathered with hilarious
glee around the roaring bonfire.

The great stacks of burning barrels and boxes sent forth a glare of red
light and columns of flame shooting skyward, lighting up the scene with
a grand, weird beauty that lent a splendor to the night.

Great sparks flew heavenward, and the crackling sounds mingled with the
rousing cheers that rent the air.

They all saw Dorothy, the village favorite, flying toward them, and the
great throng parted to make way for her. Then the sport of the evening
went on with renewed vigor.

"Pile on the barrels!" cried one enthusiastic fellow. "Whether the
election is going Democratic or Republican, let's all give three cheers
for the incoming governor!" and a loud huzza that made the old town ring
broke from a couple of hundred throats, but mingled with it sounded a
wild cry of mortal terror in Dorothy's agonizing voice.

"Oh, my God! my eyes--my eyes! the sparks--the sparks have flown into
them! They are burning! Oh, God!"

And with that agonizing cry she fell backward in a dead faint in the
midst of the dazed crowd.

In an instant the greatest confusion prevailed, and the shouts of
laughter were turned to sobs of wailing.

Kind hands quickly raised her and bore her to the house. We will pass
gently, dear reader, over the two weeks that followed, for Gray Gables
was buried in the deepest sorrow.

One of the most pitiful calamities that ever could have befallen a human
being had happened to beautiful, hapless Madcap Dorothy. Poor child! she
was blind!

Never again would she see the light of the golden sunshine--never again
see the green, waving grass and the budding flowerets--never see the
blue sky, with its fleecy clouds, or the heavens at night blazing with
the soft, pale light of the twinkling stars--never again look upon a
human face. But while her life lasted she would grope through a world of
darkness--blind!

The shock had been terrible to both Mrs. Kemp and Harry Kendal, and oh!
in her pitiful condition how she clung to them!

"You will not throw me off now because I am blind, Harry?" she wailed,
laying her head against his bosom and weeping as she had never before
wept in all her young life.

"No!" he said, huskily; and that promise reassured her.

She clasped her white arms around his neck and clung to him in the
abandonment of her pitiful woe.

She was wild and willful Madcap Dorothy no longer.

During the first days of her trial friends flocked to see her, but as
they grew used to the situation they dropped off, and she was left with
only the old housekeeper, and her lover, and the servants of Gray Gables
for her companions.

At first she grieved over the terrible calamity with all the bitterness
of her soul, then by degrees she became reconciled to it.

But the one great anxiety of her life was in regard to her lover. He had
promised to love her still and be true to her; but would he--would he?
The very thought alarmed her soul and became the one terror of her life.

The blind are always acute in other senses.

She felt intuitively, as the days wore on, that he was growing cold
toward her. It was pitiful to see her grasp the hands of the little maid
that had been engaged to take care of her, and hear her beg her to dress
her prettily, and to see that every curl was in place, and the lace at
her throat and sleeves fresh and white.

"Oh, Katy, do I look very horrible?" she would whisper, in a breath of
intense agony, over and over again a hundred times during the day. "Are
there not cruel scars on my face? Oh, God! the terrible fire burned my
eyes to their sockets--dry. Surely I must be a thing so horrible to the
sight, that people who see me turn away quickly, suppressing a cry on
their lips. Is it not so?"

"Oh, no, miss! Believe me, there is not a scar on your pretty face. Your
cheeks have lost a little of their bloom, that is all, and the white
lids gently cover your poor eyes, and the long lashes sweep your cheeks.
You look as though you were walking in your sleep."

"But tell me, Katy," sobbed Dorothy, "do you think Harry does--do you
think Harry could love me as well as before?"

"And why not, miss?" returned the little maid. "Surely, with your
affliction, he should love you doubly more than he ever did before. You
needn't fear about my not dressing you in your prettiest, Miss Dorothy.
Sure, I'm always making little bows and fancy things for your dresses,
and twining the loveliest of flowers in your pretty golden hair!"

Dorothy would smile faintly, piteously, and sigh ever so gently.

Oh, God! the pity of groping around those rooms day in and day out! What
mattered it if she sat by the open window, as she had been wont to do?
She could not see her lover strolling under the maple-trees, even though
she heard his voice and knew he was there.

She would look upon his darkly handsome face never again in this world;
and at times Dorothy's soul grew so bitter over her terrible misfortune
that she wished she could die. As for Harry Kendal, after the first
shock of intense pity over Dorothy's unhappy fate was past, he grew
morose and taciturn.

It was bad enough to wed a maiden whom he did not love with all his
heart and soul--such as he had heard it expressed in the burning,
eloquent words of authors and poets--but to go through life with a blind
woman at his side! The very thought made his soul shudder and grow sick
within him.

He dared not make any attempt to break their engagement just then, for
public sentiment was strongly with the girl; but the chains that bound
him to her began to grow very heavy.

Surely she ought not wish to hold him in thraldom now. It was irksome
for him to go where she was, to passively receive her caresses as well
as attempt to stay her burning tears, and to be obliged to assure her
over and over again, with every breath, that he would be sure to be true
to her.

Alas! what a slender thread of circumstances in this world changes our
fate for weal or for woe!

Ever since the accident had happened, and the doctors had all pronounced
the terrible decree that poor Dorothy would go through life totally
blind, the poor old housekeeper had been maturing a plan in her head
which she thought would be a world of comfort to the poor girl.

Mrs. Kemp had a niece whom she had kept at boarding-school all the
girl's life, for she was an orphan, and she said to herself: "How grand
a plan it would be to bring the girl to Gray Gables to be a companion to
Dorothy until she marries!"

Her niece was a bright, gay creature, and would be just the one to cheer
Dorothy up.

Mrs. Kemp concluded to put this plan into execution at once, as there
was no one to say nay in regard to it, and she wrote to her niece to
come on without delay, little dreaming that this one action would prove
the curse of three lives--aye, the bitterest curse that ever wrung a
human heart, and that heart poor, hapless Dorothy's.

Ah, me! how often in this world that which we mean for the greatest good
turns out the source of the cruelest woe.

Dorothy heard of the plan, and agreed to it eagerly.

"Oh, thank you--thank you for the happy thought, Mrs. Kemp!" she cried;
"for I am lonely--so pitifully lonely. Yes, I would give the world for a
girl of my own age to be a companion to me until--until I marry Harry."

Kendal received the intelligence with a look of interest in his eyes.

"When does your niece come, Mrs. Kemp?" he inquired.

"I expect Iris to come to-morrow," she replied. And on the following
afternoon Iris Vincent arrived.

The carriage met her at the depot. Harry went for her himself. Dorothy
stood at the window, with Katy, her faithful little maid, awaiting Iris'
coming with the greatest impatience.

At last the carriage stopped before the arched gateway, and she heard
the sound of voices, then a peal of light, girlish laughter ringing out
above all the rest.

"Has she come?" whispered Dorothy.

"Yes, miss," murmured the little maid, in a low voice.

"What is she like?" questioned Dorothy, eagerly.

Faithful little Katy looked out of the window, then at Dorothy, a sudden
lump rising in her throat and a great fear at her heart.

She dared not tell her that the strange young girl was as beautiful as a
poet's dream--slim as a young willow, dressed in the height of fashion,
and, worse still--oh, a thousand times worse!--she was bringing all her
charms to bear upon handsome Harry Kendal, who was walking up the
graveled walk with her.

"Why don't you answer me?" cried Dorothy, impatiently.

"She--she is about your height," stammered Katy, "and--and she is very
plain, and--and not so fair as you;" and Katy lifted up her face to
heaven, clasping her hands, whispering to herself: "May God forgive me!
It is my first lie!"




CHAPTER X.


Mrs. Kemp hastened to the door to meet her niece, and the next moment
the echo of a gay young voice, bright and joyous, rang through the
corridor.

"She must be a very happy girl, and light of heart," sighed Dorothy.

Katy, the maid, had nothing to say. Much to Dorothy's surprise, they did
not come to the room in which she was awaiting them, and she heard them
go on to the drawing-room, and the door close behind them.

Ten, twenty minutes, half an hour passed, still they did not come to
her, though the sound of their merry laughter fell upon her ears from
time to time. Katy tried to arouse her mistress' interest, but it was
useless--the girl never moved from her position, sitting pale and white
in the great arm-chair, with her sightless eyes turned toward the door.

Suddenly she turned to Katy with a great sob.

"They have forgotten me," she said.

Katy had come to this conclusion long before.

"I will tell them you are waiting," she replied, and as she spoke she
hurried from the room to the drawing-room. On the threshold she came
face to face with Mr. Kendal, and at a glance she could not help but
notice the happy, flushed look on his face.

"Miss Dorothy sent me in search of you, sir," she said, with a low
courtesy. The smile on his lips died away in an instant, giving place to
a dark frown of impatience.

"What does she want?" he asked, sharply.

"She says she is so lonesome, sir, and sent me to tell you so."

"Is there a minute of my life that she is not sending for me--expecting
me to be at her beck and call?" he said. "I am going out into the
conservatory to get some flowers for Miss Vincent. I guess it won't hurt
Dorothy to wait a little while, will it?"

"Is that what I shall tell her?" asked the girl, quietly.

"Tell her whatever you like," he said to the girl, hurrying on and
leaving her standing there with a very white, sorrowful face.

Slowly she walked back to the breakfast-room, her heart burning with
indignation. Dorothy met her eagerly.

"Are they coming?" she asked.

"Very soon now, miss," replied Katy.

"What delayed them?"

"I--I think they were getting a cup of tea for the strange young lady,
miss. You know she came quite a long way, and she must be very tired."

"Why, that is very true," said Dorothy. "I wonder that I never thought
of that before. It seemed as though I was not missed," and a sigh
trembled over the girl's pale lips as she spoke.

A few moments later Kendal's step was heard in the corridor.

Dorothy sprang eagerly to meet him, and threw her arms impulsively
around his neck.

Was it only her fancy, or did he draw back from the usual caress as
though he did not care to receive it?

Oh! surely not. Since this horrible blindness had come upon her, her
imagination was running riot against her judgment. The one great fear of
her life was that he might cease to love her, now that this great
affliction had come upon her, and she noted every word, every action,
and every touch of his dear hand, and weighed it over in her mind, for
hours at a time, when she found herself alone.

God pity her if that love should ever fail her!

"Shall Miss Vincent see me soon, Harry?" she asked, nestling her head
against his shoulder, her little hands seeking his.

"Very soon now," he responded. Was it her fancy, or did even his voice
seem changed?

"Do you like her?" asked Dorothy, wistfully.

"Like her?" he cried. "Why, she is charming!"

"Is she fair of face?" asked Dorothy, slowly.

"The most beautiful girl I have ever seen!" he cried, enthusiastically,
all forgetful of the girl by his side, to whom his troth was plighted.

The words struck Dorothy's heart with a cold chill, as a blast of icy
winter wind strikes death to the heart of a tender hot-house flower when
its chill breath sweeps across it.

"They say you went down to the train to meet her," said Dorothy.

"Yes; Mrs. Kemp wanted me to," he responded; "and I shall never forget
that meeting with her niece while life lasts, it was so ludicrous. I
arrived at the depot just as the train had stopped, and the passengers
were already pouring from the car. In my haste to reach the throng I
slipped upon a banana peel, and the next instant I was plunging headlong
forward, bumping straight into an old lady carrying numerous bundles and
boxes, who had just alighted from the train.

