The shrill treble of a girl's voice, raised to its highest pitch in anger and remonstrance, broke in upon the scholarly meditations of the teacher of the Ridgemont grammar school. He raised his head from his book to listen. It came again, mingled with boyish cries and jeers, and the sound of blows and scuffling. The teacher, a small, fagged-looking man of middle age, rose hastily, and went out of the school-house.  
Both grammar and high school had just been dismissed, and the bare-trodden play-ground was filled with the departing scholars. In the centre of the ground a group of boys had collected, and from this group the discordant sounds still proceeded.
 
"What is the meaning of this disturbance?" the master asked, coming near.
 
At the sound of his voice the group fell apart, disclosing, as a central point, the figure of a girl of thirteen or fourteen years. She was thin and straight, and her face, now ablaze with anger and excitement, was a singular one, full of contradic[4]tions, yet not inharmonious as a whole. It was fair, but not as blondes are fair, and its creamy surface was flecked upon the cheeks with dark, velvety freckles. Her features were symmetrical, yet a trifle heavy, particularly the lips, and certain dusky tints were noticeable about the large gray eyes and delicate temples, as well as a peculiar crisp ripple in the mass of vivid red hair which fell from under her torn straw hat.
 
Clinging to her scant skirts was a small hunch-backed boy, crying dismally, and making the most of his tears by rubbing them into his sickly face with a pair of grimy fists.
 
The teacher looked about him with disapproval in his glance. The group contained, no doubt, its fair proportion of future legislators and presidents, but the raw material was neither encouraging nor pleasant to look upon. The culprits returned his wavering gaze, some looking a little conscience-smitten, others boldly impertinent, others still (and those the worst in the lot) with a charming air of innocence and candor.
 
"What is it?" the master repeated. "What is the matter?"
 
"They were plaguing Bobby, here," the girl broke in, breathlessly,—"taking his marbles away, and making him cry—the mean, cruel things!"
 
"Hush!" said the teacher, with a feeble gesture of authority. "Is that so, boys?"
 
[5]
 
The boys grinned at each other furtively, but made no answer.
 
"Boys," he remarked, solemnly, "I—I'm ashamed of you!"
 
The delinquents not appearing crushed by this announcement, he turned again to the girl.
 
"Girls should not quarrel and fight, my dear. It isn't proper, you know."
 
A mocking smile sprang to the girl's lips, and a sharp glance shot from under her black, up-curling lashes, but she did not speak.
 
"She's allers a-fightin'," ventured one of the urchins, emboldened by the teacher's reproof; at which the girl turned upon him so fiercely that he shrank hastily out of sight behind his nearest companion.
 
"You are not one of my scholars?" the master asked, keeping his mild eyes upon the scornful face and defiant little figure.
 
"No!" the girl answered. "I go to the high school!"
 
"You are small to be in the high school," he said, smiling upon her kindly.
 
"It don't go by sizes!" said the child promptly.
 
"No; certainly not, certainly not," said the teacher, a little staggered. "What is your name, child?"
 
"Lilly, sir; Lilly O'Connell," she answered, indifferently.
 
[6]
 
"Lilly!" the teacher repeated abstractedly, looking into the dusky face, with its flashing eyes and fallen ruddy tresses,—"Lilly!"
 
"It ought to have been Tiger-Lily!" said a pert voice. "It would suit her, I'm sure, more ways than one!" and the speaker, a pretty, handsomely-dressed blonde girl of about her own age, laughed, and looked about for appreciation of her cleverness.
 
"So it would!" cried a boyish voice. "Her red hair, and freckles, and temper! Tiger-Lily! That's a good one!"
 
A shout of laughter, and loud cries of "Tiger-Lily!" immediately arose, mingled with another epithet more galling still, in the midst of which the master's deprecating words were utterly lost.
 
A dark red surged into the girl's face. She turned one eloquent look of wrath upon her tormentors, another, intensified, upon the pretty child who had spoken, and walked away from the place, leading the cripple by the hand.
 
"Oh, come now, Flossie," said a handsome boy, who stood near the blonde girl, "I wouldn't tease her. She can't help it, you know."
 
"Pity she couldn't know who is taking up for her!" she retorted, tossing the yellow braid which hung below her waist, and sauntering away homeward.
 
"Oh, pshaw!" the boy said, coloring to the[7] roots of his hair; "that's the way with you girls. You know what I mean. She can't help it that her mother was a—a mulatto, or something, and her hair red. It's mean to tease her."
 
"She can help quarrelling and fighting with the boys, though," said Miss Flossie, looking unutterable scorn.
 
"She wouldn't do it, I guess, if they'd let her alone," the young fellow answered, stoutly. "It's enough to make anybody feel savage to be badgered, and called names, and laughed at all the time. It makes me mad to see it. Besides, it isn't always for herself she quarrels. It's often enough for some little fellow like Bobby, that the big fellows are abusing. She is good-hearted, anyhow."
 
They had reached by this time the gate opening upon the lawn which surrounded the residence of Flossie's mother, the widow Fairfield. It was a small, but ornate dwelling, expressive, at every point, of gentility and modern improvements. The lawn itself was well kept, and adorned with flower-beds and a tiny fountain. Mrs. Fairfield, a youthful matron in rich mourning of the second stage, sat in a wicker chair upon the veranda reading, and fanning herself with an air of elegant leisure.
 
Miss Flossie paused. She did not want to quarrel with her boyish admirer, and, with the true in[8]stinct of coquetry, instantly appeared to have forgotten her previous irritation.
 
"Won't you come in, Roger?" she said, sweetly. "Our strawberries are ripe."
 
The boy smiled at the tempting suggestion, but shook his head.
 
"Can't," he answered, briefly. "I've got a lot of Latin to do. Good-by."
 
