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THERE was an unnatural flush on the rector's
face, and his lips were very white, when he
came before his people that Sunday morning, for
he felt that he was approaching the crisis of his fate;
that he had only to look across the row of heads, up to
where Anna sat, and he should know the truth. Such
thoughts savored far too much of the world which he had
renounced, he knew, and he had striven to banish them
from his mind; but they were there still, and would be
there until he had glanced once at Anna, who was occupying
her accustomed seat, and quietly turning to the
chant she was so soon to sing: “Oh, come, let us sing
unto the Lord; let us heartily rejoice in the strength of
His salvation.” The words echoed through the house,
filling it with rare melody, for Anna was in perfect tone
that morning, and the rector, listening to her with hands
folded upon his prayer-book, felt that she could not thus
“heartily rejoice,” meaning all the while to darken his
whole life, as she surely would if she told him “no.” He
was looking at her now, and she met his eyes at last, but

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quickly dropped her own, while he was sure that the
roses burned a little brighter on her cheek, and that her
voice trembled just enough to give him hope, and help him
in his fierce struggle to cast her from his mind, and think
only of the solemn services in which he was engaging.
He could not guess that the proud woman who had sailed
so majestically into church, and followed so reverently
every prescribed form, bowing in the creed far lower than
ever bow was made before in Hanover, had played him
false, and was the dark shadow in his path.

That day was a trying one for Arthur, for, just as the
chant was ended, and the psalter was beginning, a handsome
carriage dashed up to the door, and had he been
wholly blind, he would have known, by the sudden sound
of turning heads, and the suppressed hush which ensued,
that a perfect hailstorm of dignity was entering St.
Mark's.

It was the Hethertons, from Prospect Hill, whose arrival
in town had been so long expected. There was Mrs.
Hetherton, who, more years ago than she cared to remember,
was born in Hanover, but who had lived most of
her life either in Paris, New York, or New Orleans, and
who this year had decided to fit up her father's old place,
and honor it with her presence for a few weeks at least;
also, Fanny Hetherton, a brilliant brunette, into whose
intensely black eyes no one could long look, they were so
bright, so piercing, and seemed so thoroughly to read one's

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inmost thoughts; also, Colonel Hetherton, who had
served in the Mexican war, and retiring on the glory of
having once led a forlorn hope, now spent his time in acting
as attendant on his fashionable wife and daughter;
also, young Simon Bellamy, who, while obedient to the
flashing of Miss Fanny's black eyes, still found stolen opportunities
for glancing at the fifth and last remaining
member of the party, filing up the aisle to the large,
square pew, where old Judge Howard used to sit, and
which was still owned by his daughter. Mrs. Hetherton
liked being late at church, and, notwithstanding that the
colonel had worked himself into a tempest of excitement,
had tied and untied her bonnet-strings half a dozen times,
changed her rich basquine for a thread lace mantilla, and
then, just as the bell from St. Mark's gave forth its
last note, and her husband's impatience was oozing out
in sundry little oaths, sworn under his breath, she produced
and fitted on her fat, white hands a new pair of
Alexanders, keeping herself as cool, and quiet, and ladylike
as if outside upon the gravelled walk there was no
wrathful husband threatening to drive off and leave her,
if she did not “quit her cussed vanity, and come along.”

Such was the Hetherton party, and they created quite
as great a sensation as Mrs. Hetherton could desire, first
upon the people nearest the door, who rented the cheaper
pews; then upon those farther up the aisle, and then upon
Mrs. Meredith, who, attracted by the rustling of heavy