"There was a crash and a yell, and a roar of laughter from the
by-standers; and no wonder, for I had crashed directly into a huge jar
of jam which she held in her hand, and in less time than it takes to
tell it I was completely besmeared with it from head to foot. For once
in my life I got enough jam in my mouth, and as I scrambled to my feet I
beheld a young lady standing before me screaming with laughter.

"At a glance I knew it could be none other than Miss Vincent. What I
said as I hastily stepped up to her is but a confused memory to me. I
managed to articulate that I had been sent from Gray Gables with a
carriage for her. The more I said the more she screamed with laughter,
in which I could not help joining to have saved my life.

"'What! ride through the town with a jammed-up man like that!' she
ejaculated. 'Why, that would be too sweet for anything--so sweet that
all the bees in the clover fields we passed would come flying after us
to enjoy the sport.'

"The laugh that followed fairly made the rafters of the old depot ring;
and at this juncture a friend in need came to my assistance--one of my
old chums--and in a trice had stripped off my coat and hat, and replaced
them by a new overcoat and Derby hat which he had just purchased. And
when the luckless jam was washed from my face 'Richard was himself
again.'

"'Now you look something like a respectable human being,' she declared,
as I helped her into the carriage.

"And all during the drive home we had the greatest kind of a laugh over
my ludicrous mishap. It was forming each other's acquaintance under
difficulties, as she phrased it. I can truthfully say that I never was
so much embarrassed before a young girl in all my life. But do you know,
Dorothy," he went on, "that that laughable incident which happened made
us better acquainted with each other during that half hour's ride home
than if we had met under ordinary circumstances and known each other for
long months?"

Dorothy laughed heartily at the highly amusing scene which he pictured
so graphically, and said to herself that now she could understand why
Harry and this strange young girl were laughing so gayly together as
they came up the graveled walk.

"You will be sure to like her," cried Harry, enthusiastically. "I will
go and fetch her to you now."

But just as he was about to put his intention into execution, they heard
the voice of Mrs. Kemp and her niece outside, and they entered an
instant later.

"Dorothy," said Mrs. Kemp, "my niece, Iris, is here. Iris, this is
Dorothy. I am sure you two girls will love each other dearly."

Dorothy, turned hastily toward the direction from whence the sound
proceeded, holding out her little white hands nervously, a great hectic
flush stealing up into her pale face.

"Welcome to Gray Gables, Miss Vincent--Iris," she said in her sweet,
tremulous, girlish voice. "I--I would cross the room to where you are
standing, if I could, but I can not. I can not look upon your face to
welcome you, for--I am--blind!"

There was a _frou-frou_ of skirts upon the velvet carpet, and the next
moment Iris Vincent's arms were about her.

"There could not be a sweeter welcome, Dorothy--if I may call you
so--and I am sure we shall get on famously together," murmured Miss
Vincent, and a pair of ripe red lips met Dorothy's; but the kiss was as
light as the brush of a butterfly's wings against the petals of a rose,
and there was no warmth in the clasp of the soft, ringed fingers.

Somehow, although the stranger's voice was sweet as the sound of a
silver lute, and her manner caressing, Dorothy did not feel quite at
home with her.

"If I should judge by the tone of her voice and the words she utters, my
fancy would lead me to believe that she was very beautiful," thought
Dorothy. "But then Katy said that she was plain, very plain of face,
although Harry has said that she was beautiful. No doubt he wanted to
leave a good impression on my mind regarding her."

The evening that followed was a happy one for Dorothy, because, even
without being coaxed, Harry signified his intention of remaining in the
house, instead of going out to the club, as was his custom.

It had always been a deep grievance of Dorothy's that her musical
accomplishments were so meager.

She only knew a few accompaniments that she had picked up, while Miss
Vincent played divinely.

And her voice--ah! it sounded like the chiming of silver bells. And
then, too, she knew so many beautiful songs, and they were all such
tender love songs.

She was so glad that Harry liked them, too, and her poor face would
flush scarlet, and her white lids droop over her sightless eyes, as the
sweet singer's voice rose and thrilled over some tender love words; for
she felt sure that her Harry was looking at her with all love's tender
passion in his glorious dark eyes.




CHAPTER XI.


It was quite late when the group that was gathered in the drawing-room
dispersed that evening; but when the girls found themselves alone in
their own room, which they were to share together, they sat down for a
comfortable chat ere they retired.

"Do you think you will like Gray Gables?" asked Dorothy.

"It seems pleasant enough," returned Iris, with a yawn; "but it's not
the house so much, it's the people in the neighborhood. Are there many
young folks hereabouts?"

"Quite a number."

"Are they very jolly, or are they terribly dull?"

"Well, about as jolly as Mr. Kendal," laughed Dorothy. "He's not so very
jolly, and yet he is wonderfully good company."

"Yes, he is indeed," assented Miss Vincent. "Is he rich?" she asked,
point-blank, in the very next breath.

"No," returned Dorothy; "but he may be well off some day, I hope."

"Handsome and poor! That's too bad--that's a poor combination!" sighed
Miss Vincent, her countenance falling. "But tell me about him, Dorothy,
and--and how he ever happened to take a fancy to a quiet little mouse
like yourself. I have heard that it was your guardian's wish, as he was
dying, and that the idea was quite a surprise to him--to Mr. Kendal, I
mean. Is that true?"

"Yes," assented Dorothy, thoughtlessly enough.

She would not have answered the question in that way could she have seen
the eager anxiety on the face of the girl who asked it.

"Does he make love to you very much?" whispered Iris, laying her soft
cheek close against the blind girl's. "Forgive the question, but, do you
know, I have always had a longing to know just what engaged people said
to each other and how they acted--whether they grew more affectionate,
or, after the grand climax of an engagement had been entered into,
if--if somehow they did not act a little constrained toward each other."

Dorothy laughed long and merrily at the quaint ideas of her new friend.
But, then, no doubt all girls wished to know that. She had done so
herself once.

"You do not answer me," murmured Miss Vincent. "Now, please don't be
unkind, Dorothy, when I'm just dying to know."

"Well," said Dorothy, waxing very confidential, after the fashion of
girls, "I'll tell you _my_ experience; but mind, I don't say that it is
like every other girl's. Harry has been just a trifle bashful ever since
the afternoon that he asked me to--to be his wife, and just a little
constrained; but I always account for it in this way: that he does not
want me to think him silly and spoony. He has grown, oh! ever so
dignified. Why, he hardly ever says anything more about love--he thinks
he has said all there is to say. And his caresses are the same way--just
a little bit constrained, you know."

Iris Vincent had learned all she cared to know.

"Thank you, dear, ever so much, for gratifying my curiosity," she said
aloud; but in her own heart she said:

"I knew it--I knew it! Handsome Harry Kendal does not love this girl
with whom they have forced him into a betrothal. No wonder he looks sad
and melancholy, with a prospect before him of marrying a blind wife! Ah,
me! it is too dreadful a fate to even contemplate."

She looked complacently in the mirror at her own face. Well might Harry
Kendal have remarked that it was as beautiful as a poet's dream.

Nothing could have been more exquisitely lovely than the deep, velvety,
violet eyes, almost purple in their glorious depths, and the bronze-gold
hair, such as Titian loved to paint, that fell in heavy curls to her
slender waist.

One would scarcely meet in a life-time a girl of such wondrous
loveliness. Iris was only twenty, but already she had broken hearts by
the score.

She had only to smile at a man with those ripe, red, perfect lips, and
give him one glance from those mesmeric eyes, and he was straightway her
slave. And she gloried in her power.

Thrice she had broken up betrothals, and three young girls were
heart-broken in consequence, and had lifted up their anguished voices
and cursed her for her fatal beauty. But Iris only laughed her mellow,
wicked little laugh when she heard of it, and said:

"Poor little simpletons! Before they engage themselves they ought to
have been sure that they held their lovers' hearts completely. It were
better for them to realize before than after marriage that the men they
meant to stake their all upon could prove fickle at the first
opportunity when a pretty girl crossed their paths."

And who could say that there was not some little truth in this?

The two girls whose paths were to cross so bitterly slept peacefully
side by side that night; but long after Iris' eyes had closed in
slumber, Dorothy lay awake with oh! such a heavy load on her heart.

She wished she was gay and bright, like Iris, and oh! what would she not
have given only to see--only to see once again! And she turned her face
to where she knew the moonlight lay in great yellow bars on the floor,
and sobbed as she had never sobbed since she had become blind, and fell
asleep with the tear-drops staining her pale face, a long, deep sigh
trembling over her lips.

Both girls awoke early the next morning.

"When do you have breakfast?" asked Iris, with a yawn.

"At eight o'clock," said Dorothy; "so we need not be in a hurry about
getting up. It can not be more than six now."

"Oh, dear! then I shall have to get up at once," cried Iris; "for it
takes me fully that long to dress."

"Two hours!" cried Dorothy, amazed, adding: "Why, just put on a wrapper.
Nobody here ever thinks of making a toilet to appear at the
breakfast-table. There is no one but Mrs. Kemp, Harry, you and I."

She could not catch Iris' unintelligible reply, but she noticed that the
girl was not to be persuaded.

She commenced dressing at once.

Soon Dorothy detected a strange odor of burning paper in the room.

"What is that?" she cried, in alarm. "Oh, Miss Vincent, the house must
be on fire!"

Iris laughed long and loud.

"You delightful, innocent little goose!" she cried. "I am only curling
my bangs with an iron heated over the gas, and I'm trying the tongs on
paper to see that they are not too hot. I put my curls up in paper last
night, but the horrid old things wouldn't curl because of the damp
atmosphere, and--" She did not finish the sentence for Dorothy supplied
it in her own mind--"her new friend was desirous of looking her best."

Harry was pacing impatiently up and down the breakfast-room when they
entered.

"Good-morning, Miss Vincent; good-morning, Dorothy!" he exclaimed,
eagerly; and Dorothy's heart gave a quick start, noting that he called
her name last.

And another thing struck Dorothy quite forcibly. To her great surprise,
she noticed that Iris spoke in quite a different tone from what she did
when they were alone together in their own room.

There her accents were drawling, but now they were so wonderfully sweet
and musical that Dorothy was struck with wonder. She never knew that a
person could speak in two different tones of voice like this.

At the breakfast-table the conversation was bright and merry, though
outside the rain had commenced to patter against the window-pane.

Dorothy felt strangely diffident, for only a small portion of the
conversation was directed now and then to her, and Harry and Miss
Vincent kept up such a lively chatter that there was scarcely an
opportunity to get in a word edgewise.

The conversation turned upon horseback riding, and it brought a strange
pang to Dorothy's heart, for that had been the most pleasurable
accomplishment she had learned during the first few weeks she had been
at Gray Gables, and she loved it passionately.

In the very hour when they told her that she would for evermore be
blind--stone-blind--the cry that had sprung to her lips was, "And can I
never again ride Black Beauty?" and she bowed her head in a storm of
wild and tempestuous grief.

For many a day after Harry would not even have the name of Black Beauty
mentioned in her hearing. And now how strange that he should bring up
the subject in her presence!

"I am sorry it is raining, Miss Vincent," he said, "for I had promised
myself such a pleasure for this morning. I had intended asking you to
join me in a canter over the country. This is just the season of the
year to enjoy the bracing air. We have a little horse in the stable that
would delight you, if you are a judge of equine flesh. Its very name
indicates what it is--Black Beauty. You ride, of course?"--this
interrogatively.

