[figure description] Page 007.[end figure description]

ROBERT, son of Arthur and Anna Leighton, born
April 5th, 18—,” was the record which the old
family Bible bore of our hero's birth, parentage, and
name, but by his mother and those who knew him best, he
was always called Roy, and by that name we introduce him
to our readers on a pleasant morning in May, when, wrapped
in a heavy shawl, he sat in a corner of a car with a tired,
worn look upon his face, and his teeth almost chattering with
the cold.

A four-month's acquaintance with the chill fever, taken
at the time the river rose so high, and he worked all day to
save some of his tenants who lived along the meadows, had
wasted him to a shadow, and he was on his way to the West,
hoping that change of air and scene would accomplish what
bottles and bottles of quinine, with all the usual remedies
for fever and ague, had failed to do.

Beside him sat his mother, a fair-haited, proud-faced little
lady of fifty, or more, who conducted herself with a dignity

[figure description] Page 008.[end figure description]

becoming the mistress of Leighton Homestead, her son's
beautiful home on the Hudson.

Anna Leighton had been much younger than her husband,
and at the time of her marriage there were rumors of another
suitor in whose brown beard there were no threads of
gray, and of whom Mr. Leighton had been fearfully jealous.
If this were true, it accounted in part for his strange will, by
which only a small portion of his large fortune was left to
his wife, who was to forfeit even this in the event of a second
marriage. In her case, love proved more potent than gold,
and, two years after her husband's death, she married Charlie
Churchill, who made up in family and blood what he
lacked in lands and money. There was a trip to Europe, a
dolce far niente dream of happiness for eighteen months amid
the glories of the eastern hemisphere, and then, widowed a
second time, Anna Churchill came one dreary autumn day
to the Leighton Place, on the river side, where, six months
after, she gave birth to a little boy, for whom Roy, then a
mere lad, stood as one of the sponsors in the old ivy-grown
church at the foot of the hill.

Since that time, Mrs. Churchill had lived at the Leighton
Homestead, and been, with her younger son, altogether dependent
upon her eldest born, who had made her, to all
intents and purposes, the honored and welcome mistress of
his house. Only one sore point was there between them,
and that was handsome and winning, but unprincipled
Charlie,—who, looking upon his brother's fortune as his own,
would, if uncontrolled, have spent it with a recklessness
which would soon have brought the Leighton Homestead
under the auctioneer's hammer.

Charlie was a spoiled boy, the neighbors said; and when,
at sixteen, he coolly appropriated his brother's gold watch,
together with a hundred dollars in money, and went off to
Canada, “to travel and see a little of the world,” they

[figure description] Page 009.[end figure description]

shook their heads, and said Roy would be justified in never
taking him again into favor.

But Roy did not think so, and when Charlie had fished all
summer among the Thousand Islands, and spent his hundred
dollars, and pawned his watch, and fallen sick in Montreal,
Roy went for the young scamp, who cried like a child
at sight of him, and called him “a brick,” and a “dear old
Roy,” and promised he would never be bad again, and in
proof thereof would, if Roy said so, join the church, or take
a class in Sunday-school, or go through college, he did
not care which. And so Roy took him to the Academy in
Canandaigua, and said that to the teachers which resulted
in Mr. Charlie's being kept rather closer than was altogether
agreeable to him. After a time, however, the strict
surveillance was relaxed, and by his winning ways, he grew
to be very popular with both teachers and pupils, and many
a slight misdemeanor was winked at and overlooked, so
powerfully did his soft blue eyes and pleasant smile plead
for him.

At the time our story opens he had been in Canandaigua
nearly a year and a half, and Mrs. Churchill and Roy were
intending to stop for a day at the hotel and visit him.
There were but few passengers in the car occupied by Roy
and his mother, and these were mostly of the quiet, undemonstrative
kind, who nodded in their seats, or read the newspaper,
and accepted matters, air included, as they found
them; consequently, poor Roy, who, shaking with ague, had
a morbid dread of open windows, had for hours luxuriated
in an atmosphere which made a group of young girls exclaim
with disgust, when at a station thirty miles or so from Canandaigua
they came trooping in, their cheeks glowing with
health and their eyes sparkling with excitement.

