The abandoned farm, and Connie's mistake

March that year came in like a roaring lion, and continued to roar at intervals for two weeks, when it gathered its forces together for a farewell which should outdo all that had gone before. For three days the storm continued, until the tops of the fences were covered and roads were cut through the fields in some places, as the highways were blocked with drifts. And still the snow fell in great billowy clouds, which the wind drove before it through the valleys and over the hills of Millville. Nearly all day Kenneth had been gone, as he had been called in consultation with Dr. Catherin at Rocky Point, and it was not until five o’clock that he reached home, where he found Connie’s telegram.

“Coming to-night on the six o’clock train, which is sure to be late,” he exclaimed, with a thrill of delight, and no thought of the trouble it would be to meet her.

“Father will go to the train, you are so tired,” his mother said, but had he been ten times as fatigued as he was, Kenneth would not have foregone the pleasure of meeting Connie.

“The house is as warm as it can be,” he said, felicitating himself upon the fact that there was now a furnace in the cellar, with sundry other modern improvements since Connie was there.

Some of the fireplaces had been stopped up, but one was left open in the sitting-room to please his father, and one in the guest-chamber to please him. It was here Connie had slept and sat on the hearth and held her little hands to the blaze, which she had liked. His mother, on receipt of the telegram, had opened the register in the room, and made it ready for her.

“Warm as toast,” she said to Kenneth, when he inquired about it. But he insisted upon a fire in the fireplace, which he made himself, charging his mother to keep it bright until he returned with Connie.

The storm was awful at half-past five, when Kenneth went to harness his horses, Pro and Con, to the covered sleigh. Con, who had been to Rocky Point and back, did not like going out a second time, and showed her dislike by pulling back when Kenneth tried to lead her out.

“Easy, Con, easy! It’s hard, I know, but Connie is coming, and I would sacrifice both you and Pro for her sake,” he said, soothing the refractory animal, who, after a few protesting snorts, and throwing up of her head, squared herself to meet the storm, and went plunging through the drifts, dragging Pro after her, until the shelter was reached, where Kenneth left them until the train came in.

It was very late before it came puffing up to the station, looking like a huge snow bank, with the light from the frosty windows showing dimly through the darkness. All along the line of coaches Kenneth looked anxiously, with a fear that she had not come, when the conductor appeared, and clinging to him was a slight form, which seemed to sway like a reed in the wind.

“Is Dr. Stannard here?” was shouted through the darkness, and “Aye, aye,” came in response from Kenneth, as he sprang up the steps and passed his arms around the figure of the young girl.

“Connie?” he asked, as he could not see her face.

“Yes,” she answered, clinging to him like a child.

“She’s been bad all the way. I guess she’s sick, or going to be,” the conductor said, giving her up to Kenneth, who took her in his arms just as he had taken little Connie sixteen years before, when she came in her blue cloak and hood and crept into his heart.

As he had done then, so now he carried her to the sleigh and put her in and tucked the robes around her and took his seat beside her, and was out upon the road before a word was spoken. Then he said, “Connie, are you ill?”

She had sat in a drooping posture till now, when she straightened up, and moving a little nearer to him, she replied: “I don’t know. I was sick on the ship, and I am so tired, and my head feels queer; but I am glad to be here. Are you glad? Is your mother glad?”

“Glad?” Kenneth repeated, and there was a world of tenderness in his voice as he drew Connie close to him and put her head upon his shoulder, where it lay through the drive home, which did not take long, for Pro and Con, and especially the latter, defying the snow and the wind and the drifts, went swiftly up the hill, nearly upsetting the sleigh as they turned into a field, but finally reaching the house in safety.

Once during the drive Connie said, by way of explanation for her unexpected appearance: “I had to come. I couldn’t stay in that dreary old palace in Genoa after Count Costello said words to me he never should have said. You know my aunt married him?”

Kenneth did know, but forebore to ask any questions, they were so near home.

“Oh, I am so glad, so glad!” Connie kept saying, when carried into the warmth and light, where Mrs. Stannard’s motherly arms received her.

As his father took care of the horses, Kenneth removed Connie’s hat and sack and gloves and chafed her cold hands, and thought how thin and pale she was, and how she sometimes rambled in her talk. She was not hungry, she said. She was only tired and sleepy. She did not sleep at all upon the ship. She did not think she had slept since she left Genoa, or for some time before. She would not eat, and Kenneth, who was watching her closely, advised his mother to take her to her room.