He nodded pleasantly and went his way. It lay through the village and along the fields and gardens beyond. Just as he came in sight of his home,—a square, elm-shaded mansion of red brick, standing on a gentle rise a little farther on,—he paused at a place where a shallow brook came creeping through the lush grass of the meadow which bounded his father's possessions. He listened a moment to its low gurgling, so suggestive of wood rambles and speckled trout, then tossed his strap of books into the meadow, leaped after it, and followed the brook's course for a little distance, stooping and peering with his keen brown eyes into each dusky pool.
 
All at once, as he looked and listened, another sound than the brook's plashing came to his ears, and he started up and turned his head. A stump fence, black and bristling, divided the meadow from the adjoining field, its uncouth projections draped in tender, clinging vines, and he stepped[9] softly toward it and looked across. It was a rocky field, where a thin crop of grass was trying to hold its own against a vast growth of weeds, and was getting the worst of it,—a barren, shiftless field, fitly matching the big shiftless barn and small shiftless house to which it appertained.
 
Lying prone among the daisies was Lilly O'Connell, her face buried in her apron, the red rippling mane falling about her, her slender form shaking with deep and unrestrained sobs.
 
Roger looked on a moment and then leaped the fence. The girl rose instantly to a sitting position, and glared defiance at him from a pair of tear-stained eyes.
 
"What are you crying about?" he asked, with awkward kindness.
 
Her face softened, and a fresh sob shook her.
 
"Oh, come!" said Roger; "don't mind what a lot of sneaks say."
 
The girl looked up quickly into the honest dark eyes.
 
"It was Florence Fairfield that said it," she returned, speaking very rapidly.
 
Roger gave an uneasy laugh.
 
"Oh! you mean that about the 'Tiger-Lily'?"
 
"Yes," she answered, "and it's true. It's true as can be. See!" And for the first time the boy noticed that her gingham apron was filled with the fiery blossoms of the tiger-lily.
 
[10]
 
"See!" she said again, with an unchildish laugh, holding the flowers against her face.
 
Roger was not an imaginative boy, but he could not help feeling the subtle likeness between the fervid blossoms, strange, tropical outgrowth of arid New England soil, and this passionate child of mingled races, with her ruddy hair, and glowing eyes and lips. For a moment he did not know what to say, but at last, in his simple, boyish way he said:
 
"Well, what of it? I think they're splendid."
 
The girl looked up incredulously.
 
"I wouldn't mind the—the hair!" he stammered. "I've got a cousin up to Boston, and she's a great belle—a beauty, you know. All the artists are crazy to paint her picture, and her hair is just the color of yours."
 
Lilly laid the flowers down. Her eyes fell.
 
"You don't understand," she said, slowly. "Other girls have red hair. It isn't that."
 
Roger's eyes faltered in their reassuring gaze.
 
"I—I wouldn't mind—the other thing, either, if I were you," he stammered.
 
"You don't know what you'd do if you were me!" the girl cried, passionately. "You don't know what you'd do if you were hated, and despised, and laughed at, every day of your life! And how would you like the feeling that it could never be any different, no matter where you went,[11] or how hard you tried to be good, or how much you learned? Never, never any different! Ah, it makes me hate myself, and everybody! I could tear them to pieces, like this, and this!"
 
She had risen, and was tearing the scarlet petals of the lilies into pieces, her teeth set, her eyes flashing.
 
"Look at them!" she cried wildly. "How like me they are, all red blood like yours, except those few black drops which never can be washed out! Never! Never!"
 
And again the child threw herself upon the ground, face downward, and broke into wild, convulsive sobbing.
 
Young Roger was in an agony of pity. He found his position as consoler a trying one. An older person might well have quailed before this outburst of unchild-like passion. He knew that what she said was true—terribly, bitterly true, and this kept him dumb. He only stood and looked down upon the quivering little figure in embarrassed silence.
 
Suddenly the girl raised her head, with a flash of her eyes.
 
"What does God mean," she cried, fiercely, "by making such a difference in people?"
 
Roger's face became graver still.
 
"I can't tell you that, Lilly," he answered, soberly. "You'll have to ask the minister. But[12] I've often thought of it myself. I suppose there is a reason, if we only knew. I guess all we can do is to begin where God has put us, and do what we can."
 
Lilly slowly gathered her disordered hair into one hand and pushed it behind her shoulders, her tear-stained eyes fixed sadly on the boy's troubled face.
 
The tea-bell, sounding from the distance, brought a welcome interruption, and Roger turned to go. He looked back when half across the meadow, and saw the little figure standing in relief upon a rocky hillock, the sun kindling her red locks into gold.
 
A few years previously, O'Connell had made his appearance in Ridgemont with wife and child, and had procured a lease of the run-down farm and buildings which had been their home ever since. It was understood that they had come from one of the Middle States, but beyond this nothing of their history was known.
 
The wife, a beautiful quadroon, sank beneath the severity of the climate, and lived but a short time. After her death, O'Connell, always a surly, hot-headed fellow, grew surlier still, and fell into evil ways. The child, with a curious sort of dignity and independence, took upon her small shoulders the burden her mother had laid aside, and carried on the forlorn household in her own way, without assistance or interference.
 
[13]
 
That she was not like other children, that she was set apart from them by some strange circumstance, she had early learned to feel. In time she began to comprehend in what the difference lay, and the knowledge roused within her a burning sense of wrong, a fierce spirit of resistance.
 
With the creamy skin, the full, soft features, the mellow voice, and impassioned nature of her quadroon mother, Lilly had inherited the fiery Celtic hair, gray-green eyes, and quick intelligence of her father.
 
She contrived to go to school, where her cleverness placed her ahead of other girls of her age, but did not raise her above the unreasoning aversion of her school-mates; and the consciousness of this rankled in the child's soul, giving to her face a pathetic, hunted look, and to her tongue a sharpness which few cared to encounter.
 
