"For one, I don't trust them yaller-haired, smooth-spoke women! I never see one on 'em yet that wa'n't full o' Satan."  
It was Mrs. Rhoda Squires who uttered the above words; and she uttered them with considerable unnecessary clatter of the dishes she was engaged in washing. Abby Ann, a lank, dyspeptic-looking girl of fifteen or sixteen, was wiping the same, while the farmer himself was putting the finishing touches to his evening toilet. That toilet consisted, as usual, of a good wash at the pump, the turning down of his shirt-sleeves, and a brief application of the family comb, which occupied a convenient wall-pocket at one side of the small kitchen mirror—after which the worthy farmer considered himself in full dress, and ready for any social emergency likely to occur at Higgins' Four Corners.
 
"No," said Abby Ann, in response to her mother's remark, "she ain't no beauty, but her clo'es does fit elegant. I wish I hed the pattern o' that white polonay o' hern, but I wouldn't ask[162] her for it—no, not to save her!" she added, in praiseworthy emulation of the maternal spirit.
 
"Oh, you women folks!" interposed the farmer. "You're as full of envy 'n' backbitin' as a beechnut's full o' meat. Beauty! Ye don't know what beauty means. I tell you she is a beauty,—a real high-steppin' out-an'-out beauty!"
 
"She's as old as I be, every bit!" snapped Mrs. Squires. "An' she hain't got a speck o' color in her cheeks—an' she's a widder at that!"
 
Farmer Squires turned slowly around and deliberately surveyed the wiry, stooping figure of his wife from the small, rusty "pug" which adorned the back of her aggressive little head, and the sharp, energetically moving elbows, down to the hem of her stiffly starched calico gown.
 
"Look-a-here, Rhody," said he, a quizzical look on his shrewd, freckled countenance, "you've seen Gil Simmonses thorough-bred? Wall—that mare is nigh onto two year older'n our old Sal, but I swanny——"
 
Undoubtedly the red signal which flamed from Mrs. Squires's sallow cheeks warned her husband that he had said more than enough, for he came to a sudden pause, seized upon a pair of colossal cowhide shoes, upon which he had just bestowed an unusual degree of attention in the way of polish, and disappeared in the direction of the barn.
 
"He's jist as big a fool as ever!" she ejacu[163]lated. "The Lord knows I didn't want no city folks a-wearin' out my carpets, an' a drinkin' up my cream, an' a-turnin' up their noses at me! But no—ever sence he heared that Deacon Fogg made nigh onto a hundred dollars last year a-keepin' summer-boarders, his fingers has been a-itchin' an' his mouth a-waterin', an' nothin' for't but I must slave myself to death the whole summer for a pack o' stuck-up——"
 
She paused—for a soft rustle of garments and a faint perfume filled the kitchen, and turning, Mrs. Squires beheld the object of her vituperation standing before her.
 
She was certainly yellow-haired, and though not "every bit as old" as her hostess, a woman whose first youth was past; yet so far as delicately turned outlines, and pearly fairness of skin go, she might have been twenty. The eyes which met Mrs. Squires's own pale orbs were of an intense, yet soft, black, heavy-lidded and languid, and looked out from beneath their golden fringes with a calm, slow gaze, as if it were hardly worth their while to look at all. A smile, purely conventional, yet sweet with the graciousness of good breeding, parted the fine, soft lips.
 
Her mere presence made the room seem small and mean, and Mrs. Squires, into whose soured and jealous nature the aspect of beauty and grace ate like a sharp acid, smarted under a[164] freshly awakened sense of her own physical insignificance.
 
She received her guest with a kind of defiant insolence, which could not, however, conceal her evident embarrassment, while Abby Ann retreated ignominiously behind the pantry door.
 
"I came to ask if Mr. Squires succeeded in finding some one to take us about," said the lady. "He thought he could."
 
Her voice was deep-toned and sweet, her manner conciliatory.
 
"I believe he did," replied Mrs. Squires, curtly. "Abby Ann, go tell your father Mis' Jerome wants him."
 
Abby Ann obeyed, and the lady passed out into the front hall, and to the open door. A cascade of filmy lace and muslin floated from her shoulders and trailed across the shiny oil-cloth. As the last frill swept across the threshold, Mrs. Squires closed the door upon it with a sharp report.
 
Before the door a little girl was playing on the green slope, while an elderly woman with a grave, kindly face sat looking on.
 
Farmer Squires, summoned by his daughter, came round the corner of the house. He touched his straw hat awkwardly.
 