“Oh, this is so nice; this takes me back to long ago,” Connie said, kneeling on the hearth when there, and holding her hands to the blaze just as Kenneth had seen her do when a child. “There are pictures in the fire,” she continued; “pictures of me as I was a happy little girl and as I am now an unhappy woman,” and she clasped her white hands together.

“Why are you unhappy? Has anything happened?” Mrs. Stannard asked, smoothing the soft golden hair on the small head, which was lying back against the cushions of a chair.

Connie looked at her a moment, and then told very briefly of Count Costello’s offer to herself, of her refusal, of his marriage with her aunt, to whom she said he was kind; of the dreary house he called a palace, and of his saying to her: “Your young face is daily a painful contrast to that of the countess, handsome as she is.”

“After that I could not stay, a foil to my aunt, who cares for him, while I hate him,” she said, “and so I came here. Are you glad?”

She had asked the same question of Kenneth, who had answered by drawing her close to him, while his mother stooped and kissed her, as she replied: “Very glad; and now go to bed. You will be better to-morrow.”

Connie had said nothing of the real pain eating into her heart, and Mrs. Stannard, while indignant at Count Costello, wondered why he should have had the power to change this once bright, rosy girl into the wan, pale woman who had scarcely strength to get into bed, and who, when there, looked almost as white as the pillow on which she was resting.

It was a heavy, dreamless sleep which came to Connie that night, and when she woke at a late hour the next morning the storm was over, the sun was shining into the room, while Kenneth stood by her, counting her pulse. She tried to lift her head, but it fell back upon the pillow, as, with an effort to smile, she asked, “Am I going to be ill?”

“Not going to be. You are; but we will soon have you well,” Kenneth replied, holding her hot hand a moment.

“Well, I’m glad I’m here. So glad!” Connie said, closing her eyes and falling asleep again, while Kenneth watched her anxiously.

It was past the middle of March when Connie came in the storm, and the early daffodils and crocuses were in bloom when she at last sat up and looked around her at a world which seemed so new. For weeks she had lain between life and death, stricken with fever which scorched her blood and stained her face a purple tint, so high it ran at times. From Rocky Point, Dr. Catherin came in consultation, and a specialist from Albany, while Kenneth kept his tireless watch at her side. At first she talked constantly,—sometimes of Count Costello and the dreary house in Genoa, and again of something Kenneth could not understand, except that there was a he who must at some time have been closely mixed up in Connie’s life. She never spoke his name, and Kenneth would not ask it, or question her, as she babbled on of the Jungfrau and the mountains and the bowlder by the brook and the moonlight nights among the Alps, in all of which he played a prominent part. Once he did say to her, “Where is he now?” and she answered, “Gone, gone.”

In the very first of her illness she had kept repeating, “Glad, so glad,” and they knew her gladness was because she was there. Then she forgot it, and now she took up the word “Gone,” and rang change after change upon it, till Kenneth wanted to stop his ears to shut out the sound. After a little her mood changed, and she talked of the time she came to the farmhouse a little girl and played with the cats and Chance.

“Where are they?” she asked, with something like consciousness, and Kenneth told her that only six cats now ate in the wooden trough, and that Chance died long ago and was buried in the inclosure where they had their Christmas tree.

“Oh, yes, the tree!” she exclaimed, going over it with every detail, calling her own name and Chance’s and Harry’s, and finally Kenneth, who had nothing but herself.

“The best gift of all,” Kenneth said, putting his cool hand on her hot forehead.

For a moment Connie looked at him with her great bright eyes, in which the tears slowly gathered.

“Brush them away,” she said. “I haven’t the strength.”

He brushed them away, stooping so close to her that he took her tainted breath, hot and fetid, but felt no fear. At last she began to talk again, and this time of the sled and the rides she had upon it, and of the prayers Kenneth had heard and the “Stir-up Collect” that he did not know.

“Do you know it now?” she asked, rather sharply.

Kenneth nodded, and she continued:

“Say it.”

He said it, and she went on:

“Do you know ‘I believe’?”

He nodded again, and to her command, “Say it,” he repeated the Creed, which she tried to say with him, but the words died on her lips.

“You are a good boy,” she said in a whisper, “and I am tired. Let us say, ‘Now I lay me,’ and then I’ll go to sleep.”