Those who knew her best—her teachers, and a few who would not let their inborn and unconquerable prejudice of race stand in the way of their judgment—knew that, with all her faults of temper, the girl was brave, and truthful, and warm-hearted. They pitied the child, born under a shadow which could never be lifted, and gave her freely the kind words for which her heart secretly longed.
 
There was little else they could do, for every attempt at other kindness was repelled with a proud indifference which forbade further overtures. So[14] she had gone her way, walking in the shadow which darkened and deepened as she grew older, until at last she stood upon the threshold of womanhood.
 
It was at this period of her life that the incidents we have related occurred. Small as they were, they proved a crisis in the girl's life. Too much a child to be capable of forming a definite resolve, or rather, perhaps, of putting it into form and deliberately setting about its fulfilment, still the sensitive nature had received an impression, which became a most puissant influence in shaping her life.
 
A change came over her, so great as to have escaped no interested eyes; but interested eyes were few.
 
Her teachers, more than any others, marked the change. There was more care of her person and dress, and the raillery of her school-mates was met by an indifference which, however hard its assumption may have been, at once disarmed and puzzled them.
 
Now and then, the low and unprovoked taunts of her boyish tormentors roused her to an outburst of the old spirit, but for the most part they were met only with a flash of the steel-gray eyes, and a curl of the full red lips.
 
One Sunday, too, to the amazement of pupils and the embarrassment of teachers, Lilly O'Connell, neatly attired and quite self-possessed, walked into[15] the Sunday-school, from which she had angrily departed, stung by some childish slight, two years before. The minister went to her, welcomed her pleasantly, and gave her a seat in a class of girls of her own age, who, awed by the mingled dignity and determination of his manner, swallowed their indignation, and moved along—a trifle more than was necessary—to give her room.
 
The little tremor of excitement soon subsided, and Lilly's quickness and attentiveness won for her an outward show, at least, of consideration and kindness, which extended outside of school limits, and gradually, all demonstrations of an unpleasant nature ceased.
 
When she was about sixteen her father died. This event, which left her a homeless orphan, was turned by the practical kindness of Parson Townsend—the good old minister who had stood between her and a thousand annoyances and wrongs—into the most fortunate event of her life. He, not without some previous domestic controversy, took the girl into his own family, and there, under kind and Christian influences, she lived for a number of years.
 
At eighteen her school-life terminated, and, by the advice of Parson Townsend, she applied for a position as teacher of the primary school.
 
The spirit with which her application was met was a revelation and a shock to her. The outward[16] kindness and tolerance which of late years had been manifested toward her, had led her into a fictitious state of content and confidence.
 
"I was foolish enough," she said to herself, with bitterness, "to think that because the boys do not hoot after me in the street, people had forgotten, or did not care."
 
The feeling of ostracism stung, but could not degrade, a nature like hers. She withdrew more and more into herself, turned her hands to such work as she could find to do, and went her way again, stifling as best she might the anguished cry which sometimes would rise to her lips:
 
"What does God mean by it?"
 
Few saw the beauty of those deep, clear eyes and pathetic lips, or the splendor of her burnished hair, or the fine curves of her tall, upright figure. She was only odd, and "queer looking"—only Lilly O'Connell; very pleasant of speech, and quick at her needle, and useful at picnics and church fairs, and in case of sickness or emergencies of any kind,—but Lilly O'Connell still,—or "Tiger-Lily," for the old name had never been altogether laid aside.
 
Ten years passed by. The good people of Ridgemont were fond of alluding to the remarkable progress and development made by their picturesque little town during the past decade, but in[17] reality the change was not so great. A few new dwellings, built in the modern efflorescent style, had sprung up, to the discomfiture of the prim, square houses, with dingy white paint and dingier green blinds, which belonged to another epoch; a brick block, of almost metropolitan splendor, cast its shadow across the crooked village street, and a soldiers' monument, an object of special pride and reverence, adorned the centre of the small common, opposite the Hide and Leather Bank and the post-office.
 
Beside these, a circulating library, a teacher of china-painting and a colored barber were casually mentioned to strangers, as proofs of the slightness of difference in the importance of Ridgemont and some other towns of much more pretension.
 
Over the old Horton homestead hardly a shadow of change had passed. It presented the same appearance of prosperous middle age. The great elms about it looked not a day older; the hydrangeas on the door-step flowered as exuberantly; the old-fashioned roses bloomed as red, and white, and yellow, against the mossy brick walls; the flower-plots were as trim, and the rustic baskets of moneywort flourished as green, as in the days when Mrs. Horton walked among them, and tended them with her own hands. She had lain with her busy hands folded these five years, in the shadow of the Horton monument, between the[18] grave of Dr. Jared Horton and a row of lessening mounds which had been filled many, many years—the graves of the children who were born—and had died—before Roger's birth.
 
A great quiet had hung about the place for several years. The blinds upon the front side had seldom been seen to open, except for weekly airings or semi-annual cleanings.
 
But one day in mid-summer the parlor windows are seen wide open, the front door swung back, and several trunks, covered with labels of all colors, and in several languages, are standing in the large hall.
 
An unwonted stir about the kitchen and stable, a lively rattling of silver and china in the dining room, attest to some unusual cause for excitement. The cause is at once manifest as the door at the end of the hall opens, and Roger Horton appears, against a background composed of mahogany side-board and the erect and vigilant figure of Nancy Swift, the faithful old housekeeper of his mother's time.
 
The handsome, manly lad had fulfilled the promise of his boyhood. He was tall and full-chested; a trifle thin, perhaps, and his fine face, now bronzed with travel, grave and thoughtful for his years, but capable of breaking into a smile like a sudden transition from a minor to a major key in music.
 
[19]
 
He looked more than thoughtful at this moment. He had hardly tasted the food prepared by Nancy with a keen eye to his youthful predilections, and in the firm conviction that he must have suffered terrible deprivations during his foreign travels.
 