"They's a young feller," he said, "that lives a mile or so up the river, that has a tip-top team—a[165] kivered kerridge an' a fust-rate young hoss. His folks has seen better days, the Grangers has, an' Rob is proud as Lucifer, but they's a big mortgage on the farm, an' he's 'mazin' ambitious ter pay it off. So when I told him about you, he said he'd see about it. He wouldn't let no woman drive his hoss, but he thought mebbe he'd drive ye round hisself. Shouldn't wonder if he was up to-night."
 
"I wish he might come," said the lady. "My physician said I must ride every day, and I am too cowardly to drive if the horse were ever so gentle."
 
"No—I guess you couldn't hold in Rob's colt with them wrists," said he, glancing admiringly at the slender, jewelled hands. "I shouldn't wonder if that was Rob now."
 
At this moment wheels were heard rapidly approaching, and a carriage appeared in sight. A young man was driving. He held the reins with firm hand, keeping his eyes fixed upon the fine-stepping animal, turned dexterously up the slope, brought the horse to a stand-still before the door, and sprang lightly to the ground.
 
He was a remarkable-looking young fellow, tall above the average, and finely proportioned. Hair and mustache were dark, eyes of an indescribable gray, and shaded by thick, black brows. A proud yet frank smile rested on his handsome face.
 
"Hello, Rob," said Farmer Squires. "Here's[166] the lady that wanted ter see ye. Mister Granger, Mis' Jerome."
 
The lady bowed, with a trace of hauteur in her manner at first, but she looked with one of her slow glances into the young man's face, and then extended her hand, and the white fingers rested for an instant in his brown palm. Granger returned her greeting with a bow far from awkward, while a rich color surged into his sun-browned face.
 
"That is a magnificent horse of yours, Mr. Granger," said Mrs. Jerome. "I hope he is tractable. I was nearly killed in a runaway once, and since then I am very timid."
 
"Oh, he is very gentle," said Granger, caressing the fiery creature's beautiful head. "If you like, I will take you for a drive now—if it is not too late."
 
"Certainly, I would like it very much. Nettie," she said, turning to the woman, "bring my hat and Lill's, and some wraps."
 
The woman obeyed, and in a few moments Mrs. Jerome and her child were whirling over the lovely country road. Their departure was witnessed by the entire Squires family, including an obese dog of somnolent habits, and old Sal, the gray mare, who thrust her serious face over the stone wall opposite, and gazed contemplatively down the road after the retreating carriage.
 
[167]
 
"Do you think you will be afraid?" asked Granger, as he helped Mrs. Jerome to alight.
 
"Oh no," she answered, with a very charming smile. "The horse is as docile as he is fiery. I shall enjoy the riding immensely. Do you think you can come every day?"
 
"I shall try to—at least for the present."
 
Mrs. Jerome watched the carriage out of sight.
 
"How very interesting!" she was thinking. "Who would dream of finding such a face here! And yet—I don't know—one would hardly find such a face out in the world. Perhaps it will not be so dull after all. I thought they were all like Squires!"
 
For several succeeding weeks there was seldom a day when the fiery black horse and comfortable old carriage did not appear before the farm-house door, and but few of those days when Mrs. Jerome did not avail herself of the opportunity, sometimes accompanied by the child and Nettie, oftener by the child alone.
 
The interest and curiosity with which young Granger had inspired Mrs. Jerome in the beginning, deepened continually. A true son of the soil, descendant of a long line of farmers, whence came this remarkable physical beauty, this refined, almost poetic, temperament, making it impossible for him, in spite of the unconventionally of his[168] manner, to do a rude or ungraceful act? It was against tradition, she thought,—against precedent. It puzzled and fascinated her. She found it impossible to treat him as an inferior, notwithstanding the relation in which he stood to her. Indeed, she soon ceased to think of that at all. The books which she took with her upon their protracted drives were seldom opened. She found it pleasanter to lie back in the corner of the carriage, and watch the shifting panorama of hill and forest and lake through which they were driving. That the handsome head with its clustering locks and clear-cut profile, which was always between her and the landscape, proved a serious obstruction to the view, and that her eyes quite as often occupied themselves with studying the play of those mobile lips, and the nervous tension of those sun-browned hands upon the reins, was, perhaps, natural and unavoidable.
 
She talked with him a great deal, too, in her careless, fluent way, or rather to him, for the conversation on Granger's part was limited to an occasional eager question, a flash of his fine eyes, or an appreciative smile at some witty turn. She talked of many things, but with delicate tact avoided such themes as might prove embarrassing to an unsophisticated mind—including books.
 