He said it with her, her voice growing weaker as she added, very slowly, the old, familiar “God bless Auntie and Connie and make her a good girl, and bless Kenneth and make him a good boy. Amen!”

She raised her hand as if in benediction; then it fell helplessly at her side, her eyes closed, and she seemed to be asleep. For days she lay in this state, neither speaking nor moving, while the battle between life and death went on, and in Kenneth’s heart hope died out as he watched her day and night, never leaving her except for the rest and food he must take, or give out. Many inquiries were made for her, and prayers were said in the church on the Corners, at St. Jude’s in Rocky Point and at the churches in Millville, while Kenneth prayed unceasingly that she might be given back to him, even though the he of whom she had raved should come to claim her.

One morning Dr. Catherin came and looked at her as she lay white as a corpse and as motionless. “I think the end is near,” he said, taking his stand on one side of the bed, while Kenneth was on the other, his eyes fixed on the face where the death shadows were gathering. Only a faint fluttering of the heart told that she breathed, and this might stop at any moment. And while they sat watching here there came to the door a middle-aged woman, whose face would command attention at once, it was so calm and sweet and kind. Addressing herself to Mrs. Stannard, she said:

“How is she? I was passing, and stopped to inquire.”

“Dying,” was Mrs. Stannard’s reply, while over the stranger’s face there came an expression betokening some inward conflict.

“Dying,” she repeated. “Have the doctors given her up?”

“Yes; they can do no more for her,” was the tearful answer, while the woman stood a moment, wrapt in thought or prayer. Then she said: “May I see the doctor?”

“Which one? Two are with her,” Mrs. Stannard said, and the woman replied:

“Both, if you please.”

They came,—Dr. Catherin and Kenneth,—the former looking curiously at the woman, who, very respectfully, and with no cringing in her manner, said to them: “I hear you have done all you can for the young lady,—that you have given her up. Is that so?”

“Yes, madam,” Kenneth answered, wondering who this stranger was intruding thus upon them, but still attracted by the sweetness of her face.

“Then, may I try?” she said. “It is not often that we offer our services, but in this case I feel that I must. May I see her? I am Mrs. Foster, from Boston.”

The deacon had been a silent looker-on up to this point; when he started up, every hair on his head bristling with wrath. He knew now who the woman was. He had heard of her visiting at a neighbor’s, and that she belonged to a sect which he esteemed little better than heathen.

“Ken,” he exclaimed, “Ken, listen to me!” but before Kenneth could reply, Dr. Catherin, who guessed who the woman was, and while not believing in her at all was less prejudiced than the deacon, said in reply to Kenneth’s questioning look at him: “Let her go up. She can do no harm. She is a Scientist.”

“Oh-h!” and Kenneth shuddered. If all medicine had failed, what could she do? Nothing. And still her face pleaded with him until he said, “Come with me,” while his father, completely unstrung, exclaimed: “Ken, Ken, don’t you know it is all a delusion,—a device of the devil,—and right here in my house!”

But Kenneth was half way up the stairs, and did not hear the distracted man, who, not willing to stay where such things were going on, seized his hat, and going out to the steps of the old church, sat there with the feeling that the sanctity of the place would in a measure atone for the enormity of the wickedness being practiced under his roof. And while he sat there his clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Stone, came up from the village on a calling tour. Seeing the deacon, he alighted from his buggy and came and sat down by him, asking how Miss Elliott was.

“Dying,” the deacon replied. “Ken says so, and Dr. Catherin says so; and I guess they know, but,—oh,—don’t blame me who has been a deacon in good and regular standing in the orthodox church for thirty years. ’Tain’t my doings. They’ve a limb of Satan in there to see what she can do!”

“Wha-at?” Mr. Stone asked, thinking the deacon crazy. “What do you mean? Who is in there?”

“A Science woman! You’ve heard of ’em,” the deacon replied, expecting an explosion from his minister, but none came.

Mr. Stone was the most charitable of men, with broad views, which could take in more than the tenets of his own church.

“I’ve heard of them, yes,” he said, “and believe them to be good Christian people,—fanatical and cranky, perhaps,—but conscientious, and living what they profess.”

The deacon looked aghast at this high-handed heresy in his minister, but just then Mrs. Foster was seen leaving the farmhouse, and he only said: “There she is. Let’s go and see if Connie is up and dressed and combin’ her hair, as they pretend they can do.”

