Edna Browning;

Roy’s first thought on waking the next morning, was to wonder what had happened that he should feel so oppressed, as if a load were bearing him down. Then it came to him that he was engaged, and he wondered why that should affect his spirits as it did.

All the excitement of the previous night was gone, and he could reason clearly now, and remember how queerly Georgie had talked and acted at first, just as if she had done some horrible deed, which, if she should confess it, would prove a barrier between them. But she had not confessed, and she had recovered her usual composure, and accepted him, and was going to be his wife sometime, he hardly knew when, though he had a vague idea that there need be no undue haste. He had done his duty in asking her, and surely Mr. Burton would not urge an immediate marriage, neither would Georgie desire it; girls never did; and having fixed the blissful day at some period far in the future, Roy gave a relieved yawn, and went on with his toilet, quickening his movements a little when he saw from his window the flutter of a white dress, and knew that Miss Overton was already in the grounds.

“She is an early riser, and it must be that which makes her look so fresh, and bright, and young, though of course she is very young. I wonder, by the way, how old Georgie is. I never heard any one hazard a conjecture. Sometimes she looks all of twenty-eight, though that can’t be, as she has only been out of school four or five years; and even if she is, I am thirty myself, and two years difference is enough, provided the husband has the advantage. Georgie will never look old with those eyes and that hair.”

Roy was dressed by this time, and went out to join Miss Overton in her morning walk.

He found her in a little arbor, looking pale and tired, as if she had not slept; but she smiled brightly as he came up, and made some remark about the pleasant morning. He wanted her to talk of Georgie,—wanted to be reassured that he had done well for himself; but as nothing had been said to her on the subject, she did not feel at liberty to introduce it, and so the conversation drifted as far as possible from Miss Burton, and turned at last upon Edna, whom Roy hoped eventually to have at Leighton.

“She will come, of course, when I am married,” he said. “She can then have no excuse for not coming.”

“Perhaps your wife would not like her,” Edna suggested, and Roy replied:

“I am sure she will. Georgie is not hard to please, and from Edna’s letters I judge her to be a very bright, sprightly little body. There’s a good deal of mischief about her, I guess. I saw her once in the cars with some of her schoolmates. I had been very sick and was still an invalid, nervous and irritable, and afraid of the least breath of air. Girl-like, they opened all the windows near them, and mother got a cinder in her eye, and I began to sneeze, and at last asked the sauciest looking one to shut the window, not pleasantly, you know, but savagely, as if I were the only person to be considered in the car. She did shut it with a bang, and then avenged herself by making a caricature of me, shivering in a poke bonnet, and called me a Miss Betty.”

“How did you know that?” Edna asked, looking up with so much surprise as almost to betray herself.

She had not thought of that sketch since the day when it was made, and she was curious to hear how Roy came to know about it.

“She dropped it as she left the car, either purposely or accidentally, and mother picked it up,” Roy said. “I have it still, and if I ever see her and know her well, I mean to show it to her and have some fun with it,” he continued, while Edna asked, a little uneasily:

“Then you were not angry with her for her impertinence?”

“Yes, I was at the time, very angry, and wanted to box her ears; but that only lasted a little time, and I was glad to see myself as others saw me. I do believe it did me good. She must be something of an artist, for even as a caricature the picture was a good one. I wish I knew where she was. I must write to-day, and tell her of my engagement.”

He was trying to introduce that subject again, but Edna made no reply. His mention of the picture had sent her off on an entirely different train of thought, and she was glad that just then the breakfast bell rang, and brought their walk to an end.

Roy spent the most of the day at Oakwood, but he was home at dinner, and passed the evening there, and Edna heard him talking with his mother about his engagement, and asking if she were glad.

“Yes, very glad,” was the reply; “though it does not matter quite so much now as it did before Miss Overton came. I am getting really attached to her, she seems so pleasant and refined, and knows what I want before I tell her. She is a very superior person, I think, and must have been well brought up.”

Mrs. Churchill did nothing by the halves; she liked or disliked thoroughly; and, as she had conceived a great liking for her little companion, she was more inclined to talk of her than of Georgie, though she did ask when the marriage was to take place.