It was, therefore, with a little shock of surprise that she one day found him buried in the pages of[169] Tennyson, a volume of whose poems she had left upon the carriage seat while she and Lill explored a neighboring pasture for raspberries.
 
He was lying at full length in the sweet-fern, one arm beneath his head, his face eager and absorbed. He did not notice her approach, and she had been standing near him for some moments before he became aware of her presence. Then, closing the book, he sprang to his feet.
 
"So you read poetry, Mr. Granger?" she said, arching her straight brows slightly.
 
"Sometimes," he answered. "I have read a good many of the old poets. My grandfather left a small library, which came into my possession."
 
"Then you have read Shakspere——" began the lady.
 
"Yes," interrupted Granger, "Shakspere, and Milton, and Pope, and Burns. Is it so strange?" he asked, turning upon her one of his swift glances. "If one plowman may write poetry another plowman may read it, I suppose."
 
He spoke with bitterness, a deep flush rising to his temples.
 
"And have you read modern authors too?"
 
"Very little. There is no opportunity here. There is nothing here—nothing!" he answered, flinging aside a handful of leaves he had unwittingly gathered.
 
"Why do you stay here, then?"
 
[170]
 
The question sprang, almost without volition, from her lips. She would gladly have recalled it the next moment.
 
Granger gave her another swift glance, and it seemed to her that he repressed the answer which was already upon his tongue. A strange, bitter smile came to his lips.
 
"Let the shoemaker stick to his last," he said, turning toward the carriage, "and the farmer to his plow."
 
During the homeward ride he was even more taciturn than usual. At the door, Mrs. Jerome offered him the volume of Tennyson. He accepted it, with but few words.
 
When he returned it, a few days later, it opened of itself, and between the leaves lay a small cluster of wild roses, and some lines were faintly marked. They were these:
 
"When she made pause, I knew not for delight;
Because with sudden motion from the ground
She raised her piercing orbs and filled with light
The interval of sound."
"Cleopatra!" Mrs. Jerome repeated softly, "and like her, I thought there were 'no men to govern in this wood.' Poor fellow!"
 
It was a few days, perhaps a week, later, when Mrs. Jerome, who to the mystification of her host and hostess had received no letters, and, to the best[171] of their knowledge, had written none, up to this time, followed a sudden impulse, and wrote the following epistle:
 
"My dear friend and physician:—You advised, no, commanded me, to eschew the world for a season, utterly and completely. I have obeyed you to the letter. I will spare you details—enough that I am gaining rapidly, and, wonderful to say, I am not in the least ennuyée. On the contrary. The cream is delicious, the spring water exquisite, the scenery lovely. Even the people interest me. I am your debtor, as never before, and beg leave to sign myself,
 
Your grateful friend and patient,
 
Helen Jerome.
 
"P. S.—It would amuse me to know what the world says of my disappearance. Keep my secret, on your very soul.
 
H. J."
 
Midsummer came, and passed, and Mrs. Jerome still lingered. In her pursuit for health she had been indefatigable. There was hardly a road throughout the region which had been left untried, hardly a forest path unexplored, or a mountain spring untasted.
 
"For a woman that sets up for delicate," remarked Mrs. Squires, as from her point of observation behind the window-blinds she watched Mrs. Jerome spring with a girl's elastic grace from the carriage, "for a woman that sets up for delicate, she can stan' more ridin' around, an' scramblin' up mountains, than any woman I ever see. I couldn't do it—that's sure an' sartain!"
 
"It's sperrit, Rhody, sperrit. Them's the kind[172] o' women that'll go through fire and flood to git what they're after."
 
"Yes, an' drag everybody along with 'em," added Mrs. Squires, meaningly.
 
There was one place to which they rode which held a peculiar charm for Mrs. Jerome,—a small lake, deep set among the hills and lying always in the shadow. Great pines grew down to its brink and hung far out over its surface, which was almost hidden by thickly growing reeds and the broad leaves and shining cups of water-lilies. Dragonflies darted over it, and a dreamy silence invested it. A boat lay moored at the foot of the tangled path which led from the road, and they often left the carriage, and rowed and floated about until night-fall among the reeds and lilies.
 
They were floating in this way, near the close of a sultry August afternoon. Lill lay coiled upon a shawl in the bottom of the boat, her arms full of lilies whose lithe stems she was twining together, talking to herself, meanwhile, in a pretty fashion of her own.
 