Truly, this coming home was not like the comings-home of other days, when two dear faces, one gray-bearded and genial, the other pale and gentle-eyed, had smiled upon him across the comfortable board. The sense of loss was almost more than he could bear; the sound of his own footsteps in the cool, empty hall smote heavily upon his heart.
 
The door of the parlor stood ajar, and he pushed it open and stepped into the room. Everything was as it had always been ever since he could remember—furniture, carpets, curtains, everything. Just opposite the door hung the portraits of his parents, invested by the dim half-light with a life-like air which the unknown artist had vainly tried to impart.
 
Roger had not entered the room since his mother's funeral, which followed close upon that of his father, and just before the close of his collegiate course.
 
Something in the room brought those scenes of bitter grief too vividly before him. It might have been the closeness of the air, or, more probably, the odor rising from a basket of flowers which stood upon the centre-table. He remembered now[20] that Nancy had mentioned its arrival while he was going through the ceremony of taking tea, and he went up to the table and bent over it. Upon a snowy oval of choicest flowers, surrounded by a scarlet border, the word "Welcome" was wrought in purple violets.
 
The young man smiled as he read the name upon the card attached. He took up one of the white carnations and began fastening it to the lapel of his coat, but put it back at length, and with a glance at the painted faces, whose eyes seemed following his every motion, he took his hat and went out of the house.
 
His progress through the streets of his native village took the form of an ovation. Nearly every one he met was an old acquaintance or friend. It warmed his heart, and took away the sting of loneliness which he had felt before, to see how cordial were the greetings. Strong, manly grips, kind, womanly hand-pressures, and shy, blushing greetings from full-fledged village beauties, whom he vaguely remembered as lank, sun-burned little girls, met him at every step.
 
He noticed, and was duly impressed by, the ornate new dwellings, the soldiers' monument, and the tonsorial establishment of Professor Commeraw. But beyond these boasted improvements, it might have been yesterday, instead of four years ago, that he passed along the same street on his[21] way to the station. Even Deacon White's sorrel mare was hitched before the leading grocery-store in precisely the same spot, and blinking dejectedly at precisely the same post, he could have taken his oath, where she had stood and blinked on that morning.
 
Before the tumble-down structure where, in connection with the sale of petrified candy, withered oranges, fly-specked literature, and gingerpop, the post-office was carried on, sat that genial old reprobate, the post-master, relating for the hundredth time to a sleepy and indifferent audience, his personal exploits in the late war; pausing, however, long enough to bestow upon Horton a greeting worthy of the occasion.
 
"Welcome home!" said Mr. Doolittle, with an oratorical flourish, as became a politician and a post-master; "welcome back to the land of the free and the home of the brave!"
 
Whereupon he carefully seated himself on the precarious chair which served him as rostrum, and resumed his gory narrative.
 
A little further on, another village worthy, Fred Hanniford, cobbler, vocalist, and wit, sat pegging away in the door of his shop, making the welkin ring with the inspiring strains of "The Sword of Bunker Hill," just as in the old days. True, the brilliancy of his tones was somewhat marred by the presence of an ounce or so of shoe-pegs in his left[22] cheek, but this fact had no dampening effect upon the enthusiasm of a select, peanut-consuming audience of small boys on the steps.
 
He, too, suspended work and song to nod familiarly to his somewhat foreignized young townsman, and watched him turn the corner, fixing curious and jealous eyes upon the receding feet.
 
"Who made your boots?" he remarked sotto voce, as their firm rap upon the plank sidewalk grew indistinct, which profound sarcasm having extracted the expected meed of laughter from his juvenile audience, Mr. Hanniford resumed his hammer, and burst forth with a high G of astounding volume.
 
As young Horton came in sight of Mrs. Fairfield's residence, he involuntarily quickened his steps. As a matter of course, he had met in his wanderings many pretty and agreeable girls, and, being an attractive young man, it is safe to say that eyes of every hue had looked upon him with more or less favor. It would be imprudent to venture the assertion that the young man had remained quite indifferent to all this, but Horton's nature was more tender than passionate; early associations held him very closely, and his boyish fancy for the widow's pretty daughter had never quite faded. A rather fitful correspondence had been kept up, and photographs exchanged, and he felt himself justified in believing that the welcome the purple violets[23] had spoken would speak to him still more eloquently from a pair of violet eyes.
 
He scanned the pretty lawn with a pleased, expectant glance. Flowers were massed in red, white and purple against the vivid green; the fountain was scattering its spray; hammocks were slung in tempting nooks, and fanciful wicker chairs, interwoven with blue and scarlet ribbons, stood about the vine-draped piazza. He half expected a girlish figure to run down the walk to meet him, in the old childish way, and as a fold of white muslin swept out of the open window his heart leaped; but it was only the curtain after all, and just as he saw this with a little pang of disappointment, a girl's figure did appear, and came down the walk toward him. It was a tall figure, in a simple dark dress. As it came nearer, he saw a colorless, oval face, with downcast eyes, and a mass of ruddy hair, burnished like gold, gathered in a coil under the small black hat. There was something proud, yet shrinking, in the face and in the carriage of the whole figure. As the latch fell from his hand the girl looked up, and encountered his eyes, pleased, friendly and a trifle astonished, fixed full upon her.
 
She stopped, and a beautiful color swept into her cheeks, a sudden unleaping flame filled the luminous eyes, and her lips parted.
 
"Why, it is Lilly O'Connell!" the young man said, cordially, extending his hand.
 
[24]
 
The girl's hand was half extended to meet his, but with a quick glance toward the house she drew it back into the folds of her black dress, bowing instead.
 
Horton let his hand fall, a little flush showing itself upon his forehead.
 
"Are you not going to speak to me, Miss O'Connell?" he said, in his frank, pleasant way. "Are you not going to say you are glad to see me back, like all the rest?"
 