“Whenever it suits Georgie,” Roy replied. “For myself, I am in no haste, and should prefer waiting until next spring. We are very comfortable now, and Miss Overton’s presence precludes the necessity of having some one for company.”

He did not seem a very ardent lover, impatient for the happy day; and, indeed, he was not, and much of his indifference was owing to Miss Overton, who experienced a feeling of relief in knowing that Roy would probably not bring his wife home until spring. She could not live with Georgie; and that lady’s arrival as mistress would be the signal for her departure. So she hailed with delight anything which would put off the evil day; for, short as had been her stay at Leighton, she was very happy there, and shrank from leaving it, with all its refinement, and luxury, and ease. She did not mean to be a listener to any private conversation between Roy and his mother, but, situated just as she was, on the piazza, and directly under the window where they were sitting, she could not well help herself, and so she sat still, while their talk turned next upon Edna, whom Roy meant to have at Leighton as soon as Georgie came.

“I’ve never felt right about it at all,” he said. “Poor little thing, knocking about the world alone, trying to pay a debt she foolishly thinks she owes me; and I am determined to find her at some rate, if I put the police on her track. Wouldn’t you like to have her here when Georgie comes?”

Mrs. Churchill hesitated a little, and then replied:

“Wouldn’t three ladies be in each other’s way? for, Roy, I should not like to have Miss Overton leave even when Georgie comes.”

“Nor I, nor I,” Roy said, quickly, with a feeling that he should greatly miss the little girl, who could hear no more, lest her feelings should betray themselves, and who, crawling upon her hands and feet, crept away from the window and sought her own room, where she was free to indulge in a hearty fit of tears.

Why she cried she hardly knew, though she made herself believe it was for the pleasant home she must ere long give up, for after Roy’s marriage she felt that she must go away, as she never could be happy with Georgie at Leighton as its mistress. The thought of leaving was a dreadful one, and she kept on crying in a desolate, homesick kind of way, until she heard Mrs. Churchill coming up the stairs, and knew her services would be needed. Remembering what had been said of her as Miss Overton, there was an added tenderness and gentleness in her voice and manner as she read the evening chapter to the half-blind woman, and then helped to disrobe her. To brush and smooth Mrs. Churchill’s hair was one of her nightly duties, and her fingers moved caressingly over the thin locks and about the forehead, until the lady declared herself mesmerized, and drawing Edna’s face down to her lips, kissed her affectionately, saying as she did so:

“Excuse the liberty, but you seem more like a daughter than a stranger; and, Miss Overton, you know of course I am to have a daughter by and by; Georgie is to be Mrs. Roy Leighton, and I am glad, and think my son could not have chosen better, or as well perhaps,—but—but—I want you to stay just the same, even if Edna, that is Mrs. Charlie Churchill, comes too, as Roy means to have her. Will you, Miss Overton?”

“You may get tired of me by that time and glad to have me leave,” Edna replied, evasively; and making some excuse to leave the room, she staid away so long that the conversation was not resumed when she returned with the medicine which Mrs. Churchill always kept standing by her bed at night.

Edna had not counted upon all the unpleasant things to which the peculiarity of her position would subject her. She had no idea that she should so often hear herself discussed, or be compelled to feel so continually that she was living and acting a lie, or she would never have been there as she was; and that night after leaving Mrs. Churchill she began seriously to revolve the propriety of leaving Leighton, and going back to Uncle Phil, who, she knew, would willingly welcome her.

After the departure of the city guests from Oakwood, Georgie spent several days at Leighton, and acted the sweet, amiable daughter and bride-elect to perfection, and petted Edna, and talked a great deal about “poor Charlie,” and looked at Edna as she did so, and went with her when she carried flowers to his grave, and called her a dear kind creature to be so thoughtful for Mrs. Churchill.

“Of course it is not as if you had known him,” she said; and her great black eyes looked straight at Edna, who colored scarlet, and turned her face away to hide her guilty blushes.