There were four of them, and appropriating the two seats directly
opposite Roy, they turned one of them back, and to the

[figure description] Page 010.[end figure description]

great horror of the invalid opened both the windows, thereby
letting in a gust of air which blew directly across Roy's face,
while Mrs. Churchill received an ugly cinder in her eye,
which nearly blinded her. In blissful ignorance of the discomfort
they were causing, or of the very uncomplimentary
things the sick man and his mother were thinking, the girls
chattered on, and the cool wind blew the ribbons on their
hats far out behind, and tossed their veils airily, and lifted
the golden-brown curls of the one who seemed to be the
life of the party, and who talked the most, and kept the
others shrieking with laughter, while her bright eyes glanced
rapidly around the car, noting everything and everybody, until
at last they lighted upon the pair just across the aisle, Mrs.
Churchill working away at the obstinate cinder, and Roy
wrapping his shawl more closely about him, and wondering
why girls would always persist in keeping the windows open
when everybody else was freezing. Roy was not in a very
amiable state of mind, and he showed it in his eyes, which
flashed a savage glance at the girl with the curls of golden-brown,
whom her companions addressed as Edna. She was
the worst of them all, for she had opened both the windows,
and then with the exclamation that she was “roasted alive,”
sat fanning herself briskly with the coquettish little hat she
had taken from her head. As she met Roy's angry glance,
the smile which a moment before had wreathed her lips,
vanished suddenly, and she looked at him curiously, as if
half expecting him to speak. But Roy was silent for a time;
then, as the bright, restless eyes of the offender kept meeting
his own inquiringly, he mustered courage to say:

“Young lady, you'll oblige me by shutting that window.
Don't you see I am catching cold?” and a loud sneeze attested
to the truth of what he said.

It was not like Roy Leighton thus to address any one,
and he repented of his surliness in an instant, and wished

[figure description] Page 011.[end figure description]

he might do something to atone. But it was now too
late. He had shown himself a savage, and must abide the
result.

The window was shut with a bang, and the gay laughter
and merry talk were hushed for a time, while the girl called
Edna busied herself with writing or drawing something upon
a bit of paper, which elicited peals of laughter from her companions
to whom it was shown. Roy could not help fancying
that it in some way related to himself, and his mother
thought the same, and was mentally styling them “a set of
ill-bred, impertinent chits,” when the train stopped before
the Canandaigua depot, where, as usual, a crowd of people
was assembled. This was the destination of the girls, who,
gathering up their satchels and parasols, hurried from the
car in such haste that the bit of paper which had so much
amused them was forgotten, and fluttered down at Mrs.
Churchill's feet. Her first impulse, as she stooped to pick it
up, was to restore it to its owner, but when she saw what it
was, she uttered an angry exclamation, and thrust it into
her son's hand, saying:

“Look, Roy, at the caricature the hussy has made of us.”

No man likes to be ridiculed, and Roy Leighton was not
an exception, and the hot blood tingled in his pale cheeks as
he saw a very correct likeness of himself, wrapped in a
bundle of shawls, with his eyes cast reproachfully toward a
shadowy group of girls across the aisle, while from his mouth
issued the words, “Shut that window, miss. Don't you see
I am freezing?”

Beside him was his mother, her handkerchief to her eye,
and the expression of her face exactly what it had been
when she worked at the troublesome cinder. Instead of a
hat, the mischievous Edna had perched a bonnet on Roy's
head, and under this abominable picture had written, “Miss
Betty and her mother, as they looked on their travelling

[figure description] Page 012.[end figure description]

excursion. Drawn by Edna Browning, Ont. Fem. Sem.,
May 10th.”

It was only a caricature; but so admirably was it done,
and so striking was his own likeness in spite of the bonnet,
that Roy could not help acknowledging to himself that Edna
Browning was a natural artist; and he involuntarily began
to feel an interest in the young girl who, if she could execute
this sketch in so short a time, must be capable of better
things. Still, mingled with this interest was a feeling of
indignation that he should have been so insulted by a mere
school-girl, and when, as he alighted from the car, he caught
the flutter of her blue ribbons, and heard her merry laugh as
she made her way through the crowd to the long flight of
stairs, and then with her companions walked rapidly toward
Main street, he felt a desire to box her ears, as she deserved
that they should be boxed.

Thrusting the picture into his pocket, he conducted his
mother through the crowd, and then looked about in quest
of his brother, who was to have been there to meet them,
and who soon appeared, panting for breath and apologizing
for his delay.