They found Mrs. Stannard and Dr. Catherin and Kenneth in the sitting-room, speaking together in low tones.

“How is Connie?” the deacon asked, and Kenneth replied:

“No change.”

“I told you so when you let her in. What did she do?” was the deacon’s next remark, to which no one answered till he repeated it to his wife. “What did she do?”

“For the land’s sake, I don’t know. I wasn’t in there. Nobody was there but Kenneth, and he was just outside the door. Ask him,” Mrs. Stannard said.

Kenneth, when appealed to as to what Mrs. Foster did during the twenty minutes she was in the sick room, said: “Nothing that I saw, but I think she prayed. I know I did.”

“And so did I,” “and I,” came from Mrs. Stannard and Dr. Catherin, while the clergyman responded: “We know that the prayers of the righteous availeth much, so let us hope for the best.”

“No, sir,” the deacon chimed in; “if Connie lives, which she won’t,—but if she does, it won’t be that woman sittin’ there twenty minutes with her hand over her eyes. George of Uxbridge! No! It’ll be them drops Ken gave her at the last.”

“Which she didn’t swallow,” Dr. Catherin suggested, while the deacon gave him a look the meaning of which was, “et tu, Brute?”

He was a good deal excited for a man of his mild temper, and fancying his family had all gone over to the enemy, he went again to the steps of the church and sat down, to wonder if the world was turning upside down. If so, he should stick to the old side through thick and thin, and never give in to that woman. When he was somewhat cooled off he returned to the house, and going upstairs, sat down near the door of the room where Connie still lay in a stupor so near resembling death that once Kenneth whispered, “She is dead,” knowing by the bitter pang of pain in his heart that in spite of his disbelief in the Scientist, he had taken hope from the assuring words, “She will live,” as she left him. Half an hour went by, seeming to Kenneth like an age, and then Dr. Catherin, who was watching with him, put his hand under Connie’s hair, and withdrawing it quickly, exclaimed:

“She is beginning to perspire; the crisis is past; she will live!”

“Thank God!” came faintly from Kenneth, while his father, who was still sitting at the head of the stairs and heard the doctor, came into the room and said:

“Yes, thank God, but not that woman; you needn’t tell me. It don’t stand to reason. Twenty minutes, and did nothing! The fever had reached the top and had to turn!”

The fever certainly had reached the top and turned, and so rapid was Connie’s improvement that in a few days she was sitting up for a short time and looking upon the daffodils and crocuses and the Morris house across the road, where a great many men were at work.

“What are they doing?” she asked Mrs. Stannard, who replied:

“Building the house over, as you may say. It belongs to my nephew Harry, you know.”

Connie nodded, and Mrs. Stannard continued: “He has been abroad a long time. I wonder you never met him. He was married in London, a year ago last January, to a Miss Haynes, from Kentucky.”

“Oh, yes,” and Connie roused to something like interest. “Some one sent me a paper. I never knew who it was. And are they coming here to live?”

“Bimeby, when the house is ready,” Mrs. Stannard replied. “Hal had a drawing made of what he wanted done and sent it to Mr. Green, the head carpenter in Millville, and he is seeing to it with a raft of men who dawdle half the time. I’ve watched ’em. Hal ought to be here to see it.”

“And isn’t he here?” Connie asked, by way of saying something rather than because she was greatly interested.

“No; he’s in Europe still, ordering furniture and carpets,” Mrs. Stannard said. “A pretty sum he’ll have to pay, and his wife’s father failed not long ago. Isn’t worth a cent, I hear. I am sure Hal depended a great deal on his wife’s money, and she hasn’t any.”

“When are they coming?” Connie asked, and Mrs. Stannard replied:

“Not till June or July, when everything is done. Harry hates a muss; he wants it all fair sailing. That’s the Morris of him. But he is a handsome fellow. I think you will like him.”

To this Connie did not answer. She was getting tired, and said she would lie down and rest a while; then get up again and surprise Kenneth when he came home.