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silk and the perfume emanating from Mrs. Hetherton's
handkerchief, slightly turned her head at first, and as the
party swept by, stopped her reading entirely, and involuntarily
started forward, while a smile of pleasure flitted
across her face as Fanny's black, saucy eyes took her, with,
others, within their range of vision, and Fanny's black head
nodded a quick nod of recognition. The Hethertons and
Mrs. Meredith were evidently friends, and in her wonder
at seeing them there, in stupid Hanover, the great lady
forgot for a while to read, but kept her eyes upon them all,
especially upon the fifth and last-mentioned member of
the party, the graceful little blonde, whose eyes might
have caught their hue from the deep blue of the summer
sky, and whose long silken curls fell in a golden shower
beneath the fanciful French hat. She was a beautiful
young creature, and even Anna Ruthven leaned forward
to look at her as she shook out her airy muslin and
dropped into her seat. For a moment the little coquettish
head bowed reverently, but at the first sound of the
rector's voice it lifted itself up quickly, and Anna saw
the bright color which rushed into her cheeks, and the
eager joy which danced in the blue eyes, fixed so earnestly
upon the rector, who, at sight of her, started suddenly,
and paused an instant in his reading. Who was she, and
what was she to Arthur Leighton, Anna asked herself,
while, by the fierce pang which shot through her heart as
she watched the stranger and the clergyman, she knew

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that she loved the rector of St. Mark's, even if she had
doubted it before.

Anna was not an ill-tempered girl, but the sight of
those gay city people annoyed her, and when, as she sang
the Jubilate Deo, she saw the soft blue orbs of the blonde
and the coal-black eyes of the brunette turned wonderingly
towards her, she was conscious of returning their
glance with as much of scorn as it was possible for her to
show. Anna tried to ask forgiveness for that feeling in
the prayers which followed; but when the services were
over, and she saw a little figure in blue and white
flitting up the aisle to where Arthur, still in his robes,
stood waiting for her, an expression upon his face which
she could not define she felt that she had prayed in vain;
and with a bitterness she had never before experienced,
she watched the meeting between them, growing more and
more bitter as she saw the upturned face, the wreathing
of the rose-bud lips into the sweetest of smiles, and the
tiny white hand, which Arthur took and held while he
spoke words she would have given much to hear.

“Why do I care? It's nothing to me,” she thought,
and, with a proud step, she was leaving the church, when
her aunt, who was shaking hands with the Herthertons,
signed for her to join her.

The blonde was now coming down the aisle with Mr.
Leighton, and joined the group just as Anna was introduced
as “My niece, Miss Anna Ruthven.”

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“Oh, you are the Anna of whom I have heard so much
from Ada Fuller. You were at school together in Troy,”
Miss Fanny said, her searching eyes taking in every point
as if she were deciding how far her new acquaintance was
entitled to the praise she had heard bestowed upon her.

“I knew Miss Fuller,—yes;” and Anna bowed haughily,
turning next to the blonde, Miss Lucy Harcourt,
who was telling Colonel Hetherton how she had met Mr.
Leighton first among the Alps, and afterwards travelled
with him until their party returned to Paris, where he left
them for America.

“I was never so surprised in my life as I was to find
him here. Why, it actually took my breath for a moment,”
she went on, “and I greatly fear that, instead of
listening to his sermon, I have been roaming amid that
Alpine scenery, and basking again in the soft moonlight
of Venice. I heard you singing, though,” she said, when
Anna was presented to her, “and it helped to keep up
the illusion, it was so like the music heard from a gondola
that night when Mr. Leighton and myself made a
voyage through the streets of Venice. Oh, it was so
beautiful,” and the blue eyes turned to Mr. Leighton for
confirmation of what the lips had uttered.

“Which was beautiful?—Miss Ruthven's singing or
that moonlight night in Venice?” young Bellamy asked,
smiling down upon the little lady, who still held Anna's
hand, and who laughingly replied:

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“Both, of course, though the singing is just now freshest
in my memory, I liked it so much. You must have
had splendid teachers,” and she turned again to Anna,
whose face was suffused with blushes as she met the rector's
eyes, for to his suggestions and criticisms and teachings
she owed much of that cultivation which had so
pleased and surprised the stranger.