“Professor Hollister wouldn't let me out till the last minute,
and then I stopped an instant to speak to some girls
who came on this train. How are you, mother, and you,
old Roy? I don't believe I should have known you. That
ague has given you a hard one, and made you shaky on your
legs, hasn't it? Here, lean on me, while we climb these
infernally steep stairs. Mother, I'll carry that satchel.
What ails your eye? looks as if you'd been fighting. Here,
this way. Don't go into that musty parlor. Come on to
No. —. I've got your rooms all engaged, the best in the
hotel.”

And thus talking, with his invalid brother leaning on his
arm, Charlie Churchill led the way to the handsome rooms

[figure description] Page 013.[end figure description]

which overlooked the lake and the hills beyond. Roy was
very tired, and he lay down at once, while his mother made
some changes in her toilet, and from a travel-soiled, rather
dowdy-looking woman in gray, was transformed into a fair,
comely and stylish matron, whose rich black silk trailed far
behind her, and whose frills of costly lace fell softly about
her neck and plump white hands as she went in to dinner
with Charlie, who was having a holiday, and who ordered
claret and champagne, and offered it to those about him
with as much freedom as if it was his money instead of his
brother's which would pay for it all.

Roy's dinner was served in his room, and while waiting
for it he studied Edna Browning's sketch, which had a strange
fascination for him, despite the pangs of wounded vanity he
felt when he saw what a guy she had made of him.

“I wonder if I do look like that,” he said, and he went
to the glass and examined himself carefully. “Yes, I do,”
he continued. “Put a poke bonnet on me and the likeness
is perfect, hollows in my cheeks, fretful expression and
all. I've been sick and coddled, and petted until I've grown
a complete baby, and a perfect boor, but there's no reason
why I need to look so confounded cross and ill-tempered,
and I won't either. Edna Browning has done me some
good at least. I wonder who the little wretch is. Perhaps
Charlie knows; she seems to be here at school.”

But Roy did not ask Charlie, for the asking would have
involved an explanation, and he would a little rather not
show his teasing brother the picture which he put away
so carefully in his pocket-book. They drove that afternoon
in the most stylish turn-out the town afforded, a handsome
open barouche, and Roy declined the cushion his mother
suggested for his back, and only suffered her to spread his
shawl across his lap instead of wrapping it around him to
his chin. His overcoat and scarf were all he should need,

[figure description] Page 014.[end figure description]

he said, and he tried to sit up straight, and not look sick,
as Charlie, who managed the reins himself, drove them
through the principal streets of the town, and then out into
the country for a mile or two.

On their way back they passed the seminary just as a
group of girls came out accompanied by a teacher, and
equipped apparently for a walk. There were thirty or more
of them, but Roy saw only one, and of her he caught a
glimpse, as she tossed back her golden brown curls and
bowed familiarly to Charlie, whose hat went up and whose
horses sheered just enough to make his mother utter an exclamation
of fear. She, too, had recognized the wicked
Edna by her dress, had seen the bow to Charlie, with Charlie's
acknowledgment of it, and when the gay horses were
trotting soberly down the street, she asked,—

“Who was that girl you bowed to, Charlie? the bold-faced
thing with curls, I mean.”

Now if she had left off that last, the chances are that
Charlie would have told her at once, for he knew just whom
she meant. A dozen of the girls had bowed to him, but he
had had but one in his mind when he lifted his hat so gracefully,
and it hurt him to hear her called “a bold-faced
thing.” So he answered with the utmost nonchalance.

“I don't know which one you mean. I bowed to them
all collectively, and to no one individually. They are girls
from the seminary.”

“Yes, I know; but I mean the one in blue with the long
curls.”

“Big is she?” and Charlie tried to think.

“No, very small.”

“Dark face and turned-up nose?” was the next query.

“No, indeed; fair-faced, but as to her nose I did not
notice. I think she was on the same car with us.”

“Oh, I guess you must mean Edna Browning. She's

p595-020 [figure description] Page 015.[end figure description]

short, and has long curls,” and Charlie just touched his
spirited horses, causing them to bound so suddenly as to
jerk his mother's head backward, making her teeth strike
together with such force as to hurt her lip; but she asked
no more questions with regard to Edna Browning, who had
recognized in Charlie Churchill's companions her fellow-passengers
in the car, and was wondering if that dumpy
woman and that muff of a man could be the brother and
mother whom Charlie had said he was expecting when she
met him that morning in the street.