Kenneth was gone longer than usual that day, and was rather tired and somewhat out of sorts when he drove into the yard. He had met his father at the post-office, where there was a letter from Harry, who was still in Paris, issuing his orders for his villa, as he called it, sometimes by letter and sometimes by cablegram, irrespective of the cost. Since the failure of his father-in-law he had retrenched a little and countermanded an order for a rug valued at a thousand dollars, and thought himself very economical. Still the rug haunted him. He wanted it, and wanted an expensive set of Dresden china and a malachite mantel and tables for his green room, and the desire grew so intense that he at last wrote to a Mr. Jones, a hard-fisted man in Millville, who loaned money on good security and large interest, and demanded payment the day it was due. Three thousand dollars was the sum Hal asked for, and which he was sure Mr. Jones would loan him. His uncle, he knew, would sign the note with him, and with such security Mr. Jones would feel safe. Accompanying this letter to Mr. Jones was one to Deacon Stannard, asking for his indorsement, and saying it was only for six months, when all of Harry’s indebtedness would be paid.

“In any event,” he wrote, “you know I would not let any harm come to you and dear Aunt Mary,—the only mother I ever knew.”

Kenneth did not like the letter. Harry was spending too much money on his villa, unless he knew just where to get it. Three thousand dollars was a large sum for the deacon to be responsible for, and Phil Jones was not the man to wait a day. Like Shylock, he would have the pound of flesh if it took the deacon’s house and farm. It was this letter of Hal’s and the fear that his father might sign the note which Hal had sent, which was affecting Kenneth’s spirits as he came home from his long drive. Just for the moment Connie was forgotten. But his spirits brightened when he heard that she was sitting up waiting for him, and he hurried to her. It was a very thin, but a very lovely face which smiled at him as he entered the room into which the warm April sunshine was streaming, and in a square of which Connie sat, with the sunlight on her hair and hands which she held out to him.

“Just to shake,” she said. “No more counting pulse or taking temperature. I am getting well. I am sure of it. Did that woman help? And is she helping now, do you think?”

Kenneth’s countenance fell as he took the two small hands. He did not like to think about the woman. She had not been in the house since the day she sat by Connie, and said to him at leaving, “She will live.” He had heard, however, of such things as absent treatments, but had no faith in them.

“God cured you,” he said, “and made Dr. Catherin and myself the instruments. Perhaps the woman, too. Sincere prayer is never lost, and I know she was sincere. She is still at her friend’s. Do you wish to see her?”

Something in his manner made Connie think he did not care to have her call again, and she answered: “Oh, no; I am getting well so fast, and although I know I have been so much trouble, I am glad I am here. I should have died in Genoa.”

This reference to Italy reminded Kenneth of a letter he had found in the office for Connie, postmarked Florence. Disclaiming all sense of trouble, and speaking as if it had been a pleasure to watch by her day and night, he held the letter up and said: “A part of the time when you were so ill you were constantly asking for letters. Here is one. What will you give for it?”

In an instant Connie’s white face was crimson, and there leaped into her eyes a look of fear, rather than of pleasure, as she said faintly: “Give it to me, please.”

He gave it to her, and at a glance at the superscription the blood receded from her face, leaving it pale as before.

“It’s from Auntie,” she said, breaking the seal and reading that the count and countess were in Florence, and had been and still were exceedingly anxious about Connie, whose illness had been reported to them by Kenneth.

“As soon as you are able we shall expect you to return to us,” her aunt wrote, and further on she added: “I have heard of your whilom lover at Monte Carlo playing heavily, and there was a lady with him. I told you he was a cheat, and you are well rid of him.”

At this point the hot blood surged again into Connie’s face, then left it paler than before, as she closed her eyes wearily.

“You are tired. You have sat up too long,” Kenneth said, while Connie opened her eyes and looked at him pitifully, as she replied:

“My aunt writes me to come back, but I can’t. I’d rather stay here. Shall I be in the way?”

Kenneth would like to have taken her in his arms and told her that was her resting place forever, but something in her eyes and manner since she became conscious had seemed a barrier he could not understand, and now he only replied: “No, Connie; never in the way. This is your home as long as you choose to make it so.”

Evidently her letter had not done her much good, and Kenneth saw her tear it in bits, which she threw into the fire. She was not tired, and when Kenneth suggested that she lie down, she said: “I’m not going to be tired any more. That’s Mrs. Foster’s creed, isn’t it? And I am going to try it, and pray all the time till I feel that I am well.”