"Oh, yes!" declared Iris; "and I always thought it would be the height
of my ambition if I could own a horse."

"That would be a very slight ambition to gratify," returned Harry
Kendal. "You may have--"

He was about to add, "Black Beauty," but at that instant his eyes fell
upon Dorothy. She was leaning forward, her sightless eyes turned in his
direction, with a world of anguish in them that would have melted a
heart of stone.

Mrs. Kemp saw the storm approaching, and said, hastily:

"I have always been thinking of buying a pony for my niece, and if she
is a very good girl, she may get one for Christmas."

Harry looked his thanks to Mrs. Kemp for coming to his rescue so timely.

Dorothy lingered after the others had left the breakfast-room, and
called to Harry to wait a minute, as she wished to speak with him.

He had a guilty conscience; he knew what was coming. She meant to ask
him if he intended offering Black Beauty to Miss Vincent, and, of
course, he made up his mind to deny it.




CHAPTER XII.


The long weeks that had passed since the never-to-be-forgotten steamboat
incident on Labor Day passed like a nightmare to poor Jack Garner.

Slowly but surely the knowledge had come to him that Dorothy, his little
sweetheart, had faded like a dream from his life; and as this became a
settled fact in his mind, his whole nature seemed to change.

He grew reckless, morbid, and gay by turns, until his old mother grew
terrified, fearing for his reason. His whole heart had been in his work
before and his one aim in life had been to make money.

He had saved quite a snug little sum, which he very prudently placed in
the bank.

Now, to his mother's horror, his recklessness lost him his position, and
he did not have enough ambition to try and secure another place, but
commenced to draw his little hoard from the bank, and his money was
disappearing like snow before a summer's sun.

He began coming in late at nights, as well, and the widow, who listened
for his footsteps, cried out in anguish: "Would to God that I had died
ere I had lived to see this horrible change take place in my idolized
son!"

His cousin Barbara keenly felt the change in him. It was she who
comforted the poor old mother, and who pleaded with Jack to try and take
up the duties of life again, and to forget faithless Dorothy.

But he would only shake his head, and answer that he would never cease
to love Dorothy and search for her while life lasted. But troubles never
seem to come singly. One day, as Jack was pacing restlessly up and down
Broadway--the vantage-ground which he always sought at six o'clock each
evening, to scan the faces of the working-girls as they passed, with the
lingering hope in his heart that some day, sooner or later, his
vigilance would be rewarded by seeing Dorothy--a terrible accident
happened which almost cost him his life.

An old sign on one of the corner buildings, which had done service many
a year, suddenly fell, and Jack--poor Jack, was knocked senseless to the
pavement.

Surely it was the workings of Providence that Jessie Staples happened
along just at that critical moment.

With a wild, bitter cry she sprang forward, flinging herself upon the
prostrate body, shrieking out as she saw his handsome, white face with
the stains of blood upon it:

"Oh, Heaven have mercy! It is Jack--Jack Garner!"

Kindly hands raised him. No, he was not dead--only stunned, and terribly
bruised.

A cab was hastily summoned, and, accompanied by Jessie, he was taken
home.

The girl broke the sad news gently to Jack's mother and to Barbara. It
was many and many a day before Jack left his couch; the accident had
proved more dangerous than had been at first anticipated, for brain
fever had set in.

Every day on her way home from the book-bindery Jessie would go several
blocks out of her way to see how Jack was getting along, and Barbara and
his mother soon discovered that it was something more than mere
friendship that actuated the girl's visits. Although against their
expostulations, every cent that she could scrape together, over and
above the cost of the bare necessities of her living, she would expend
for fruit to bring to Jack.

"I feel such a great pity for him," she would say; "for he has never,
never been the same since Dorothy disappeared so suddenly." And they
would look at the girl with wistful eyes, realizing that in her case,
surely, pity was akin to love.

They guessed Jessie's secret long before she knew it herself, and they
felt sorry for her; for they knew her hopes were useless--that Jack
could never return the girl's love.

Jack's mother and Barbara talked the matter over carefully, and
concluded that it was best for the girl's peace of mind to break up this
infatuation, if they could, at once.

At this epoch an event happened which turned the tide of affairs into a
strange channel.

By the death of a relative Jack suddenly found himself possessed of a
fortune.

He heard the startling news with a white, calm, unmoved face, while his
mother and Barbara almost went wild with joy over it.

"It matters little to me now," he said. "Wealth has no charms for me."
And they well knew why.

The intelligence came like a thunderbolt to Jessie Staples.

It was Mrs. Garner who told about it while the family were gathered
about the tea-table.

The girl's face grew white as death, and she looked over at Jack with
startled eyes.

Before she could ask the question that sprang to her lips, Mrs. Garner
added:

"Of course this will make a great change in Jack's prospects. He says
that we shall soon leave the little cottage and go out West
somewhere--Barbara and I and himself--and that we will leave New York
City far behind us, as there is no tie that binds him here now."

Jessie tried to speak, but the words refused to come to her icy lips.
She made an effort to raise her eyes to Jack's face, with a careless
smile; but it was a failure--a dire failure.

The table seemed to suddenly rise and dance before her.

She rose hastily, with a wild prayer that she might get quickly out of
the room, for she felt her throat choking up with great sobs, and
realized that in an instant more she would have burst into tears.

Poor Jessie Staples took one step forward, then fell unconscious at
Jack's feet.

"Why, what in the world can be the matter with Jessie?" he cried,
raising her in his strong arms. "Is she ill? Let us send for a
physician--quick!"

"Stay!" said his mother, as he deposited Jessie on the sofa and turned
quickly to put this last thought into execution. "Jessie's trouble is
one which no physician can alleviate. It is an affair of the heart."

Jack looked at his mother in amazement.

"An affair of the heart?" he repeated. "Surely not, mother. Why, I have
known Jessie ever since I can remember, and I never knew her to have a
beau."

"Perhaps she has given her heart to some one who does not return her
love--who may not even know of it," suggested Mrs. Garner, quietly.

"Impossible," declared Jack. "I have known her for years, I say, and if
there was an affair of the heart between Jessie and any of the young men
at the bindery, I should have known something of it."

Mrs. Garner came nearer and laid her hand on her son's arm.

"Are you _sure_, Jack?" she asked, in a low voice.

He gave a great start.

"I know of one whom she loves, and who, she knows, never thinks of her.
When his life hung in jeopardy her secret was revealed to me."

"Surely you _do not_--you _can not_ mean, mother--that she--that I--"

"Yes, that is what I mean," returned Mrs. Garner, quietly. "Jessie
Staples loves _you_, my boy; but do not be hard on the poor girl.
Remember, love goes where it is sent. She never intended that you should
know it. She did not breathe a word about it to any one. It was by the
merest chance that we made the discovery, and she does not dream that we
know it."

Jack sank down in the nearest chair, quite overcome with dismay.

His mother came and bent over him, smoothing the fair hair back from his
damp brow with a trembling hand, but uttering no word.

At last he broke the deep silence:

"What am I to say--what am I to do, mother, if--if--your surmises be
actually true?"

"They are not surmises, my boy," returned his mother; "they are truths."

"You know that I like Jessie," he went on, huskily; "but as for any
other sentiment--why, it would be impossible. My life will always be
tinged with the bitter sorrow of that other love-dream which was so
cruelly shattered. I--I wish to Heaven you had not told me your
suspicions about Jessie, mother."

"Her secret fell from my lips in an unguarded moment," she answered,
slowly, "and I am sorry you know all. Yet it must be a source of comfort
to you to know that although Dorothy Glenn was false to you, there is
_one_ heart which beats only for you."

Jack started to his feet, a dull pallor creeping into his face as he
drew back from his mother's touch.

"Dorothy is _not false_ to me!" he cried. "If an angel from heaven
should tell me so I would not believe it. She is my betrothed bride. She
wears my betrothal-ring upon her little hand. No matter where she is,
she is true to me--true as God's promise. Shame has caused her to hide
herself from me, because she was so foolish as to go with another on an
excursion on Labor Day. But I have forgiven all that long ago. Oh,
Heaven! if I could but let her know it!"

Mrs. Garner shook her head.

"A young girl who can leave you for months without a word does not care
for you, my boy," she answered, sadly. "Surely there is great truth in
the words that 'Love is blind,' if you can not be made to see this."

Still the noble lover shook his head. There was no power on earth strong
enough to shake his faith in Dorothy's love.

Mrs. Garner had said all that she could say for Jessie, and she bowed
her head, and great tears rolled down her cheeks. She felt great pity
for Jessie. Why could not her son love her? She had heard the story of
jilted lovers turning to some sympathizing heart for solace, and in time
learning to love their consoler, and she wondered if this might not
mercifully happen to her darling, idolized boy.

She watched him as he paced excitedly up and down the room. Suddenly he
turned to her, and during all the long after years of sorrow and pain
she never forgot the expression of his face.

"Mother!" he cried, hoarsely, "if my Dorothy ever proved false to me, I
should be tempted to--to--kill her--and--then--kill--myself!"




CHAPTER XIII.


The _contretemps_ which had been so cleverly averted--of giving the
pony, Black Beauty, to Miss Vincent, and Dorothy's keen
resentment--should have proved a lesson to Harry Kendal and warned him
not to play with edged tools.

He was a little careful of what he said to Iris for the next few days,
when Dorothy was present; but gradually this restraint began to wear
off, and he grew to be almost reckless in the way he laughed and carried
on with the girl, even though his _fiancée_ was in the room. This
attention was certainly not discouraged by Iris Vincent.

He smiled to see her go in raptures over everything in and about Gray
Gables, and she, with her glorious dark eyes, always smiled back at him.
Their chats grew longer and more frequent; they were fast becoming
excellent friends.

They had sent for Iris Vincent to become Dorothy's companion, but it was
whispered among the old servants of the household that she was proving
herself to be more frequently the companion of Mr. Kendal, and they
talked about it in alarm, wondering how it would all end. They felt
indignant, too, that such a bold flirtation--for it had certainly come
to that--should be carried on right in the face of poor, blind Dorothy.

"Some one ought to give her a hint of what is going on," cried indignant
little Katy, the maid. But there was no one who could find it in his or
her heart to warn her of what was transpiring. The blow would be more
than she could bear, for she loved Harry Kendal better than life itself.

They wondered if little Dorothy guessed that he led Iris to the table,
while she, blind as she was, groped her way as best she could to her own
seat. They hated to see him lavish attentions on the beauty, and it
drove them almost out of their self-possession to see their eyes meet in
that provoking, mutual smile.

Dorothy was beginning to feel Harry's neglect, but no thought of the
true cause of it ever dawned upon her.

Ah! could she have seen how they paced the grounds together arm in arm,
and how near they sat together on the step of the front porch, and in
what a lover-like manner he bent his dark head over her little, white
hands, the sight would have killed Dorothy.

"I wonder if they think we are fools!" whispered the servants,
indignantly, one to the other; and their blood boiled with rage at this
open love-making.

But even the attention of handsome Harry Kendal seemed to pall upon the
beauty. Gray Gables was dull; she wanted more life, more gayety.

"Why not give a grand ball," she suggested, "and invite the whole
country-side?"