The color had all faded from the girl's cheeks and neck. She returned his smiling glance with an earnest look, hesitating before she spoke.
 
"I am very glad, Mr. Horton," she said, at last, and, passing him, went swiftly out of sight.
 
The young man stood a moment with his hand upon the gate, looking after her; then turned and went up the walk to the door, and rang the bell. A smiling maid admitted him, and showed him into a very pretty drawing-room.
 
He had not waited long when Florence, preceded by her mother, came in. She had been a pretty school-girl, but he was hardly prepared to see so beautiful a young woman, or one so self-possessed, and so free from provincialism in dress and manner. She was a blonde beauty, of the delicate, porcelain-tinted type, small, but so well-made and well-dressed as to appear much taller than she really was. She was lovely to-night in a filmy white[25] dress, so richly trimmed with lace as to leave the delicate flesh-tints of shoulders and arms visible through the fine meshes.
 
She had always cared for Roger, and, being full of delight at his return and his distinguished appearance, let her delight appear undisguisedly. Although a good deal of a coquette, with Roger coquetry seemed out of place. His own simple, sincere manners were contagious, and Florence had never been more charming.
 
"Tell us all about the pictures and artists and singers you have seen and heard," she said, in the course of their lively interchange of experiences.
 
"I am afraid I can talk better about hospitals and surgeons," said Horton. "You know I am not a bit ?sthetic, and I have been studying very closely."
 
"You are determined, then, to practise medicine?" Mrs. Fairfield said, with rather more anxiety in her tones than the occasion seemed to demand.
 
"I think I am better fitted for that profession than any other," Horton answered.
 
"Y-yes," assented Mrs. Fairfield, doubtfully, looking at her daughter.
 
"I should never choose it, if I were a man," said Florence, decidedly.
 
"It seems to have chosen me," Horton said. "I have not the slightest bent in any other direction."
 
[26]
 
"It is such a hard life," said Florence. "A doctor must be a perfect hero."
 
"You used to be enthusiastic over heroes," said Horton, smiling.
 
"I am now," said Florence, "but——"
 
"Not the kind who ride in buggies instead of on foaming chargers and wield lancets instead of lances," laughed Horton, looking into the slightly vexed but lovely face opposite, with a great deal of expression in his dark eyes.
 
"Of course you would not think of settling in Ridgemont," remarked Mrs. Fairfield, blandly, "after all you have studied."
 
"I don't see why not," he answered.
 
"But for an ambitious young man," began Mrs. Fairfield.
 
"I'm afraid I am not an ambitious young man," said Horton. "There is a good opening here, and the old home is very dear to me."
 
Florence was silently studying the toe of one small sandalled foot.
 
"Well, to be sure," said Mrs. Fairfield, who always endeavored to fill up pauses in conversation,—"to be sure, Ridgemont is improving. Don't you find it changed a good deal?"
 
"Why, not very much," Horton answered. "Places don't change so much in a few years as people. I met Lilly O'Connell as I came into your grounds. She has changed—wonderfully."
 
[27]
 
"Y-yes," said Mrs. Fairfield, rather stiffly. "She has improved. Since her father died, she has lived in Parson Townsend's family. She is a very respectable girl, and an excellent seamstress."
 
Florence had gone to the window, and was looking out.
 
"She was very good at her books, I remember," he went on. "I used to think she would make something more than a seamstress."
 
"I only remember her dreadful temper," said Florence, in a tone meant to sound careless. "We called her 'Tiger-Lily,' you know."
 
"I never wondered at her temper," said Horton. "She had a great deal to vex her. I suppose things are not much better now."
 
"Oh, she is treated well enough," said Mrs. Fairfield. "The best families in the place employ her. I don't know what more she can expect, considering that she is—a——"
 
"Off color," suggested Horton. "No. She cannot expect much more. But it is terrible—isn't it?—that stigma for no fault of hers. It must be hard for a girl like her—like what she seems to have become."
 
"Oh, as to that," said Florence, going to the piano and drumming lightly, without sitting down, "she is very independent. She asserts herself quite enough."
 
"Why, yes," broke in her mother, hastily.[28] "She actually had the impudence to apply for a position as teacher of the primary school, and Parson Townsend, and Hickson of the School Board, were determined she should have it. The 'Gazette' took it up, and for awhile Lilly was the heroine of the day. But of course she did not succeed. It would have ruined the school. A colored teacher! Dreadful!"
 
"Dreadful, indeed," said Horton. He rose and joined Florence at the piano, and a moment later Mrs. Fairfield was contentedly drumming upon the table, in the worst possible time, to her daughter's performance of a brilliant waltz.
 
The evening terminated pleasantly. After Horton had gone, mother and daughter had a long confidential talk upon the piazza, which it is needless to repeat. But at its close, as Mrs. Fairfield was closing the doors for the night, she might have been heard to say:
 
"You could spend your winters in Boston, you know."
 
To which Florence returned a dreamy "Yes."
 
The tranquillity of Ridgemont was this summer disturbed by several events of unusual local interest. Two, of a melancholy nature, were the deaths of good old Parson Townsend and of Dr. Brown, one of the only two regular physicians of whom the town could boast. The latter event had the effect to bring about the beginning of[29] young Dr. Horton's professional career. The road now lay fair and open before him. His father had been widely known and liked, and people were not slow in showing their allegiance to the honored son of an honored father.
 
Of course this event, being one of common interest, was duly discussed and commented upon, and nowhere so loudly and freely as in the post-office and cobbler's shop, where, surrounded by their disciples and adherents, the respective proprietors dispensed wit and wisdom in quantities suitable to the occasion.
 
"He's young," remarked the worthy post-master, with a wave of his clay pipe, "an' he's brought home a lot o' new-fangled machines an' furrin notions, but he's got a good stock of Yankee common-sense to back it all, an' I opine he'll do."
 