Her improvement was very rapid, and by the second week in May she was able to walk as far as the ledge where the Christmas tree had been. To Kenneth the place was sacred because of the little girl in the blue hood and cloak, who had come at his call and smeared her rosy cheeks with sugar and grape juice, as she answered to her name, with Chance at her side. His grave was in a corner of the inclosure, and Kenneth pointed it out to Connie, whose eyes filled with tears as she stooped over it and said: “The dear old dog; he was a part of that happy week, the happiest I have ever known. I mean the happiness which left no sting, no ache, no wish that it had never been.”

She was sitting now in a rustic chair Kenneth had substituted for the wooden one, and he was standing in front of her. How lovely she was in her convalescence, the delicate color coming back to her cheeks and the old-time brightness to her eyes, in which there was always a far-away look of sadness which Kenneth could not define, and which it seemed to him deepened whenever she met his gaze fixed upon her, as it was now with a meaning she could not mistake. There was a quivering of her eyelids; then the tears gathered in her long lashes as she looked steadily at him, as if bidding him speak and be done with it. He did not need any bidding. He had intended to speak when he brought her there, and when to his question, “Why are you crying?” she answered, “I was thinking of things, and wishing I were a child again,” he burst out, “I am glad you are not a child, but a woman,—the loveliest I have ever seen, and the dearest.”

Then, rapidly and passionately, he told his love, which began years before, when she said her prayers at his side and played with the cats and Chance and worried the hens and fed old Sorrel, and he drew her on the sled and set up the Christmas tree for her. Nothing was omitted, and as she saw it all again her tears came hot and fast until, by the time he asked her to be his wife, they were falling like rain, and her hands were stretched toward him as for help. He took it as a good omen, and going to her, wound his arms around her, while for one brief moment she let her head rest on his bosom like a tired child. Then, with a great sob, like a cry of pain, she released herself from him and said: “Oh, Kenneth, if I only could, but I can’t. There is something in the way. But just this once I may say I am happier for your love, and sometime, perhaps,—God only knows, and I have borne so much, and there is such an ache in my heart, such humiliation and shame, that the knowing a good, honest man like you loves me is a comfort, even though it cannot be, and I must not tell you why. Something happened in Switzerland a year last summer which will keep me from being your wife. I was some to blame, though not as much as the other party, for, shut up in a convent school as I had been for years, I knew little of the world, while he——”

“It was a he,” Kenneth said a little sharply, and Connie replied: “Yes, but I cannot tell you any more now, except that I was foolish,—not wicked; never that. Oh, Kenneth, you must believe me a good girl, even if I do not tell you all, and you must stand by me and let me stay here. I should go insane anywhere else. Strange that the knowing you love me helps me so much. Don’t let your father and mother know.”

She stretched her hand to him again, and he took it and held it between both his own. It was terrible to lose her, but would be more terrible for her to go away where he could not see her, and while his chin quivered with the emotion he tried to suppress, he asked, “Do you love that man?”

“No!” and a hot gleam of passion leaped into Connie’s eyes. “I thought I did, but that is past, and if he stood here now as you stand suing for my love, I’d spurn him as I would a snake. I have thought he might be dead. I shall find out in time, and when I do I will tell you all. Now I cannot. Don’t refer to it again. Let me be just Connie, a weak girl, trusting you as a brother, happier to be here than anywhere else.”

She had talked rather incoherently, but Kenneth understood that for the present at least he could only love her with no hope of a consummation by marriage. There was a bar between them, but she was as pure as the wintry snow. He was sure of that, and said to her at last: “I’ll wait, and hope and pray that the obstacle may be removed.”

“I knew you would, and you have made me as happy as I ever can be until it is removed,” she said, lifting her face in such a confiding way that a hundred obstacles could not have prevented him from stooping down and kissing it, feeling, as he did so, that it was a kiss of betrothal which would last during all time.

They were very silent on their way back to the house, where, fortunately for Kenneth, he found several calls for his professional services. It was well for him to be busy, as it kept his mind from dwelling on Connie and the mystery he must not try to fathom. It was some comfort to know she was in his home, a sunbeam in his parents’ life and all the world to him, with her sunny face and smile and words of welcome when he came in from his round of calls.

“Sometime I shall know,” he thought, and the time was nearer than he supposed.