She longed for more hearts to conquer. Iris was one of those vain,
shallow girls who must and will have a sentimental flirtation with some
young man always on hand. She, like those of her mischievous class,
really meant no harm while doing a great deal of wrong. Such a girl,
from mere vanity and pastime, will try to outshine a companion and even
win the heart of a betrothed lover from his sweetheart, caring little
for the broken vows and the ruined lives strewn along her path.

Harry Kendal seized eagerly upon the idea, because it would please Iris.
Mrs. Kemp knew no other than her beautiful, willful niece's pleasure. No
one consulted Dorothy. She seemed to have been left entirely out of the
calculation.

For the first time since Iris Vincent had come to Gray Gables, Dorothy
regretted her presence there.

What would be the ball to her? Surely they ought to know that she could
take no part in it, for she was blind.

When she found herself alone with Iris she spoke of this, but the girl
turned it off with a little laugh.

"Even so," she declared, "Gray Gables ought not to be shut up and
barricaded. You need to have a little life to keep your spirits up. You
are just dying for some kind of liveliness. And poor Harry! every one
is feeling sorry for him. They say he is growing so dull."

"Do they say that?" cried Dorothy, the color deepening in her cheeks.

"Yes--and more," assented Iris. "And for that reason I would advise you
to study appearances, so that every one may know that he is happy--at
least, let them think he is."

The words struck Dorothy with a cold chill, as her companion had
intended that they should.

"Then let the ball be given, by all means," returned Dorothy, with a
little quiver in her voice.

And so the matter was arranged.

For the next week Iris and Harry were busy with the invitations. They
sat side by side, comparing them as they made them out, and never once
seemed to note Dorothy's presence.

If any one on the list did not quite suit their fancy, they were quickly
rejected; but Dorothy noticed that he never once turned to her, his
betrothed bride, and asked her opinion.

There was one young girl to whom Dorothy had been quite attached, who
lived very near Gray Gables, and who had run over to see her almost
every day, up to the time Iris had come. Since then her visits had been
less and less frequent; within the last fortnight they had ceased
altogether.

Dorothy was very anxious, of course, that this young girl should be
invited; but Iris put in a demurrer at once.

"Of all the girls I ever met, I dislike her the most," declared Iris.

She was very careful not to tell the real reason why.

This same young girl had been the first to notice her flirtation with
Harry Kendal. They had had quite a stormy little scene over it, for the
girl had attempted to rebuke Iris, in her modest way, and she had
retorted by flashing out that it was none of her business, anyway,
saying that she would flirt with Harry Kendal just as much as she
pleased, and that it was a shame for such a handsome young fellow to
marry a girl stone blind.

They had parted in anger. No wonder, we repeat, that Iris objected to
inviting Dorothy's friend to the grand ball.

"Oh! of course we must invite her," said Dorothy, when her friend's name
was brought under discussion. "Mustn't we, Harry?"

He turned away and walked moodily to the window without replying. If
Iris did not like her, that settled the matter. He dared not put in one
word in the girl's favor, though Dorothy was clamoring for his opinion.

"You must settle the matter, Harry," said Dorothy.

"Let me suggest a better way," he replied, gallantly, as he took his
seat at the table again. "You two girls arrange it between yourselves."

"But we do not think we will come to an agreement," pouted Iris. "You
will have to choose for Dorothy and me."

He gave her a startled, sweeping look, and she knew by that that he
would not dare go against her for Dorothy.

"I must decline," he said again, for he felt nervous with those
sightless eyes turned eagerly in his direction.

"You must say 'Yes' or 'No,'" said Dorothy, never dreaming that his
answer would be in the negative, for on the week that she had first come
to Gray Gables he had said: "I must introduce you at once to Alice Lee,
who lives across the way. She is a lovely, quiet girl, and I know you
will like her." And Dorothy had liked gentle Alice Lee.

She thought of this now as the question of inviting her to the ball had
come up, and never for a moment had she doubted the result of his
decision.

"You must answer 'Yes' or 'No,'" pouted Iris, impatiently. "Come, we are
wasting time."

Iris leaned over close to his chair--so near that the dark rings of her
hair brushed his cheek, thrilling him to the soul.

"You must choose," she whispered; and he knew that it was a challenge as
to which he should please--herself or Dorothy.

Closer, closer still she leaned, until his very pulses grew mad with the
nearness of her presence, and with child-like confidence her soft little
hand crept into his, and nestled there securely.

There was no one to see, though Dorothy--God help her!--sat so near her.
The touch of that little hand was magical. In the mad impulse of the
moment he raised it to his lips and kissed it, and Iris knew that she
had won the battle even before he spoke.

"Alice Lee had better not be invited to the ball," he said, huskily.
"That is my decision."

Dorothy sank back in her chair as though a sudden blow had been struck
her. She never once dreamed that her betrothed lover would decide
against her.

It fairly took her breath away, and a sudden new sensation shot through
her heart that had never found lodgment there before.

She drew back and said no more, a deathly pallor overspreading her face.
She did not interfere again, and she suffered them to arrange the
invitations after that to please themselves.

She rose quietly at length and made her way to the window, great tears
rising to her sightless eyes.

They did not even notice her absence, but chatted and laughed quite the
same.

After they had finished Harry proposed that they should take the
invitations to be mailed. This Iris gayly assented to, and they left the
room without once making any excuse to Dorothy for leaving her there
alone.

The fact was that they were not even aware that she had seated herself
in the bay window behind the great, heavy _portières_.

For the first time Dorothy wished that Iris had not come. She was
already beginning to feel the weight of the iron hand that was soon to
crush her--jealousy.

She awaited their coming with the greatest impatience, but it was long
hours ere they returned.




CHAPTER XIV.


Harry Kendal did not intend being untrue to Dorothy when he let himself
drift into that platonic friendship with Iris, the beauty, which had
developed into such a dangerous flirtation.

Gradually the girl's fascinations seemed to overpower him, and before
he quite realized it, Iris had become part and parcel of his life.

On the way to the postoffice a little event had happened which had
almost changed the current of his life.

They had taken the short cut from Gray Gables to the postoffice, which
lay over the hills, and were walking along arm in arm when suddenly
Iris' foot slipped upon a stone, and she stumbled headlong in the path
with a little, terrified cry.

In an instant Harry had raised her, and to his utter consternation she
clung to him half fainting.

"Oh, Mr. Kendal--Harry--I--I have sprained my ankle! I can not walk!"
she said; and a low cry of pain broke from her lips.

He gathered her close in his arms, and did everything in his power to
soothe her.

"I am so sorry--so sorry that I let you undertake this trip with me. Let
me carry you back to the house."

"My--my ankle is not sprained," she faltered; "it was only wrenched a
little as it turned over against that stone. We will sit down on this
log a few moments, and after a little rest I will be all right again."

To this Kendal willingly assented, but he did not remove his arm from
the slender waist.

"I am so thankful that it is no worse, Iris," he breathed, huskily.

"Would you have cared so very much if I had sprained my ankle?" she
faltered, looking up into his face with those great, dark, mesmeric eyes
that no one had ever yet been able to resist.

He looked away from her quickly and did not reply.

"Would you?" persisted Iris, in her low, musical voice.

Throwing prudence to the winds, he turned to her suddenly and clasped
her still closer in his arms.

"Does not your own heart teach you that, Iris?" he returned, hoarsely.

"Oh! if I could only believe what my heart would fain tell me," she
murmured, "I--I would be so happy!"

"If it told you that I--I love you," he cried, "then it would--"

The rest of the sentence died away on his lips for there, directly in
the path before him, stood Mrs. Kemp. She might have been blind to all
her beautiful niece's short-comings, but she was not a woman to so mix
right and wrong as to permit Iris to listen to a word of love from one
she knew belonged, in the sight of God, to another.

Iris was equal to the occasion.

"Oh, aunt!" she cried, "I am so glad that you happened along just now.
I--I hurt my foot, and it was so painful that I had to sit down and
rest; and Mr. Kendal was kind enough to remain here with me a few
moments, although--although--besides the invitations we had to mail, he
had other important letters to go out to-day."

"Are you quite sure your ankle is not sprained, my dear?" cried Mrs.
Kemp, in alarm. "The wisest thing to do will be to come home with me at
once, and we will send for a doctor to examine it."

Iris sprang to her feet with a wicked little laugh.

"See, it is better now--almost as good as new," she declared, "thanks
to Mr. Kendal for insisting upon my sitting down here to rest."

Had it been any one else but Iris, Kendal would have said the affair had
been a clever little ruse to give him the opportunity to make love to
her.

But in this instance it never occurred to him but that Iris was telling
the plain facts--that her ankle had been wrenched, and with a few
moments' rest it was as good as ever again.

Mrs. Kemp looked greatly relieved.

"We may as well be going," said Iris, hoping that her aunt would pass on
and leave them to enjoy the _téte-à-téte_ which she had interrupted at
such an inopportune time.

"I will go with you both as far as the postoffice," said Mrs. Kemp; and
the good soul did not notice the expression of annoyance on both faces,
and, very much against the will of each, she accompanied them there and
back.

Iris was bitterly annoyed, but she was diplomatic enough to conceal it;
and she could see, too, by Harry's face that he was disappointed in
being so ruthlessly cheated out of a _téte-à-téte_ with her.

They loitered long by the way, trusting that Mrs. Kemp would become
impatient with their delay, and excuse herself, to get back to the house
in time to superintend dinner, which was quite a feature at Gray Gables.

"You do not seem to be in any hurry to-day," laughed Iris, eyeing her
aunt sideways.

"No; for it is not often that I indulge myself in going out for a
stroll," answered Mrs. Kemp, "and I need to make the most of it. If I am
not back at the usual time Dorothy will superintend affairs--bless her
dear little heart! Why, she's a regular little jewel about the house,
even with her affliction."

This praise of Dorothy was anything but pleasant to Iris, especially
when Kendal was present, and she turned the conversation at once into
another channel.

As they neared the house they met one of the servants hurrying down the
road.

"You are the very person I am looking for, ma'am," he cried,
breathlessly. "There is something the matter with the range, and they
are all in a stew over it, not knowing what to do until you come."

"Good gracious! if I step out of the house for a moment something is
sure to happen," cried the good old lady, despairingly. "Say that I will
be there directly, John;" and much to Iris' relief, she hurriedly left
them.

"Why need we hasten?" said Kendal, in a low voice. "This is the
pleasantest part of the afternoon."

"I am in no hurry," assented the girl.

"We will linger here in this delightful spot, and I will gather you some
autumn leaves," cried Harry. "Would you like that?"

"Yes," she assented; "if you will help me to weave them into garlands."

"Nothing would give me more pleasure," he declared; "that is, if you are
not afraid of the old tradition becoming true."

She looked up into his face, blushing as crimson as the heart of a
deep-red rose.

"I have never heard it," she said. "Do tell me what it is."

"Bye and bye, with your permission, while we are weaving the garlands,"
Harry answered, with a rich, mellow laugh. "If I should tell you
beforehand, you might refuse to accept my services altogether."

"Is it so bad as that?" laughed Iris.

"You had better use the word _good_ instead of bad. The idea would be
more pleasant."

"Not knowing what you are talking about, and not possessing the key to
solve the riddle of your incomprehensible words, I had better make no
further reply, lest I get into deep water," she pouted. "But really you
have aroused my curiosity."