And such was the general verdict.
 
His popularity was further increased by the rumor of his engagement to Miss Florence Fairfield. Miss Fairfield being a native of the town, and the most elegant and accomplished young woman it had so far produced, was regarded with much the same feeling as the brick block and the soldiers' monument; and as she drove through the village streets in her pretty pony phaeton, she received a great deal of homage in a quiet way, particularly from the masculine portion of the community.
 
"A tip-top match for the young doctor," said[30] one. "She's putty as a picter an' smart as lightnin', an' what's more, she's got 'the needful.'"
 
"Well, as to that," said another, "Horton ain't no need to look for that. He's got property enough."
 
To which must be added Mr. Hanniford's comments, delivered amidst a rapid expectoration of shoe-pegs.
 
"She's got the littlest foot of any girl in town, an' I ought to know, for I made her shoes from the time she was knee-high to a grasshopper till she got sot on them French heels, which is a thing I ain't agoin' to countenance. She was always very fond o' my singin', too. Says she,'You'd ought to have your voice cultivated, Mr. Hanniford,' says she, 'it's equal, if not superior, to Waktel's or Campyneeny's, any time o' day.' Though," he added, musingly, "as to cultivatin', I've been to more'n eight or ten singin'-schools, an' I guess there ain't much more to learn."
 
The death of Parson Townsend brought about another crisis in the life of Lilly O'Connell. It had been his express wish that she should remain an inmate of his family, which consisted now of a married son and his wife and children. But, with her quick intuition, Lilly saw, before a week had passed, that her presence was not desired by young Mrs. Townsend, and her resolution was at once taken.
 
[31]
 
Through all these years she had had one true friend and helper—Priscilla Bullins, milliner and dress-maker.
 
Miss Bullins was a queer little frizzed and ruffled creature, with watery blue eyes, and a skin like yellow crackle-ware. There was always a good deal of rice-powder visible in her scant eyebrows, and a frost-bitten bloom upon her cheeks which, from its intermittent character, was sadly open to suspicion, but a warm heart beat under the tight-laced bodice, and it was to her, after some hours of mental conflict, that Lilly went with her new trouble. Miss Bullins listened with her soul in arms.
 
"You'll come and stay with me; that's just what you'll do, Lilly, and Jim Townsend's wife had ought to be ashamed of herself, and she a professor! I've got a nice little room you can have all to yourself. It's next to mine, and you're welcome to it till you can do better. I shall be glad of your company, for, between you and me," dropping her voice to a confidential whisper, "I ain't so young as I was, and, bein' subject to spells in the night, I ain't so fond of livin' alone as I used to be."
 
So Lilly moved her small possessions into Miss Bullin's spare bedroom, and went to work in the dingy back shop, rounding out her life with such pleasure as could be found in a walk about the burying-ground on Sundays, in the circulating[32] library, and in the weekly prayer-meeting, where her mellow voice revelled in the sweet melodies of the hymns, whose promises brought such comfort to her lonely young heart.
 
From the window where she sat when at work she could look out over fields and orchards, and follow the winding of the river in and out the willow-fringed banks. Just opposite the window, a small island separated it into two deep channels, which met at the lower point with a glad rush and tumult, to flow on again united in a deeper, smoother current than before.
 
Along the river bank, the road ran to the covered bridge, and across it into the woods beyond. And often, as Lilly sat at her work, she saw Miss Fairfield's pony phaeton rolling leisurely along under the overhanging willows, so near that the voices of the occupants, for Miss Fairfield was never alone, now, came up to her with the cool river-breeze and the scent of the pines on the island. Once, Roger Horton happened to look up, and recognized her with one of those grave smiles which always brought back her childhood and the barren pasture where the tiger-lilies grew; and she drew back into the shadow of the curtain again.
 
Doctor Horton saw Lilly O'Connell often; he met her flitting through the twilight with bulky parcels, at the bedsides of sick women and children, and even at the various festivals which en[33]livened the tedium of the summer (where, indeed, her place was among the workers only), and he would have been glad to speak to her a friendly word now and then, but she gave him little chance. There was a look in her face which haunted him, and the sound of her voice, rising fervid and mournful above the others at church or conference-meeting, thrilled him to the heart with its pathos. Once, as he drove along the river-side after dark, the voice came floating out from the unlighted window of the shop where he so often saw her at work, and it seemed to him like the note of the wood-thrush, singing in the solitude of some deep forest.
 
Before the summer was over, something occurred to heighten the interest which the sight of this solitary maiden figure, moving so unheeded across the dull background of village life, had inspired.
 
It was at a lawn party held upon Mrs. Fairfield's grounds, for the benefit of the church of which she was a prominent member. There was the usual display of bunting, Chinese lanterns, decorated booths, and pretty girls in white. A good many people were present, and the Ridgemont brass band was discoursing familiar strains. Doctor Horton, dropping in, in the course of the evening, gravitated naturally toward an imposing structure, denominated on the bills the "Temple of Flora," where Miss Fairfield and attendant nymphs were disposing of iced lemonade and button-hole bou[34]quets in the cause of religion. The place before the booth was occupied by a group of young men, who were flinging away small coin with that reckless disregard of consequences peculiar to very youthful men on such occasions. All were adorned with boutonnières at every possible point, and were laughing in a manner so exuberant as might, under other circumstances, have led to the suspicion that the beverage sold as lemonade contained something of a more intoxicating nature.
 
Miss Fairfield was standing outside the booth, one bare white arm extended across the green garlands which covered the frame-work. She looked bored and tired, and was gazing absently over the shoulder of the delighted youth vis-à-vis.
 
Her face brightened as Doctor Horton was seen making his way toward the place.
 
"We were laughing," said the young man who had been talking with her, after greetings had been exchanged,—"we were laughing over the latest news. Heard it, Doctor?"
 