After that walk to the ledge Connie seemed much happier, and began to take a lively interest in the Morris villa, the work on which was being pushed rapidly. Mr. Jones had called upon the deacon for his signature to Harry’s note for three thousand dollars, payable in six months. Connie was seated upon the piazza when he came, and through the open door could not fail to hear the conversation between the three men, Mr. Jones, the deacon and Kenneth, the latter of whom objected to his father’s pledging himself for so large a sum.

“I feel sure you will have to pay it. I have heard a rumor that the place is mortgaged heavily,” he said, while his mother, soft-hearted as ever where Hal was concerned, pleaded for him, saying he would never see them injured.

Suddenly a wild impulse seized Connie. She could not tell how or why, only that it came, and in a moment she was confronting the three men and startling them with the words: “I will sign that note with you, Guardy.” She still called him by that name. “I have the means, and if I should lose it will not hurt me much, I spend so little here. I’ve never seen Mr. Morris, but I feel interested in him and his bride. I am glad they are coming, and don’t let a paltry three thousand dollars mar their happiness.”

It seemed a small sum to her, who knew so little the value of money, but to the deacon it was a fortune. He was, however, persuaded, and when Mr. Jones left the house he had both the deacon’s and Connie’s name as securities on Harry’s note.

“You don’t know how funny I feel since I signed that note,” Connie said to Kenneth, after Jones was gone. “I don’t know why, except that I feel funny,—glad, as it were, with a new interest in the house, as if it were mine.”

She was greatly interested in it, and her interest increased as it progressed towards the end, and loads of furniture came up from the freight house in foreign boxes, some from Rome and Florence and Paris and London. There were pictures and statuary and carpets and rugs and curtains and tables and chairs and bric-a-brac of every description, and two men came from Albany to see that they were properly placed. Connie, however, was the leading spirit, as the men at once recognized her delicate taste, and not only listened to her suggestions, but consulted her when she made none. Her special interest was centered in what was to be Mrs. Morris’ sitting-room and boudoir. Here her ideas were wholly carried out, and nothing could have been prettier than the general effect of rugs and hangings and pictures, when all was done and the rooms ready.

“I feel as if in a nightmare,” she said to herself, as she sat alone for a few minutes in the boudoir, the day before Hal and his wife were expected.

And this nightmare kept her awake the most of the night, so that it was rather a pale face which smiled upon Kenneth the next morning.

“I did not sleep well, that’s a fact,” she said. “I must have been rather nervous about Mrs. Morris. I intend to like her immensely.”

She was very busy all the morning, arranging and rearranging the rooms of the villa, and filling them with the flowers she had ordered from Rocky Point and Millville. It was June, the season of roses, and the house was full of them, their fragrance permeating every nook, and making Connie a little faint when she at last sat down to rest, while thoughts of Interlaken and the bowlder by the running brook came crowding into her mind, as they had not done since her talk with Kenneth by the ledge in the huckleberry pasture.

“Once I thought to be happy like Kitty Haynes,” she said, and two great tears splashed down upon her hands. Then quickly recovering herself, she thought how glad she was to have a congenial companion, as she was sure Kitty would be. Of Harry she scarcely thought at all, except that Kenneth did not quite approve of him. Probably he was a little faster than Kenneth. He could scarcely have seen as much of the world as he had and not be. He was very handsome, Mrs. Stannard had said, and her description of him had reminded her of the bowlder among the Alps and the man who sat there with her. That man had vanished like a myth, and Harry Morris was coming that afternoon with his wife.

They had landed in New York two weeks before and been detained there. Harry had written to Kenneth that he expected to reach Millville on Thursday afternoon, and asked that his new carriage be sent to meet him. He had thanked his uncle for signing his note to Jones, but he had made no mention of Connie’s signature. Probably he did not know of it, or that she was at the farmhouse, for Kenneth had never mentioned her in the few letters sent to his cousin since she came. Everything that could be done to make the house and grounds attractive had been done, and people had driven for miles to see and admire and wonder that so much should be expended upon a place which was to be occupied only during the summer. His winters he should spend in New York or Florida, Hal had written to Green, his agent, who superintended everything. Three or four fine horses and two or three carriages had come to the villa, awaiting Hal’s approbation, and it was in one of the latter that Kenneth went down to the station to meet the four o’clock train from New York.