"Well, when we have the first wreath made, then, and not until then,
will I tell you what they say of the youth and maiden who weave autumn
leaves for each other, and together. Come and sit on this mossy ledge. I
will spread my overcoat upon it. It shall be your throne."

"I will be a queen, but where will be my king?" laughed Iris, gayly.

"Your king will come a-wooing all in good time," he answered, his dark
eyes seeking hers with a meaning glance, which the beauty and coquette
understood but too well.

In less time than it takes to tell it, Kendal had gathered about her
heaps of the beautiful, shining leaves.

"Oh, aren't they lovely!" cried Iris, delightedly. "I fairly adore
autumn leaves."

"I did not know that you had such an eye for the beautiful in nature,"
he retorted, rather pleased.

"I adore everything that is handsome," she said, in a low voice,
returning his look of a few moments ago with interest.

An hour flew by on golden wings, and the wreaths grew beneath their
touch.

"Now you look indeed a queen!" cried Harry, raising one gracefully, and
laying it on the girl's dark curls. "You remind me just now of pictures
I have seen of Undine and the woodland nymphs."

"Ah! but Undine had no heart," declared Iris.

"In some respects you are like Undine," he retorted. "She never knew she
had a heart till she was conscious of its loss. Ah, but you do look
bewitching, Miss Vincent--Iris, with that wreath of autumn foliage on
your head, like a crown of dying sunset. When I see the leaves turn in
the autumn, lines that I read somewhere always recur to me:

    "'As bathed in blood the trailing vines appear,
      While 'round them, soft and low, the wild wind grieves;
    The heart of autumn must have broken here,
      And poured her treasure out upon the leaves.'"

"What pretty poetry!" sighed Iris. "Why, it seems to me that you have
some beautiful sentiment, set to rhyme, to express almost every thought!
You must love poetry. Does--does Dorothy care for it?"

"No," he returned, in a low voice, and looked away from her with a moody
brow.

"That is strange," mused Iris. "I should think that you would inspire
her with a love for it."

"If it is not in one's soul, how can you expect to find it there," he
retorted, rather bitterly. "No, Dorothy has no love for poetry, flowers,
or birds, nor, in fact, anything that other young girls care for. I
imagine she would quite as soon prefer a garden filled with hollyhocks
and morning-glories to the daintiest flowers that ever bloomed. Alas,
there are few tastes in common between us!"




CHAPTER XV.


"What a pity!" sighed Iris, and her hand crept sympathizingly into his.
The gloomy look deepened on his face.

"Do you believe that there is a true mate for each heart, Iris?" he
asked, suddenly.

"I might better ask _you_ that question," she answered, evasively. "You
are engaged--_you_ seem to have found a heart that is the mate for your
own."

"Do you think there is such a thing as making a mistake, even in so
grave a matter?" he asked, huskily, "and that those who discover their
error should keep on straying further and further in the wrong path? Do
you not believe that there should be the most ardent love between those
who wed--and that where there is a lack of it the two should separate,
and each go his or her own way?"

Iris drooped her head; but ere she could reply--utter the words that
sprang to her lips--an exclamation of the deepest annoyance, mingled
with a fierce imprecation, was ground out from between Kendal's teeth.

There, directly in the path before them, stood Alice Lee.

Had she been standing there long? If so, she must have heard every word
that had been uttered.

Alice Lee had heard, and every word had cut to her heart like the sharp
point of a sword.

She had feared this, but had tried to reason the matter out in her own
mind; but although circumstances did look tellingly against the beauty
who had come to Gray Gables to be Dorothy Glenn's companion, yet she had
tried to make herself believe that her suspicions were groundless.

"Have you been eavesdropping?" cried Iris, springing to her feet, her
black eyes flashing luridly.

A thousand thoughts flashed through Alice Lee's mind in an instant.

No; she was too proud to let them realize that she had overheard the
perfidy of Dorothy's treacherous lover.

No; better plead ignorance, until she had time to think over the matter,
for Dorothy's sake, if not for her own.

"I have but just turned the bend in the road," she replied, with sweet
girlish dignity. "Your question, Miss Vincent, surprises me," she said.
"I have no need to answer it, I think."

"But you always do happen around just when people least expect you,
Alice Lee."

"I hope my old friends will always find my presence welcome," returned
Alice, quietly.

"To be sure, you are welcome," interposed Kendal. "Miss Vincent and I
were only conversing upon the salient points of a new novel we finished
reading yesterday. If you would care to hear it, I shall be pleased to
go over the plot with you, and hear your opinion regarding it."

"I fear it would not benefit you, for I am not much of a novel reader,
and understand very little of plots and plotting."

Was this a quiet drive at them? both thought as they looked up
instantly.

But the soft, gray eyes of Alice Lee looked innocently enough from one
to the other.

She seemed in no hurry to pass on, and Iris felt that for the second
time that afternoon her _téte-à-téte_ with handsome Harry Kendal was to
be broken up, and from this moment henceforth she owed Alice Lee more of
a grudge than ever, and she felt sure that the girl knew it.

Upon one point Alice was determined--that no matter how coldly Iris
Vincent might treat her, she should not leave Dorothy's lover alone with
her and in her power--she would stand by her poor little blind friend,
who needed her aid in this terrible hour more than she would ever know,
God help her!

Although long silences fell between the trio, still Alice lingered,
chatting so innocently that they could not find it in their hearts to be
very angry with her; and they could not bring themselves to believe that
she had a purpose in her guileless actions.

There was no alternative but to walk homeward with her; but they did not
ask her in when they reached the gates of Gray Gables, and so Alice had
no excuse to enter to see Dorothy and warn her, but was obliged to pass
on.

Mrs. Kemp and two or three of the servants were on the porch, so that
there was no opportunity to exchange but a few whispered words. They
were just about to part when Iris happened to think that Kendal had not
told her what was said of those who gather and weave autumn leaves
together, as he had promised.

She paused suddenly and looked up archly into his face.

"What about the autumn-leaf mystery?" she exclaimed. "You know you were
to tell me all about it?"

"Do you promise not to be angry with me, Iris?" he answered, in his
deep, musical voice. "You know I can not help old adages--I do not make
them."

"Why should I be angry?" she exclaimed, having a rather faint idea of
what was coming.

"Well, then," said Kendal, fixing his dark eyes full upon her, "it is
said that the youth and maiden who twine the ruby and golden leaves
together are intended for each other. There, are you so very angry?"

Iris dropped his arm with a little cry, and fled precipitately into the
house.

He walked on slowly through the great hall and into the library. He knew
Dorothy would be waiting for him, and he did not feel equal to the
ordeal of meeting her just then.

He wanted a moment to think. He felt that he was standing on the brink
of a fearful abyss, and that one more step must prove fatal to him.

Which way should he turn? He was standing face to face with the terrible
truth now, that he loved Iris Vincent madly--loved her better than his
own life--he, the betrothed of another.

But with that knowledge came another. Iris could be nothing to him, for
they were both poor.

He was sensible enough to sit down and look the future in the face. He
realized that if he should marry Iris on the spur of the moment, that
would be only the beginning of the end.

It would be all gay and bright with them for a few brief weeks, or
perhaps for a few months; then their sky would change, for Iris was not
a girl to endure poverty for love's sake. She wanted the luxuries of
life--these he could not give her; and there would be reproaches from
the lips that now had only smiles for him.

She would want diamonds and silks, and all the other feminine
extravagances so dear to the hearts of other women, and he was only a
struggling doctor, who would have to fight a hand-to-hand battle with
grim poverty. And sitting there in the arm-chair, before the glowing
grate, where he had flung himself, he pictured a life of poverty that
would spread out before him if he defied the world for love's sake.

A dingy office; a worn coat, and trousers shiny at the knees; a necktie
with a ragged edge; an unkempt beard, a last season's hat, and hunger
gnawing at his vitals.

The picture filled him with the most abject horror.

He was stylish and fastidious to a fault. He loved Iris; but did he not
equally love his own ease? He could barely tolerate Dorothy, the poor,
tender, plain little creature who lavished a world of love upon him; but
he swallowed the bitter draught of having to endure her by always
remembering that she was heiress, in all probability, to a cool million
of money, and money had been his idol all his life long. He could not
exist without it.

He was not one of the kind who could face the world manfully and snatch
from it its treasures by the sweat of his brow. No, he could not give up
this dream of wealth that was almost as much as life to him.

In the very midst of his reverie a light step crossed the library, but
he did not hear it. It was Dorothy.

She stole up quietly and knelt on the hassock beside his chair.

"What were you thinking of, Harry?" she said.

He was equal to the occasion.

"Of what or whom should I be thinking but yourself, Dorothy?" he
replied.

"It could not have been a very pleasant thought, I fear, for you sighed
deeply," she murmured.

"That is all your fancy, Dorothy," he declared--"that my thoughts were
not pleasant. True, I may have sighed, but did you never hear of such a
thing as a sigh of contentment?"

She laughed merrily.

"I have heard of it, but thought the words rather misplaced."

"I assure you they are quite true and practicable."

"Where is Iris?" she asked, suddenly.

"I am sure I do not know," he answered, trying to speak carelessly.

"I want to have a real long talk with you, Harry," she said. "I have
heard that there should be nothing but the utmost confidence between
engaged lovers. Shall it not be so with us?"

"Of course," he answered, starting rather guiltily, for he had a faint
intuition of what was coming.

"Harry," she whispered, "I want you to tell me--is it true--what they
are all saying--that you have ceased to love me?"

"All saying!" he echoed. "Who is saying it? What old busybodies are
sticking their noses in my affairs now?" he cried, with something on his
lips that sounded very like an imprecation.

"But it isn't true, is it, Harry?" she breathed. "I should want to die
if I thought it was."

"Look here, Dorothy," he cried, "if you want to believe all these
mischief-makers tell you, you will have enough to do all through your
life. You will have to either believe me or believe them. Now, which
shall it be?"

"But answer my question, 'Yes' or 'No?'" pleaded Dorothy. "I--I am
waiting for your answer, Harry."

There was a slight rustle in the doorway, and glancing up with a start,
Kendal saw Iris Vincent standing there, looking on the tender scene with
a scornful smile, and the words he would have answered died away unsaid
on his lips.




CHAPTER XVI.


With a scornful toss of her head, Iris wheeled about. She would not
enter the room, though she was just dying to know what they were
saying--as Kendal sat in the arm-chair before the glowing coals, while
Dorothy knelt on the hassock at his feet.

But that one glance of Iris had proved fatal to Kendal's peace of mind,
and the hope swept over his soul that she would not think that he was
talking love to Dorothy.

His silence perplexed the girl kneeling at his feet.

"I try to picture what our future life will be together, Harry," she
murmured.

"Don't let us talk about it!" he exclaimed, impatiently.

"But I like to," she insisted. "It is my constant thought by night and
by day. And, oh! I shall try to make you so happy. I shall go out dining
with you every day, if you like, and I will always wear a little veil
over my face, that no one need know as they pass us by that your bride
is blind. And I shall try to be so wise, and learn to talk with you upon
the subjects you love best. You will not be ashamed of me, will you,
Harry?"

This with wistful eagerness pitiful to behold.

"I do wish, Dorothy, that you would cease your harping on the same old
subject!" he cried, worriedly. "You annoy me so!"