Georgie was bent upon torturing her, and, seating herself in one of the chairs, went over with all the harrowing particulars of the railroad disaster, the fearful storm, the body crushed beneath the wreck, and the young girl trying to extricate it. And Edna, listening to her, felt as if she should scream outright with pain, so vivid was the picture Georgie drew of that dreadful scene.

“Will she never stop,” she thought, as Georgie went on to relate all that occurred at Leighton after the body was brought home, and told how Mrs. Churchill went into convulsions, and denounced the girl as Charlie’s murderer. Georgie was drawing a little upon her imagination, but she was accustomed to that, and she had an object in what she was doing. It was not alone to wound and torture her auditor, though that was some satisfaction to her, but there was a fixed purpose in her mind that Edna should not remain at Leighton after her entrance there. She did not like the girl; she had a mean kind of jealousy toward her, and Mrs. Churchill’s praises of her only made her more determined that the same roof should not shelter both. She dared not betray Edna’s secret, but she could annoy and worry her, and she took a mean kind of delight in seeing poor Edna writhe as she went on to talk of that girl whom Charlie married, saying finally, that she hoped Roy would not insist upon bringing her home, as he now seemed resolved to do.

“Not that I should care at all. I probably should grow fond of her, for Jack insists that she is very nice, and little Annie nearly worships her; but for dear Mrs. Churchill’s sake I should be sorry to see her here.”

“Why so? She talks kindly of her always,” Edna asked hotly, forgetting herself for a moment, in her indignation.

But Georgie was sweetly unconscious of her excitement, and replied:

“Yes, Mrs. Churchill is a noble woman, and tries to forgive the girl, and thinks she has done so; but I, who know her so well, can see the effort she makes to speak kindly of her, and just how she shudders when her name is accidentally mentioned. No, glad as I would be to help and befriend the girl, I am naughty enough to hope Roy cannot find her. But pray, Miss Overton, don’t repeat what I have said. I hardly know why I have spoken so freely, unless it is that you have a way of taking our hearts by storm, and not appearing in the least like a stranger. By the way, you look a little like Mrs. Charlie Churchill; I thought of it the first time I saw you here, and spoke of it to Roy, and just for fun asked if it would not be a good joke if you were Edna in disguise.”

“What did he say?” Edna asked, and, without looking at her victim, Georgie replied: “He seemed to take altogether a different view of the joke from what I did, and expressed himself decidedly against disguises of all kinds. It would displease him very much to have Edna do such a thing, he said. But I fear I have wearied you with talk which cannot interest you, of course. You look pale and fagged. It’s the hot morning, I guess. Suppose we go back to the house. Ah, there’s Roy now; I think I’ll join him for a little walk upon the lawn.”

If Edna had ever entertained a thought of staying at Leighton after Georgie was mistress there, it would have been swept away effectually by what Georgie had said to her, just as that nice young lady meant it should be. And what was worse than all, she could never let Roy know who she was, after having been so foolish as to come to him incog. Why had she done it? she asked herself many times. Why had Maude and Uncle Phil suffered it; aye, contrived and advised it, and why hadn’t she listened to Aunt Jerry, who had opposed it from the first. But it was too late now. She was there as Miss Overton, and as such she must always remain to Roy and his mother. By her own act she had precluded the possibility of ever showing herself to them in her own proper person. Mrs. Churchill, who already disliked Edna Browning and looked upon her as Charlie’s murderer, would hate her should she know the truth, and Roy would hate her too, and that was more than she could bear. She could not lose his respect, and so she must never claim him as her brother; never see him after she went away from Leighton. It was very hard, and Edna cried bitterly for a few moments, while away in the distance walked Georgie and Roy, up and down the wide lawn, but always where Georgie could command a view of the little figure sitting so disconsolately under the shadow of the grape-vine, and weeping, as she knew from the motion of the hands which went so often to the face. Georgie was glad. She had made Edna’s exit from Leighton a sure thing, and her spirits rose proportionately with the mischief she had done. She was very gay for the remainder of the day; very attentive to Mrs. Churchill; very affectionate to Roy; very kind and patronizing to the servants, and very familiar with Miss Overton, whom she petted and caressed, and kissed gushingly, when, at night, she finally shook the dust of Leighton from her garments and departed for Oakwood.