Dr. Horton signified his ignorance.
 
He was abstractedly studying the effect of a bunch of red columbine nodding at a white throat just before him. He had secured those flowers himself, with some trouble, that very day, during a morning drive, and he alone knew the sweetness of the reward which had been his.
 
"A marriage, Doctor," went on the youth, jo[35]cosely. "Marriage in high life. Professor Samuel Commeraw to Miss Lilly O'Connell, both of Ridgemont."
 
Horton looked up quickly.
 
"From whom did you get your information?" he asked, coolly regarding the young fellow.
 
"From Commeraw himself," he answered, with some hesitation.
 
"Ah!" Dr. Horton returned, indifferently. "I thought it very likely."
 
"I don't find it so incredible," said Miss Fairfield, in her fine, clear voice. "He is the only one of her own color in the town. It seems to me very natural."
 
Dr. Horton looked into the fair face. Was it the flickering light of the Chinese lanterns which gave the delicate features so hard and cold a look?
 
He turned his eyes away, and as he did so he saw that Lilly O'Connell, with three or four children clinging about her, had approached, and, impeded by the crowd, had stopped very near the floral temple. A glance at her face showed that she had heard all which had been said concerning her.
 
The old fiery spirit shone from her dilated eyes as they swept over the insignificant face of the youth who had spoken her name. Her lips were contracted, and her hand, resting on the curly head of one of the children, trembled violently.
 
[36]
 
She seemed about to speak, but as her eyes met those of Doctor Horton, she turned suddenly, and, forcing a passage through the crowd, disappeared.
 
Dr. Horton lingered about the flower-booth until the increasing crowd compelled Miss Fairfield to to resume her duties, when he slipped away, and wandered aimlessly about the grounds. At last, near the musicians' stand, he saw Lilly O'Connell leaning against a tree, while the children whom she had in charge devoured ice-cream and the music with equal satisfaction. Her whole attitude expressed weariness and dejection. Her face was pale, her eyes downcast, her lips drawn like a child's who longs to weep, yet dares not.
 
Not far away he saw, hanging upon the edge of the crowd, the tall form of Commeraw, his eyes, alert and swift of glance as those of a lynx, furtively watching the girl, who seemed quite unconscious of any one's observation.
 
Some one took Horton's attention for a moment, and when he looked again both Lilly, with her young charge, and Commeraw were no longer to be seen. He moved away from the spot, vaguely troubled and perplexed.
 
The brazen music clashed in his ears the strains of "Sweet Bye-and-Bye," people persisted in talking to him, and at last, in sheer desperation, he turned his steps toward the temple of Flora. It was almost deserted. The band had ceased play[37]ing, people were dispersing, the flowers had wilted, and the pretty girls had dropped off one by one with their respective cavaliers. The reigning goddess herself was leaning against a green pillar, looking, it must be confessed, a little dishevelled and a good deal out of humor, but very lovely still.
 
"You must have found things very entertaining," she remarked, languidly. "You have been gone an hour at least."
 
"I have been discussing sanitary drainage with Dr. Starkey," Horton answered, taking advantage of the wavering light to possess himself of one of the goddess's warm white hands, and the explanation was, in a measure, quite true.
 
Miss Fairfield made no other reply than to withdraw her hand, under the pretext of gathering up her muslin flounces for the walk across the lawn. Horton drew her white wrap over the bare arms and throat, and walked in silence by her side to the hall door. Even then he did not speak at once, feeling that the young lady was in no mood for conversation, but at last he drew the little white figure toward him, and said:
 
"You are tired, little girl. These church fairs and festivals are a great nuisance. I will not come in to-night, but I will drive round in the morning to see how you have slept."
 
To his surprise, the girl turned upon him suddenly, repulsing his arm.
 
[38]
 
"Why," she began, hurriedly, "why are you always defending Lilly O'Connell?"
 
She shot the question at him with a force which took away his breath. She had always seemed to him gentleness itself. He hardly recognized her, as she faced him with white cheeks and blazing eyes.
 
"It was always so," she went on, impetuously, "ever since I can remember. You have always been defending her. No one must speak of her as if she were anything but a lady. I cannot understand it, Roger! I want to know what it means—the interest you show, and always have shown, in that—that girl!"
 
Horton had recovered himself by this time. He looked into the angry face with a quiet, almost stern, gaze. The girl shrank a little before it, and this, and the quiver of her voice toward the close of her last sentence, softened the resentment which had tingled through his veins. Shame, humiliation, not for himself, but for her, his affianced wife, burned on his cheeks.
 
"What interest, Florence?" he said, repeating her words. "Just that interest which every honest man, or woman, feels in a fellow-creature who suffers wrongfully. Just that—and nothing more."
 
Her lips parted as if to retort, but the steadiness of her lover's gaze disconcerted her. He was very gentle, but she felt, as she had once or twice be[39]fore, the quiet mastery of his stronger nature, and the eyes fell. He took both her hands and held them awhile without removing his eyes from her face.
 
"Good-night, Florence," he said, at last, almost with sadness.
 
She would have liked to let him see that she was sorry for her ill-temper, or rather for the manifestation of it, but she was only overawed, not penitent, and bent her head to his parting kiss without a word.
 
Two or three evenings later, Doctor Horton received an urgent summons from one of his patients, who lived at the end of a new and almost uninhabited street. A lamp at the corner of the main street lighted it for a short distance, beyond which the darkness was intense. When just opposite the lamp, and about to cross over, he observed a woman pass swiftly across the lighted space in the direction toward which he was himself going. There was no mistaking the erect figure and graceful gait—it was Lilly O'Connell. After an instant of wondering what could have brought her there at such an hour, for it was late, according to village customs, he changed his intention as to crossing, and kept down the other side.
 