"Annoy you?" whispered Dorothy, half under her breath. "Why, I did not
know that we could say anything to those we love which could make them
vexed at us, because I thought we were:

    "'Two souls with but a single thought,
    Two hearts that beat as one.'

It seems, Harry, as though we had so little time to talk with each other
now. And, oh! how I miss those little chats we used to have together;
don't you?"

"You talk like a child, Dorothy," he cried. "Do you expect me to be
dancing attendance upon you all the time?"

"No; I have ceased to expect that," murmured the girl, choking back a
sob--"especially lately."

"I hope," he cried, "that you are not getting to be one of those
exacting creatures who are jealous if a man is not at their side every
moment? I could never endure that."

With a sudden impulse, Dorothy threw her arms about his neck and nestled
her snow-white cheek against his.

"Let me tell you the truth, Harry," she whispered. "I am trying not to
be jealous, as hard as ever I can; but, oh! there seems such a coldness
between us lately. My intuition--my heart tells me so. Everything has
changed since Iris came," she repeated. "I am glad you have some one to
go with you on your rambles, as I used to do--some one to walk and read
with you, as I once did. But when I think of it, and picture you two
together, and know that she takes the same place by your side that I was
wont to take, can you wonder that my heart throbs with a slow, dull
pain?"

"Women magnify everything!" cried Kendal, harshly. "I suppose you will
begrudge me a moment's comfort where another young girl is concerned,
because you can not participate in it."

"I wonder that you can find comfort, as you phrase it, with another,"
said Dorothy, with a little tremor in her voice. "I have never heard
that any other society was satisfying to an engaged lover than that of
the sweetheart whom he avers to love."

Kendal laughed a little low, tantalizing laugh which grated keenly on
the girl's ears.

"Men differ in their tastes and inclinations," he retorted laconically.
"I do not choose to be tied down and governed by one woman's whims, nor
to be dictated to."

"You should not speak of it in that way, Harry," whispered the girl in a
choking voice; "rather, you should say to yourself that you would not do
the slightest thing that might cause me one pang of annoyance. He who
truly loves finds no interest, no attraction but in the one face, the
one presence. I have known many betrothed young men, and I never yet
knew one who paid the girl he loved so little courtesy as to flirt, ever
so slightly, with another."

She could not see the flush that burned his face, for he knew that every
word she uttered was but too true. He felt guilty in her sweet, innocent
presence. Had he but loved her, he would have found no pleasure whatever
in Iris Vincent's dangerous coquetries.

He would not have encouraged her by smile, word, or deed.

A wave of pity swept over his heart for Dorothy as he looked down into
the pure, uplifted face. But it was only short-lived, for at that
instant he heard Iris' silvery laughter from an adjoining room.

"I propose that we finish this interesting subject at some future time,"
he said, carelessly. "I have some important letters to write, and if you
will excuse me for a little while, I should be very glad."

Sorrowfully Dorothy rose from the hassock and slowly quitted the room.

With lagging steps she made her way to her own room, her heart as heavy
as lead in her bosom.

She had entered the library with buoyant steps and a light heart; aye,
even a little snatch of song on her lips, for she had made up her mind
that she would wait there until Harry came and have a good talk with
him.

She had been so sure that he would take her in his arms and soothe away
her fears, laughing at them in his own way as being the most ridiculous
fancies which her sensitive little brain had conjured up.

And ah! how different had been the reality.

He had rudely repulsed her--and she his promised wife! Katy noticed how
gloomy she was, and ran quickly to her young mistress' side.

"Oh, Miss Dorothy," she cried, "you do look so pale. Let me place you in
a chair and bring you some wine."

Dorothy shook her head.

"I am not ill, Katy," she said, wearily, "only I--I have a slight
headache. If you will leave me by myself I will take a short rest if I
can, then I shall be all right."

But Katy insisted upon bringing her a cordial, if not the wine, and
surely she was forgiven for putting a few drops of a sleeping potion in
the glass ere she handed it to her mistress. She well knew that she had
not slept soundly for some time past.

Surely she was breaking down slowly from some terrible mental strain.
She realized but too well what that mental strain was.

Dorothy allowed her to lead her passively to the sofa, and to deposit
her among the cushions.

"You will ring when you want me, Miss Dorothy," she said, placing a
table with a bell on it close by her side.

"Yes," said Dorothy, wearily. "Now go and leave me, that's a good girl;"
and Katy passed into the next apartment, drawing the curtains softly
behind her. There she sat down and waited until her mistress should fall
asleep. It almost made the girl's heart bleed to hear the great sighs
that broke from Dorothy's lips.

"Poor soul! poor soul!" she cried; "how unhappy she is!"

But soon the potion began to take effect, and the sighs soon melted into
deep, irregular breathing, and then Katy knew that she slept.

An hour passed, and yet another, still she did not waken, though there
were loud sounds of mirth and revelry in the drawing-room beneath. The
maid recognized Iris' voice and that of Harry Kendal.

"The grand rascal!" muttered the girl; "how I feel like choking that
man! He doesn't care any more for that poor blind girl in there, that
he's engaged to, than the dust which sticks to his patent leather shoes.
I believe the truth is slowly beginning to dawn upon her."

At that moment she heard Dorothy's voice calling her, and she went
quickly to her side.

"Oh, how long have I slept, Katy?" she cried.

"An hour or such a matter," responded the girl. "They have all been to
dinner, but I thought sleep would be better for you."

"How long since?" cried Dorothy, springing from the sofa. "And did they
not send up for me?" asking both questions in a breath, and waiting
with feverish impatience for an answer.

"No," said the girl, bluntly.

"Did they forget me?" whispered Dorothy, in a voice so hollow that the
tone frightened the little maid.

"It looks very much like it, Miss Dorothy," she answered; "but I did not
forget you; I brought you up a whole trayful of things."

"I can not eat," sighed Dorothy, and she murmured under her breath:
"Yes, they forgot me--forgot me! Come here, my good girl," she went on,
very nervously; "there is something I want you to do for me."

Katy came close to her side. Dorothy reached out her hand and caught the
girl's arm in her trembling grasp.

"I want you to slip down quietly, Katy," she said--"mind, very
quietly--and see what they are doing down in the drawing-room. I hear
Mr. Kendal's voice and Miss Vincent's. Take notice if Mrs. Kemp is with
them, or if they are alone."

"Are you going down to-night, Miss Dorothy?" asked Katy.

"If it isn't too late," she answered, in a tremulous voice, adding: "I
want you to lay out the prettiest dress I have, and some nice ribbon for
my hair, before you go. I can be dressing while you are gone; it will
save that much time."

Katy did as she was bid, and a few moments later was creeping
noiselessly down the back stairway, which led to the drawing-room.
Drawing the heavy silken _portières_ aside, she peered cautiously in.
As she expected, Mr. Kendal and Miss Vincent were enjoying each other's
society, quite alone. But that was not the worst of it.




CHAPTER XVII.


Katy gazed long and earnestly at the picture before her.

Miss Vincent sat at the piano, magnificently dressed in a pale blue
chiffon evening dress, with great clusters of pink roses at her belt, at
her throat, and in the meshes of her jetty curls.

Beside her, turning over the music, and bending like a lover over her,
was Harry Kendal.

And as the girl watched she saw him suddenly lift to his lips the little
white hand that was straying over the keys.

"Do let me persuade you to sing for me, Iris," he was saying. "In what
have I so far offended you that you are so ungracious to me this
evening, Iris?" he murmured, reproachfully.

"I do not know that I am any different to-night from what I have always
been," pouted the beauty. "I simply do not feel like singing, that is
all."

"You have changed your mood very suddenly, Iris," he declared. "You
asked me to come into the drawing-room to hear you sing, and now you
tell me that you have changed your mind. What am I to think?"

"Whatever you please," she answered, curtly.

"Tell me one thing, Iris," he murmured, a little hoarsely, bending
nearer over the pretty, willful coquette; "were the words of the song
you intended to sing suggestive of a sudden coldness between two very
near and very dear friends?"

"I will not listen to you!" cried Iris, petulantly.

"I repeat, what have I done to offend you, my dear girl?" he cried.

"Say to yourself that it was surely not my intention nor my will. You
asked me to come to the library to listen to some poems. When I stepped
into the room I saw at a glance that you had quite forgotten the
appointment, Harry, by the picture that met my glance."

He knew in an instant to what she referred--he sitting in the arm-chair
with Dorothy by his side, her arms twined about him.

"I did not ask her in there, Iris," he said, huskily. "I found her in
there when I entered the apartment. She was evidently waiting for me.
She met me with tears and reproaches, and if there is anything that is
detestable to a man it is that line of conduct, believe me."

Iris shrugged her shoulders, but made no reply.

"Why did you not come in when you came to the door?" he asked, bending
dangerously near the fatally beautiful face so near his own.

"Because I thought that two was company--three would be a crowd," she
responded, proudly tossing back her jetty curls.

"_You_ would always be welcome to _me_, Iris," he said, huskily. "You
know that but too well by this time, don't you?" and his hand closed
tightly over the one lying lightly in her lap, and his head drooped
nearer still.

"Great Scott! they are almost kissing each other, the two vipers!"
panted Katy to herself, her blood fairly boiling in her veins at the
sight of this billing and cooing. "Oh, if I only dared put poor Miss
Dorothy on her guard!"

She could not refrain from bursting in upon them at this critical
instant, and in less time than it takes to tell it she had bounded into
the room.

"A-hem, a-hem!" she coughed, pantingly; "but if you please, miss,"
turning and addressing herself to Iris, "the housekeeper is looking for
you, and wants you to come to her."

"Certainly," said Iris, springing up from the piano stool with a face
flushed as red as a peony and a very confused look in her eyes; "I will
go at once;" and with an assumed smile on her face she glided from the
room, muttering below her breath:

"I'd like to choke that little imp of a maid! Whenever I am talking to
Harry Kendal, if I turn around I find her at my elbow."

Katy was about to follow Miss Vincent from the room, when Harry called
to her.

"Remain a moment," he said. "I wish to see you."

With a little courtesy Katy obeyed.

For a moment or two he stood quite still in the center of the room,
toying nervously with the medallion on his watch chain, and a very
perceptible frown on his dark, handsome face.

"Tell me, how long have you been standing there, girl?"

She hung her head, but did not answer; but that silence told him quite
as much as words.

"The wisest girls are those who never see or hear anything," he
declared, eyeing her sharply.

Again Katy courtesied, making no reply. She knew quite well what he
meant.

"I may as well come to the point and say that you are not to mention to
any one anything that has taken place in this house--especially in this
room to-night. Now here is something that may help you to remember the
old adage that 'silence is golden.'" And as he spoke he thrust a bill
into the girl's hand, motioning her from the drawing-room, and turning
abruptly on his heel, he sauntered slowly across the room and flung
himself down in an easy chair.

Katy hurried quickly upstairs.

