Some people might have called Charley Vining a spoiled child, who had had everything he wished for from his earliest days, and now, at the first disappointment in life, was turning pettish and angry. True enough so far, his every whim had been gratified, and perhaps this made him feel the more bitterly that this newly-awakened desire should be thwarted on every side.

Try what he would, all seemed against him—father, friends, even the object of his choice herself; and he needed no one to tell him that the greatest care was taken to prevent all interviews. That Laura had a great deal to do with it he was sure, with out Nelly’s confirmatory words. Max too might have some influence; but it was in vain that he thought—matters would only look more and more rugged on ahead; and at length, longing, in spite of his dislike to the meeting, for the evening to come, he cantered away.

“I only wish I were clever,” he muttered. “Some men would scheme a score of plans; but as for me, I understand horses and dogs, and that is about—”

Charley’s thoughts were directed the next moment into another channel; for turning a corner sharply, he came upon a family party from the Elms, consisting of Laura Bray and her two youngest sisters, with Max angrily stamping, clenched of fist and with his face distorted with rage.

“It’s all a confounded plot of yours, Laury—it is, bai Jove!” he screamed in an excited voice, the very counterpart of his mother’s.

“Indeed, indeed, Max, you wrong me,” she cried. “It was not—Hush! here’s Charley Vining.”

“How do, Miss Bray?” he said, reining in, and trying to be cordial.—“Ah, Max, I thought you were in town.—Well, little ones, how are you off for fruit?”

“Nelly’s going to have lots to-night,” said Do, the youngest “child;” and the blood flushed up in Charley’s face as he thought of the note he had received,—for he was as transparent as a girl.

“Bai Jove! ya-a-s,” said Max. “Been in town, but thought I’d run down again for a bit.”

“What for?” said Charley Vining’s jealous heart, as he recalled the excited way in which Max had been gesticulating before his sister.

Max looked half disposed to be sulky; but he caught a meaning glance from Laura, when, feeling that he could not afford to fall off from his part of the compact he had made with her, he commenced talking to his youngest sister, just as Charley’s eyes flashed, his nostrils distended, and, evidently moved by some strong emotion, he leaped from his horse, gazing eagerly the while at Max’s watch-chain, and then at Max himself, with a fierce questioning look; which the exquisite responded to with a quiet self-satisfied smirk, ran his fingers along the chain, played with the locket and other ornaments to it attached, and then, with a side glance of insolent triumph, he thrust the little finger of his kid glove into a ring which hung there, turned it about a few times, and then walked on with the girls.

Charley Vining’s heart felt as if something were making it contract, as if he were seized by some fearful spasm; for that ring—he would swear it—that ring had once encircled Ella Bedford’s finger, and had lain in his palm. He had noticed it particularly, as he had longed to press his lips to the hand it graced—no, that graced the little bauble. What did it mean, then?—what was Nelly’s news that she had to communicate? He could have groaned aloud as his heart whispered that he was—not supplanted—but that that empty-headed conceited dandy had been able to carry off the prize he had so earnestly sought—that heartless boasting fop, who esteemed a woman’s purest best feelings as deeply as he did the quality of his last box of cigars. It was plain enough the ring was a gift, and had been replaced by another.

“I am a fool—a romantic boy!” thought Charley to himself; “and there is no such thing as genuine passion and feeling in this world; at least, I am not discriminating enough to know it. Here have I been grasping at the shadow when I could have possessed the substance. But, O!” he mentally groaned, “how sweet was that shadow, and how bitter is the substance!”

“Have I offended you, Charley?” said a deep soft voice at his ear—a voice trembling with emotion; and starting back to the present, the muser saw that Max had walked on some yards in advance with the girls, and that, with his horse’s bridle over his arm, he was standing by Laura, whose hand was half raised, as if ready to be laid upon his arm, while her great dark eyes, swimming with tenderness, were gazing appealingly in his.

There was something new in Laura’s manner, something he had not seen before. She was quiet, subdued, and timid; there was a tremulousness in her voice; and with the feelings that agitated him then swaying him from side to side, it was with a strange sense of trouble that he turned to her, half flinching as he did so.

“Have I hurt your feelings in some way?” she said, for he did not reply, and her voice was lower and deeper. “You seem so changed, so different, and it grieves me more than you can think.”

It was very dangerous. There had been a sudden discovery coming directly upon Nelly’s announcement that she had something grievous to impart. He had evidently been ............