The sight of this girl brought back afresh that brief, unpleasant scene with Florence, which he[40] had tried to forget, but which had recurred to him very often, and always with a keen sting of pain and shame. His faith in the woman he loved was so perfect! Should hers be less in him? For him there was no happiness without repose. To doubt, to be doubted, would end all. He walked on in the darkness, lost in such thoughts, and quite forgetting where he was, but all at once he became aware of other footsteps behind him, and involuntarily looking back, he saw, just on the edge of the lamp-lit space, the figure of a man—a tall figure, with a certain panther-like grace of movement. There was but one such in the town, that of Commeraw, the mulatto.
 
The sight gave him a disagreeable shock. That he was following Lilly O'Connell he had no doubt. Could it be true, then, the rumor to which he had given so little credence? He remembered, now, that he had seen this fellow hanging about at various times and places when she was present. Might it not have been pretence—her proud indifference and scornful evasion of his advances? He asked himself, with a hot flush of mortification, the same question which Florence had put to him. It was true that he had many times openly defended her. He had been forced to do so by that quality of his nature which moved him always to espouse the cause of the weak. Perhaps he had elevated this girl to a higher plane than she deserved to occupy.[41] After all, it would not be strange if her heart, in its longing for sympathy, had turned toward this man of her dead mother's race. Then her face, so sensitive, so overshadowed with sadness, came before him, and he could not think of it in juxtaposition with the brutal face of Commeraw. He banished the thought with disgust.
 
In the meantime, the man could be seen creeping along, a black shadow thrown into faint relief against the white sand of the overhanging bank. There was something furtive and stealthy in his actions which excited Horton's fears. He saw that he had at last overtaken the girl, and he quickened his own pace until he was so near that the sound of their voices came over to him.
 
"There is no other answer possible," she was saying. "You must never speak to me in this way again."
 
She would have gone on, but the man placed himself before her. There was a deliberation in the way he did so which showed his consciousness of power.
 
"This is a lonesome place," he said, with a short, cruel laugh.
 
She made no answer.
 
The man muttered an imprecation.
 
"You are not going to leave me so," he said. "Curse it! why do you treat me so, as if I were a dog? What are you more than I am? Are you[42] so proud because you have a few more drops of their cursed white blood in your veins than I have? What will that help you? Do you imagine it will get you a white husband?"
 
"Let me pass!" interrupted the girl, coldly. "You can kill me if you like. I would rather die than give you any other answer. Will you let me pass?" and she made another swift motion to go by him.
 
A savage cry came from his lips. He sprang toward her. She made no outcry. The two shadows struggled for a moment in deadly silence, but it was only for a moment. Quick as thought, Horton flung himself upon the man, who, taken thus by surprise, loosened his hold upon the girl, shook himself free, and, with a fierce oath, fled.
 
Lilly staggered back against the bank.
 
"Do not be afraid," said Horton, panting. "The fellow will not come back."
 
"Doctor Horton!" she said, faintly.
 
"Yes, it is Doctor Horton. Where were you going? I will see you in safety."
 
"I was on my way to watch with Mrs. Lapham," she answered, in firmer tones.
 
"I am going there too," said Horton. "If you feel able, go on, I will follow after awhile. Or will you go home?"
 
She came forward, walking a little slowly.
 
[43]
 
"I will go on; she expects me."
 
And in a few moments she had disappeared from sight.
 
Horton remained where she had left him for perhaps a quarter of an hour. Then he proceeded on his way. An old woman admitted him to the house, and he went into the sick-room. Lilly O'Connell was sitting by the cradle of the youngest child, which lay across her lap. She greeted him with a bow, and averted her head, but the glimpse he had of her face showed him that it was not only pale, but drawn as if with physical pain.
 
As he was about to leave his patient's side he looked toward her again, and his eyes fell upon the arm which supported the child's head. About the sleeve, a handkerchief, stained with blood, was tightly bound.
 
He went over to the corner where she was sitting.
 
"Will you come into the next room?" he said. "I would like to give you some directions about the medicine."
 
She gave him a quick, upward glance, arose, laid the baby in the arms of the old woman, and followed him mutely into the adjoining room, where a light was burning on the table, and stood before him, waiting for him to speak.
 
"You are hurt," he said, taking the bandaged arm in his hand. "That fellow has wounded you."
 
"I suppose he meant to kill me," she answered,[44] leaning with the disengaged arm against the table.
 
Horton unbound the handkerchief. The blood was oozing from a deep flesh cut below the elbow. With skilful fingers, he ripped open the sleeve and turned it back from the fair round arm. Then, with the appliances the country doctor has always at hand, he dressed the wound. When he had finished, Lilly drew the sleeve down and fastened it over the bandage.
 
Horton looked into her face. She was deadly pale, and her hands, which had touched his once or twice during the operation, were like ice.
 
"You are weak and unstrung. You have lost a great deal of blood. Sit down, Miss O'Connell."
 
She did so, and there was a little silence. The young man's nerves were still thrilling with the excitement of the last hour. For the moment, this girl—sitting there before him, this fair girl with her hard, cruel destiny—filled him completely.
 
"What are you going to do?" he asked, at length.
 
"Do?" she repeated. "Nothing."
 
"You will let this villain escape justice?" he said. "You will take no measures to protect yourself?"
 
Lilly raised her head. A look of intense bitterness swept across her face.
 
[45]
 
"I shall not do anything," she said. "Doctor Horton, you have always been good to me. As far back as I can remember, you have been my friend. I want you to promise me not to speak of what has happened to-night."
 
Horton bit his lips in perplexity.
 
"I do not think I have any right to make such a promise," he said, after a little pause. "This was an attempt at murder."
 
She rose and came close up to him.
 
"You must promise me. Do you not see?" she went on, passionately. "If I were any one else, it would be different—do you not understand? To have my name dragged before the public—I could not bear it! I would rather he kill............