“Oh, yes, I see it was Arthur. He tried to train me
once, and told me I had a squeak in my voice. Don't
you remember?—those frightfully rainy days in Rome?”
Miss Harcourt said, the Arthur dropping from her lips
as readily as if they had always been accustomed to speak
it.

She was a talkative, coquettish little lady, but there
was something about her so genuine and cordial, that
Anna felt the ice thawing around her heart, and even returned
the pressure of the fingers which had twined themselves
around her, as Lucy rattled on until the whole
party left the church. It had been decided that Mrs.
Meredith should call at Prospect Hill as early as Tuesday,
at least; and, still holding Anna's hand, Miss Harcourt
whispered to her the pleasure it would be to see her
again.

“I know I am going to like you. I can tell directly I
see a person,—can't I, Arthur?” and kissing her hand
to Mrs. Meredith, Anna, and the rector, too, she sprang
into the carriage, and was whirled rapidly away.

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“Who is she?” Anna asked, and Mr. Leighton replied:

“She is an orphan niece of Colonel Hetherton's and a
great heiress, I believe, though I never paid much attention
to the absurd stories told concerning her wealth.”

“You met in Europe,” Mrs. Meredith said, and he replied:

“Yes, she has been quite an invalid, and has spent
four years abroad, where I accidently met her. It was a
very pleasant party, and I was induced to join it, though
I was with them in all not more than four months.”

He told this very rapidly, and an acute observer would
have seen that he did not care particularly to talk of
Lucy Harcourt, with Anna for an auditor. She was
walking very demurely at his side, pondering in her mind
the circumstances which could have brought the rector
and Lucy Harcourt in such familiar relations as to warrant
her calling him Arthur, and appearing so delighted to see
him.

“Can it be there was anything between them?” she
thought, and her heart began to harden against the innocent
Lucy, at that very moment chatting so pleasantly
of her and of Arthur, too, replying to Mrs. Hetherton,
who suggested that Mr. Leighton would be more appropriate
for a clergyman:

“I shall say Arthur, for he told me I might when we
were in Rome. I could not like him as well if I called

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him Mr. Leighton. Isn't he splendid though in his
gown, and wasn't his sermon grand?”

“What was the text?” asked Mr. Bellamy mischievously,
and with a toss of her golden curls and a merry
twinkle of her eyes, Lucy replied, “Simon, Simon, lovest
thou me?”

Quick as a flash of lightning the hot blood mounted to
his face, while Fanny cast upon him a searching glance
as if she would read him through. Fanny Hetherton
would have given much to know the answer which
Mr. Simon Bellamy mentally gave to that question, put
by one whom he had known but little more than three
months. It was not fair for Lucy to steal away all Fanny's
beaux, as she surely had been doing ever since her
feet touched the soil of the New World, and truth to tell
Fanny had borne it very well, until young Mr. Bellamy
showed signs of desertion. Then the spirit of resistance
was roused, and she watched her lover narrowly, gnashing
her teeth sometimes when she saw his ill-concealed admiration
for her sprightly little cousin, who could say and
and do with perfect impunity so many things which in
another would have been improper to the last degree.
She was a tolerably correct reader of human nature, and
from the moment she witnessed the meeting between
Lucy and the rector of St. Mark's she took courage, for
she readily guessed the channel in which her cousin's preference
ran. The rector, however, she could not read so

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well; but few men she knew could withstand the fascinations
of her cousin, backed as they were by the glamour
of half a million; and though her mother, and possibly
her father too, would be shocked at the mesalliance and
throw obstacles in its way, she was capable of removing
them all, and she would do it, too, sooner than lose the only
man she had ever cared for. These were Fanny's thoughts
as she rode home from church that Sunday afternoon, and
by the time Prospect Hill was reached Lucy Harcourt
could not have desired a more powerful ally than she possessed
in the person of her resolute, strong-willed cousin.

p605-314

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