"The grand rascal!" she muttered; "to pay me to help deceive Miss
Dorothy! How my fingers tingled to box his ears! I longed to stamp my
foot and cry out: 'You handsome villain--engaged to marry one young girl
and making love to another! Oh! for shame! for shame!' It's a pity that
Miss Dorothy hasn't a good big brother to give him the trouncing he so
richly deserves. The Lord knows it's an unhappy life Miss Dorothy will
lead with him, and it would be a blessing in disguise if something
should happen to prevent the marriage from taking place. As for that
sly, black minx, Iris Vincent, she must have a soul as hard as adamant
and cruel as death to cheat a poor blind girl out of her lover, and to
try all her arts to win him from her. They fairly make love to each
other in her very presence; and she, poor soul! never knows it, because
she is blind! The curse of God will surely fall on them, and they will
be punished for their treachery to poor Miss Dorothy--and she so
trustful and innocent! I wish I could think of some plan to break that
up. Goodness knows, I wouldn't do such a thing for anything in the wide
world. I have always believed that the angels take terrible vengeance
upon any girl who takes another girl's lover from her by her wicked
coquetries."

By this time she had reached Dorothy's _boudoir_. She found her young
mistress waiting for her with the greatest impatience.

"Well," said Dorothy, quite as soon as she had opened the door, "who's
down there?"

For an instant the inclination was strong within Katy's heart to tell
the whole truth of what she had seen and heard. It was not the dollar,
which seemed to burn in her pocket, that made her hold her tongue, but
the fear of giving poor blind Dorothy pain, that caused her to hold her
peace.

"Only Mr. Kendal, miss."

"I thought I heard voices," she said, wonderingly.

"Miss Vincent was there when I entered the room, but left a moment or so
after," answered Katy, truthfully.

"Were they talking together? And what were they talking about?" asked
Dorothy, eagerly.

"That I can not say, miss," returned the girl, flushing to the roots of
her hair, and inwardly thankful that her poor young mistress could not
see the distress which she knew must be mirrored on her face.

"Were they speaking so low that you could not hear them?" inquired
Dorothy, quickly.

"Oh, no, miss! quite loud; but I was not listening."

Dorothy gave a sigh of relief.

"If it were not so late, I would go down stairs," she said,
reflectively. "But then, there's the ball to-morrow night. I will be up
late, so I suppose it would be just as well for me to rest to-night, for
I want to look my best, Katy. I would give the world to look bright and
gay as any girl there. I could hear the music, the patter of dancing
feet, and the sound of merry laughter. And, oh, Katy! perhaps I might
forget for a few brief moments my terrible affliction. I know Harry will
be happy amid the brilliant throng, and that thought alone will be joy
enough for me. You shall sit with me, Katy, to hold my wraps, my
flowers, my fan, and--and you must watch sharp, and tell me, Katy, if he
dances with any pretty girl the second time."

She felt that she must make a confidant of some one, even though it was
Katy, the maid.

"You must not think for one moment I am jealous, Katy," she said, "for I
assure you I am not; only as host I should not like him to pay too much
courtesy to any one person, you know."

"Certainly not," assented Katy.

"I have asked Iris what she intends to wear, but for some reason she
does not tell me, so I want you to notice particularly what she has on,
and if she looks very pretty. But then, I think she is sure to look
nice."

"I shall look very closely, you may be sure of that," responded Katy,
"and tell you of everything that goes on--who's dancing, and who's
sitting in corners flirting, and just who Mr. Kendal dances with. Will
he take you in to supper, miss?" she asked, suddenly.

She was sorry the moment after that she had asked the question, for
Dorothy's poor, sightless eyes filled with great tears.

"You know that he would like to," she murmured, faintly, "but it would
be a ghastly sight--a poor blind girl sitting at the festal board with
the gay guests. Oh! why did God put such a terrible affliction upon me?"
throwing out her little white hands and beating the air as she sobbed
aloud in her agony. "Why can I not enter into his joys, and share them
with him as others do? Oh, Katy! will I not make but a sorry wife for my
handsome king--my idol? I wonder what he can find about me to hold me
still dear in his eyes, for I am no longer pretty, willful, madcap
Dorothy, as they once called me."




CHAPTER XVIII.


The night of the ball came at last--the night which had been looked
forward to so anxiously for weeks by many a maiden and brave swain.

By the time night had drawn her sable curtains over the sleeping earth
all the preparations had been completed at Gray Gables, and when the
lights were lighted it presented such a brilliant spectacle that those
who witnessed never forgot it.

The guests began to arrive early, in order to have a long evening of
enjoyment.

Late that afternoon an odd discussion had arisen which came near
wrecking the whole affair.

Mrs. Kemp, Iris, and Dorothy were all seated in the general sitting-room
discussing the last but by no means least important matter of who
should receive the guests.

"You are the young lady of the house," said Mrs. Kemp, turning to
Dorothy with a puzzled air, "and of course every one expects you to
perform that pleasant duty; but--"

"Oh, no, no!" cut in Dorothy. "My--my affliction makes that an
impossibility. _You_ must do it, Mrs. Kemp."

"Really, child, my presence is so much of a necessity in looking after
the servants and overlooking affairs in general that I assure you I can
not be spared even for a brief half hour; so, as near as I can see, Iris
must take your place for that occasion, with Mr. Kendal, to welcome your
guests. What do you say, my dear?" she asked, turning anxiously to the
beauty, who sat disconsolately by the window, listening to the
conversation, feeling confident as to how the debate must end--in _her
own_ favor.

"I'm sure I do not mind doing so, if the arrangement suits Mr. Kendal
and--Dorothy."

Harry entered the room at this stage, and of course the matter was
quickly laid before him.

"Why, yes, Iris can help me receive the guests," he declared. "What a
happy thought! I supposed I alone was to be delegated to that task. Yes,
let us settle it in that manner, by all means."

As usual, no one thought of consulting Dorothy's opinion. Indeed, they
scarcely missed her presence when, a few moments later, she slipped from
the room to have a good cry over the matter.

Katy was startled as she beheld her white face as she groped her way
into the room. She sat so still that Dorothy imagined herself quite
alone.

"I--I can not bear it!" she sobbed, flinging herself face downward on
the carpet with a wretched little sob. "In everything she seems to come
between me and my lover! Oh, I wish to Heaven that Iris Vincent would go
away! Harry has not been the same to me since she has been beneath this
roof. They tell me it is my imagination, but my heart tells me it is no
idle fancy. _She_ will be standing by my lover's side receiving _my_
guests! Oh, angels up in Heaven, forgive me if the pangs of jealousy,
cruel as death, spring up in my poor heart at that bitter thought!" And
another thought: "Harry is beginning to depend so much upon her society.
Now, if I ask, 'Where is Harry?' the answer is, 'Out driving or walking
or singing with Iris.' Katy tells me she is very plain of face--nay,
even homely. If she were beautiful I should be in terror too horrible
for words. It is wicked of me, but, oh! I can not help but thank God she
is not fair of face, to attract my darling from me."

Tears rolled down Katy's cheeks as she listened. Not for the world would
she have let her poor young mistress know that her grief had had a
witness. She kept perfectly quiet, making no sound, scarcely breathing,
until Dorothy passed slowly into an inner apartment, and she was
heartily glad that she touched her bell a moment after.

Katy hurried to her with alacrity, taking pains, however, to tiptoe to
the door, open it, and close it again, quite as if she had just come in
from the corridor.

"Now, Katy," said her young mistress, "you must make haste to help me
dress. I am impatient. I feel dreadfully nervous, as though a great
calamity was to take place. I feel just such a strange sensation as
seemed to clutch at my heart before that terrible accident happened that
has blighted my whole life."

"Oh, dear Miss Dorothy, _please_ don't talk so!" cried Katy, aghast.
"I'm sure it isn't right, if I may make so bold as to say so to you. I
have always heard it said: 'Never cross a bridge of trouble until you
come to it.'"

"'Coming events cast their shadows before,'" quoted Dorothy, slowly.

"I have made your dress look so lovely, Miss Dorothy," she cried,
bravely attempting to turn her thoughts into another channel, "and it's
right sorry I am that you can't see it. Every one will say that it is
the prettiest dress at the ball. You said I might fix it any way that I
liked, so long as it looked grand."

"How have you arranged it, Katy?" asked Dorothy, with a faint smile,
being girl enough to forget her sorrow for an instant in speaking of her
ball dress.

"It is your new white tulle, miss, that I picked out--the one that you
had made to go to parties in, providing you were ever asked to any, the
first week you came to Gray Gables, you remember."

"Oh, yes," murmured Dorothy, clasping her little hands. "I--I remember
so well how nice it looked on me, too."

"You looked like an angel in it!" declared Katy; resuming: "Well, it's
that one, miss, and I have been embroidering flowers all over the front
of it as a surprise for you, and, oh, they look perfectly magnificent on
it!--just as though some one stood near you and threw a great handful
of blossoms over you and they clung to your white tulle dress just where
they fell."

"What kind of flowers are they?" asked Dorothy, delightedly.

"Wisteria blossoms," said Katy.

Dorothy sprang to her feet, pale as death.

"You have embroidered purple wisteria blossoms all over my ball dress?"
she whispered, in an awful voice.

"Yes," returned the girl, wondering what was coming next.

"Oh, Katy!" she cried, in a choking voice, "don't you know that purple
wisteria blossoms mean tears?"

"I don't believe in all those old women's superstitions, miss," declared
Katy, stoutly. "I imagine that it was got up by some muddy-complexioned
creature, whose only annoyance was that the pretty blossoms didn't look
good on her, and consequently she gave them a bad name to keep others
from wearing them. There's plenty of such things being done."

This explanation, or rather explosion of the pet superstition, amused
Dorothy vastly.

"Well, I shall not mind the old adage about wisteria blossoms and tears.
I'll wear the dress anyhow, Katy, come what may. But do you know what
Iris is going to wear? I haven't been able to find out."

"Nor has any one, ma'am," muttered Katy. "She has been making up her
ball dress in her own room for the past fortnight, and keeps the door
securely fastened; but we shall see very soon now, for it is quite time
to dress, and she has to be ready first to receive the guests. I heard
Mr. Kendal telling her so, a few moments since, as they passed through
the corridor just as I opened the door."

She saw Dorothy turn a shade paler, and her head drooped, but she made
no reply.

"Shall I commence now to arrange your toilet?" she asked, anxious to
dress her mistress, and then don her own new dress for the gala
occasion.

"I don't want to go into the ball-room until all the guests have
arrived, and then I want to slip in quietly," said Dorothy; "so you need
not hurry."

It was a sorry task at best for Katy, dressing her poor, blind mistress
for the ball.

Ah! it was pitiful to see her sitting so patiently there with her back
to the mirror, while the maid, with great tears rolling down her cheeks,
fastened the clouds of tulle here and there with the dark blossoms, and
twined them in the golden curls that fell about her white neck.

Oh, how radiantly fair she looked! And Katy knew that no one gazing in
those beautiful violet eyes would ever realize that the lovely girl was
blind--stone blind.

Her hand trembled violently as, an hour later, she clung to her maid's
arm, and timidly, shrinkingly entered the great ball-room crowded with
guests. No one noticed their entrance, the throng was so great, and she
had her heart's desire. She slipped into a corner without her presence
being commented on.

She did not know that a little place among a bower of ferns had been
previously arranged for her by Katy, where she could sit and hear the
music without being seen herself; nor would Katy be seen by the guests.

"Tell me," she whispered, nervously clutching the girl's hand, "where is
Harry, and is--is Miss Vincent with him, and how does she look?"

Before Katy could frame a reply the last question was rudely answered by
a stranger. Two young ladies at that instant dropped down into seats so
near Dorothy that she could easily have touched them had she reached out
her hand from her screen of palms and roses.