It was not often that many people were there at that time of day, and Kenneth was surprised at the crowd he found waiting. They had all been through the handsome house and grounds, and heard of the handsome wife, and were there to see her and Harry, who, with so much grandeur, was invested with an added importance to their minds. The train was on time and only stopped a moment to deposit six or eight trunks and three people,—a middle-aged colored woman wearing a red turban and carrying a bundle which looked very much like a baby; another colored girl loaded with parcels, and a young lady, who stood looking timidly around at the crowd staring curiously at her, and wondering where her husband was. Kenneth saw her and hurried towards her, noticing that she was a brunette with a brilliant complexion and soft dark eyes, which lighted up wonderfully the moment she saw him.

“Mrs. Morris?” he said, and she replied, “Yes, and you are Dr. Kenneth, Harry’s cousin, I am sure, and I am so glad to meet you. I’m not used to travelling alone, and Harry had to stay in New York at the very last on that tiresome business, I don’t know what it is. I wanted to stay, too, but he said I must come, and I’m here. He is coming in a few days.”

She talked rapidly and kept her eyes fixed upon the turbaned woman, whom she called Cindy, and who was hushing the white bundle in her arms with a cooing kind of sound. Kenneth was looking at her, too, and at the bundle, which was certainly alive. Detecting the surprise in his face, the lady said: “It’s our baby, three months old. Harry wouldn’t write it, as he wanted to surprise you all. She is a little beauty. Come here, Cindy, and show the baby. There! Isn’t she lovely?” she continued, when the flimsy covering was removed, showing a little round baby face in which Kenneth saw a look like his cousin. “She has such a pretty name, too,” the proud mother continued, “Constance, though we call her Connie.”

“Constance!” Kenneth repeated in surprise, while Kitty replied: “Yes, it was Harry’s idea. She was born in Constance, and that made him think of it.”

“We have a Constance here, whom we call Connie,” Kenneth said, as he led the way to the brougham, and while they were on the way to the villa he explained who she was and said: “You are sure to like her.”

“I know I shall,” Kitty answered, “and I am so glad she is here. I was afraid I might be rather lonely. Harry said there was no—no——”

She stopped suddenly, while Kenneth rejoined: “No ladies of just your kind? You are right, Mrs. Morris, but Connie is different. Connie is——”

“Yes, I see. I understand what Connie is, but please call me Kitty. I’m your cousin, you know,” Kitty said, and added, “funny baby should be called Connie, too; but I’m glad that she is.”

She was a bright, sparkling little woman, and talked all the time during the drive until they came in sight of the house, when she sprang up and clasped her hands with delight.

“Oh, is this really the place? I never dreamed it was so grand and lovely. And how could he afford it? He has told me so much that I must be economical, now father has failed.”

She said frankly what she thought, and Kenneth watched her admiringly, contrasting her with Connie and giving the latter the preference, of course. He knew Connie was to be at the villa with his father and mother, and as the carriage entered the gate he saw her standing on the steps, looking like some fair lily in her white gown and blue ribbons, with a single rose in her belt.

“That’s Connie, I know, and she’s Paris all over. I shall like her,” Kitty said, springing from the carriage the moment it stopped and going up to the group waiting for her. “I don’t need to be introduced. I know this is Aunt Mary, and this Uncle Ephraim, and this Connie; may I call you that?” she said, kissing each in turn, and holding Connie’s hand as she continued: “I didn’t know about you until Kenneth told me, and I am glad that you are here and that baby has your name. Funny, isn’t it? And Harry didn’t know you either.”

They were all around the baby now, and Connie, who loved children dearly, took it in her arms and held its soft face against her own and thought she saw in it a likeness to something she had seen, and wondered why that bowlder among the Alps should come up to torment her when she was going to be so happy with Kitty and the baby. It did not take Kitty long to explain, as well as she could, why her husband was not with her. He would come within a week, surely, and then they would all be so happy. She was older than Connie, but seemed younger, she was so small, and she flitted about the house like a humming bird, delighted with everything and especially with Connie, who, she insisted, should stay altogether at the villa until her husband came.

“And Dr. Kenneth, too, if he will, and Aunt Mary and Uncle Ephraim, I want you all,” she said, in her soft Southern voice, with a bit of foreign accent in it. “You can stay, and we will worship the baby together.”

She seemed to think the baby the centre of interest, as it was, but no one took to it as readily as Connie, who spent the night at the villa, and who, after the baby was undressed, rocked it to sleep, and then sat a long time looking into its little face and wondering whose features she saw so plainly mirrored there.