Granger was seated in the bow of the boat, with folded arms, and eyes fixed upon the dark water. His face was pale and moody. It had worn that expression often of late, and he had fallen into a habit of long intervals of silence and abstraction.
 
The beautiful woman who sat opposite him, idly[173] trailing one hand, whiter and rosier than the lily it held, in the water, seemed also under some unusual influence. She had not spoken for some time. Now and then she would raise the white lids of her wonderful eyes, and let them sweep slowly over the downcast face of Granger.
 
The dusky water lay around them still as death, reflecting in black masses the overhanging pines. The air was warm and full of heavy odors and drowsy sounds, through which a bird's brief song rang out, now and then, thrillingly sweet.
 
The atmosphere seemed to Mrs. Jerome to become every moment more oppressive. A singular agitation began to stir in her breast, which showed itself in a faint streak of red upon either cheek. At last this feeling became unendurable, and she started with a sudden motion which caused the boat to rock perilously.
 
Granger, roused by this movement, seized the oars, and with a skilful stroke brought the boat again to rest.
 
"Will you row across to the other side?" the lady said. "I saw some rare orchids there which must be in bloom by this time."
 
Granger took up the oars again and rowed as directed. When the orchids had been found and gathered, at Mrs. Jerome's request he spread her a shawl beneath a tree, and seated himself near her.
 
[174]
 
"How beautiful it is here!" she said, after a pause. "I would like to stay and see the moon rise over those pines. It rises early to-night. You don't mind staying?" she added, looking at Granger.
 
"No—" he answered, slowly, "I don't mind it in the least."
 
"How different it must look here in winter!" she said, presently.
 
"Yes; as different as life and death."
 
"I cannot bear to think I shall never see it again," she said, after another and longer pause, "and yet I must leave it so soon!"
 
"Soon!" Granger echoed, with a start. "You are going away soon, then?" he asked, in a husky voice.
 
"Yes—very soon—in two weeks, I think."
 
Granger made no reply. He bent his head and began searching among the leaves and moss. His eyes fell upon one of the lady's hands, which lay carelessly by her side, all its perfections and the splendor of its jewels relieved against the crimson background of the shawl.
 
He could not look away from it, but bent lower and lower, until his hair and his quick breath swept across the fair fingers.
 
At the touch a wonderful change passed over the woman. She started and trembled violently—her face grew soft and tender. She raised the hand which was upon her lap, bent forward and[175] laid it, hesitatingly, tremblingly, upon the bowed, boyish head.
 
"Robert! Robert!" she whispered.
 
Granger raised his head. For a moment, which seemed an age, the two looked into each other's face. Hers was full of yearning tenderness and suffused with blushes—his, rigid and incredulous, yet lighted up with a wild joy. A hoarse cry broke from his lips—he thrust aside the hand which lingered upon his head, sprang to his feet, and went away.
 
The color faded from Mrs. Jerome's face. She sat, for a moment, as if turned to stone, her eyes, dilated and flashing, fixed upon Granger's retreating figure. Then, with an impetuous gesture, she rose and went to look for Lill. A scream from the little girl fell upon her ears at the same moment. She had strayed out upon a log which extended far into the water, and stood poised, like a bird, upon its extreme end. Round her darted a blue-mailed dragon-fly, against which the little arms were beating in terror. Another instant, and she would be in the water. Mrs. Jerome sprang toward her, but Granger was already there. As he gave the frightened child into her mother's arms, he looked into her face. She returned his gaze with a haughty glance, and walked swiftly toward the boat. He took his seat in the bow and rowed across the lake in silence. Lill buried her scared[176] little face in her mother's lap, and no one spoke. As they landed, a great, dark bird rose suddenly out of the bushes, and with a hideous, mocking cry, like the laugh of a maniac, swept across the water. The woman started and drew the child closer to her breast.
 
They drove along in silence until within a mile of the Squires' farm, when, without a word, Granger turned into a road over which their drives had never before extended. It was evidently a by-way, and little used, for grass grew thickly between the ruts. On the brow of a hill he halted.
 
Below, in the valley, far back from the road-side, stood an old, square mansion, of a style unusual in that region. It must have been a place of consequence in its day and generation. The roof was hipped, and broken by dormer windows, and a carved lintel crowned the door-way. An air of age and decay hung about it and the huge, black barns with sunken roofs, and the orchard, full of gnarled and barren trees, which flanked it. A broad, grass-grown avenue, stiffly bordered by dishevelled-lookin............