"What a magnificent-looking girl that Iris Vincent is!" cried one of the
young girls. "The fame of her great beauty is spreading everywhere; but
I never dreamed she was as beautiful as the description I have heard of
her, and I find she far surpasses it. I wonder that poor, blind Dorothy
Glenn is not jealous that her affianced husband should pay the girl so
much attention."

"This is the first time I have seen her," replied her companion, "and I,
too, am amazed at her marvelous beauty. As I stepped into the ball-room
she was the first person I beheld, and she has dazzled my eyes ever
since. Oh, it was a wonderful picture she made, standing under a slender
palm tree, in her white tulle dress flecked with gold and pearls, and
those blood-red rubies encircling her white throat and perfect arms and
coiled in her jetty curls; and then those glorious dark eyes! No wonder
men lose their hearts over her at the first fatal glance into their
wonderful, mesmeric depths. She is fairer than the fairest of poets'
dreams."

Dorothy listened with bated breath, then turned quickly to Katy.

"Have you deceived me--_me_, a poor blind girl?" she cried in a terrible
voice that sounded like a cry from the tomb. "You told me that the girl
who had come beneath this roof was homely and terribly plain. _They_
say she is beautiful. Oh, God! have you deceived me? I must know the
truth at once."




CHAPTER XIX.


"Katy," repeated Dorothy, in a shrill, awful whisper, "tell me, have you
willfuly deceived me? You have said Miss Vincent was plain--nay, more,
that she was homely--and on all sides of me I hear them speaking of her
wonderful beauty."

Katy sank back shivering in her seat.

"It's fine feathers that make fine birds to-night," she rejoined,
faintly. "No wonder they think Iris Vincent looks well to-night. She's
rigged out like a real peacock; and her face is painted, too. I can see
it clear across the room; and I am quite sure that Mr. Kendal has
noticed it; and I've heard him say that if there's anything which he
detests, it's girls who whiten their faces with chalk."

Still Dorothy did not feel comforted. A nameless fear which she could
scarcely define by words had crept into her heart, and a smoldering
flame of jealousy burst suddenly forth; and that was the beginning of a
terrible end.

She leaned wearily back in her seat, and looked so white that Katy was
frightened.

"Shall I get you a glass of ice-water, Miss Dorothy?" she cried.

The pale lips murmured assent, and she flew to do her mistress' bidding.

Left to herself, Dorothy sprang hastily to her feet.

"It almost seems as if I shall go mad!" she murmured--"yes, mad--with
this terrible fear clutching at my heart! I must have air. I am
stifling!"

All unmindful of the errand upon which she had sent Katy, Dorothy rose
hastily to her feet, and, remembering that there was a rear entrance
leading from the ball-room near where she sat, she groped her way
thither.

The night air fanned her feverish cheek, but it did not cool the fever
in her brain or the fire that seemed eating into her very heart. A
thousand fancies, so weird and strange that they terrified her, seemed
to take possession of her brain. She had relied so entirely upon what
they had told her--that Miss Vincent was very plain--that the feeling of
jealousy had never before occurred to her; for well she knew that Harry
Kendal was a beauty-worshiper, and that no matter how much he might be
thrown in contact with a girl who was plain of face, he would never
dream of being anything else than simply courteous to her.

Now affairs seemed to take on a new and hideous form.

She recalled each and every incident that had taken place since Miss
Vincent's arrival, and

              "Trifles light as air
    Seemed confirmation strong as Holy Writ"

as she viewed them now.

"Even the guests notice how attentive he is to her," she said to
herself, with a bitter sob, wringing her cold little hands and clutching
them tightly over her heart.

Suddenly she heard the sound of voices, and sank down upon a seat at
hand until they should pass by.

She did not know that the seat which she had selected on the broad
piazza was directly back of one of the large, vine-wreathed, fluted
pillars, and in the dense shadow.

This time she readily divined that the voices must belong to two
light-hearted, happy girls.

"Are you having a good time, Grace, dear?" asked one.

"Oh, quite the jolliest I have ever had in all my life!" was the reply.
"I haven't missed one dance, and all my partners have been so
handsome--quite the prettiest fellows in the ball-room! And how is it
with you?"

"Oh, I'm enjoying myself, too!" laughed the other girl, "But did you
notice what a ninny I had in that last waltz-quadrille? Don't you hate
partners who stand away off, and barely touch your finger-tips as they
dance with you? Upon my word, I'd rather have the straight-as-a-mackerel
kind, who hold you so tight you can scarcely catch your breath!"

And at this both girls went off into uproarious laughter, when suddenly
one of them exclaimed:

"Have you yet had a waltz with handsome Harry Kendal?"

"No," returned the other, ruefully. "At the last ball I went to he was
almost wild to put his name down for every waltz with me. But, after
all, I can not wonder at that when I see how greatly he is infatuated
with the beauty of the ball to-night--the fair Iris Vincent."

"Have you heard all the talk to-night about that?" chimed in the other,
her voice sinking to a low, confidential tone. "Every one has noticed
it, and it is the talk of the ball-room."

"It is shameful for him to carry on so," returned her companion, "when
every one knows that his wedding day with poor, blind Dorothy Glenn is
so near at hand."

"Do you know," said the other, slowly, "that I doubt if he will ever
marry Dorothy now? You must remember that he became engaged to her
before that terrible accident. And do you know there is great diversity
of opinion as to whether the poor fellow should marry her or not. It is
very nice to read about in books--of lovers proving true to their
_fiancées_ through every trouble and tribulation--but I tell you they
don't do it in real life. When trouble comes to a girl, nine lovers out
of ten fly from her 'to seek pastures new;' and, after all, to come
right down to the fine point, between you and me, could you really blame
Harry Kendal if he were to break off with Dorothy? He is young and
handsome, and I say that it would be a bitter shame for him to go
through life with a blind girl for a wife; and when I think of it I
actually feel indignant with the girl for holding him to his engagement
under such circumstances. She ought to know that in time he would
actually hate her for it. She can share none of his joys. Why, she would
be only a pitiful burden to handsome Harry Kendal! That girl whom he
seems so infatuated with would be a thousand times more suitable for
him. Oh, what a handsome couple they do make! And every one can see,
though they think they hide it so well, how desperately they are in love
with each other."

They moved on, little dreaming of the ruin and blight they had left
behind them.

They were scarcely out of hearing when the great cry that had been
choked back so long burst forth in a wild, piercing wail of agony that
meant the breaking then and there of a human heart. But the dance-music
inside, to which the joyous, merry feet kept time, completely drowned
it.

Dorothy had risen from her chair, and the look on her face was terrible
to behold.

"Let me quite understand it," she whispered--"let me try to realize and
grasp the awful truth: Harry Kendal, my lover, has ceased to care for
me, and is lavishing his attention, nay, more, his affection, upon
another and one who in return loves him; and they say that I should give
him up to her--I, who love him better than my own life! He is all I have
left me in my terrible affliction, and they would take even him from me
and give him to another. They said it was not right for me to cling to
him, and to burden him with a blind wife through life--that the thought
is torture to him. Oh, God in Heaven! can it be true?"

And again the angels at the great White Throne were startled with the
piercing cries of woe that broke from the girl's white lips, which once
more the dance-music mercifully drowned.

"I will go to him and confront him with what I have heard. He shall
choose between us before all the people assembled here to-night. I will
fling myself upon my knees at his feet, crying out: 'Oh, my darling! my
love! my life! tell me that the cruel rumors which I have heard are
false--that you do not hate me because--because of the awful affliction
that Heaven has seen fit to put upon me! Turn from the girl by your side
to me--to me, your promised bride! She can never love you as I do. You
are my all--my world! If I were to die to-day--aye, within this hour--my
soul could not leave this earth while you were here! I would cling to
you in life or in death!'"

With a swift motion Dorothy turned and re-entered the house, forgetful
of her blindness, and to count the steps which she had taken,
remembering only that she was undergoing the greatest trial of her life.

Swift as a fluttering swallow she hastened across the broad piazza, but
in the confusion of her whirling brain she had mistaken the direction.

One instant more, too quick for a cry, too quick for a moan, she had
stepped off the veranda, and fell with a terrible thud down five feet
below, and lay, stunned and unconscious, on the graveled walk.

The shock was so sudden, so terrible that surely God in His mercy was
kind in that the fearful pain of the fall was not realized by her.

The moments dragged themselves wearily by as she lay there. Fully half
an hour elapsed. No one missed her save Katy, no one thought of looking
for her out in the cold and darkness, which was penetrated only by the
dim light of the stars. The dew of night fell silently, pityingly upon
the white, upturned face and curling golden hair, which lay tangled
among the sharp pebbles. Gradually consciousness dawned upon her brain.
The warm blood crept back to the chilled veins and pulsed feebly, but
with it came the remembrance of the terrible blow that had fallen upon
her.

Dorothy staggered to her feet, but as she did so a strange electric
shock seemed to pass through her body and balls of fire to whirl before
her eyes. But as they cleared away a great cry broke from the girl's
lips:

"Oh, God! can it be true? Heaven has restored my sight to me as
miraculously as it was taken from me!"

Once again she saw the blue sky, with its myriads of golden-hearted
stars, bending over her; the great stone house, with its lighted
windows, and beyond, the tall, dark oak trees, with their great,
widespread tossing branches; and she fell upon her knees and kissed the
very stones at her feet and the green blades of waving grass that she
never once thought she would see again, and she raised her white arms to
heaven with such piteous cries of thankfulness that the angels must have
heard and wept over.

Yes, Dorothy's sight had been restored to her as miraculously as it had
been taken from her.

But even in the midst of her great joy the dregs of woe still lingered
as memory brought back to her the terrible ordeal through which she had
passed.

With bated breath she turned and crept swiftly back to the house and up
to the long windows that opened out on the porch, sobbing bitterly to
herself that she would see at last if her lover was true or false to
her.




CHAPTER XX.


With her heart throbbing with the most intense excitement, Dorothy
pushed aside the great clusters of crimson creepers and thick green
leaves, pressed her white face close against the window-pane, and gazed
in upon the gorgeous scene.

For an instant the great blaze of light dazzled her weak eyes, and
everything seemed to swim before her.

But gradually, little by little, she began to distinguish objects, and
at last her eyes fell upon the face of Harry Kendal.

With a great cry, the girl clutched her hands tightly over her heart.
She never thought that she would look upon his face again in this world.

It was _his_ face--the face of her hero, her king, before which all else
paled as the moonbeams pale before the glaring light of the rising sun.
Then suddenly she saw the face beside him into which he was gazing, and
it was then that the heart in her bosom almost turned to stone.

Never in all her life had she beheld such a vision of loveliness, and
she knew in an instant that the proud beauty must be Iris Vincent.

Slowly Dorothy crept around to the other side of the porch, up to the
window, that she might have a better view of them, and perhaps she could
hear what they were saying.

But as she reached it, to her great disappointment she saw them link
arms and stroll out of the ball-room toward the conservatory, and
thither she bent her steps, intent upon reaching it before they did.

She had barely screened herself behind a tall _jardinière_ of roses and
flowering plants, ere, laughing and chattering, the two entered the
floral bower.

"The ball is a grand success, Iris," he was saying, gayly; "they all
seem to be enjoying themselves immensely. How is it with you?"

"It is a night that will stand out forever in my life," she responded,
glancing

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/29776