ing; how could she ever have thought them sweet? thought poor Katharine; and the gay tantalizing strains of music would find their way even down this long winding path. Still, it was better here than on the piazza, where somebody would be sure to find her, and to stay in the drawingroom, after she had heard that snatch of the conversation between her stepmother and Mr. Waldron, was impossible. She had been sitting alone in the shadow of a curtain, to rest between the dances, Dick Bentley, who had persisted in being her shadow all the evening, having gone for a glass of water for her.

"Yes, she is rather pretty," she heard, in her stepmother's soft languid voice, "but only a child, as you say. I think, considering that, Mr. Waldron, you are a little too severe upon her rude and awkward ways. She may improve."

Dick Bentley had appeared with the water just then, and she did not hear Mr. Waldron's reply. She was so thankful to Dick! She could not have borne any more. It was evident that Mr. Waldron had been "severe" upon her, and her stepmother was defending her. She smiled upon Dick with such unusual sweetness that he did not notice the quivering lips, and began to think his star was in the ascendancy. Then she had sent him with some trifling message to Tom, and escaped to the piazza. He-Mr. Waldron-could not even come to seek her for the dance she had promised him without her stepmother! He had been hanging about her all the evening. This was what his constant visits all the summer had meant. How blind she had

been-what a fool! What reason had she for that foolish fancy she had indulged that he cared for her? Only soft lingering glances, and low tender tones; but so soft, so tender! Did he think she, with her eighteen years, so much a child as to be regardless of them? No! he had been amusing himself with her; he liked to see her flush and tremble under his gaze; perhaps he had even spoken to her stepmother about it, and they had laughed together at her folly.

That thought aroused Katharine's pride, and kept back the flood of hot tears that rushed to her eyes.

He should never know that she had cared for him! They would tell her soon that he was to marry her stepmother, and she

would congratulate them both with a smiling face. Yes, they would marry, and she should go on living for years and years, perhaps, with the world grown so black, and that bitter, bitter pain at her heart.

The music sounded like a wail; a chill wind had arisen, and made a melancholy sound in the rosevines. Katharine shivered, whether with the cold or the thought of the long dreary years that stretched before her, she could hardly tell. Suddenly something white in the midst of the red rose petals which the wind was whirling about her feet, caught her eye. Something prompted her to pick it up; it was a carefully folded note.

She opened it, half mechanically, thinking that nothing could be of any interest to her now.

"MY DEAREST MARION,"-Katharine's heart gave a sudden leap; her stepmother's name was Marion,-" You do not show that ardent pleasure at seeing me again which I had fondly hoped you would feel. Is the old love quite dead? I do not see why my presence here should cause you any alarm, now that your husband is dead. Are you afraid of that doll-faced child, your husband's daughter, who is forever in the way? I should think you might be able to manage her. I must see you. If you have any love for me left, you cannot deny me that privilege; but I am perfectly willing that our interviews should be sub rosa, if it is more agreeable to you. Whatever you may be to me, I am "Yours always,

J. H. W."

The note had evidently been blown about by winds and soaked by rains; it was with difficulty that Katharine deciphered it in the moonlight. It was dated May 3d.

"J. H. W.-John H. Waldron !-and written six weeks ago, when he first came here!"

Katharine grew faint and sick. She had not known how much of hope had, after all, been mingled with her jealous fears. But this was certainty-dreadful, bitter certainty, with no room for a shadow of hope. And they had been lovers before; it was nothing new; and he whom she had believed the soul of goodness and honor had written that letter! Surely, life was too hard a thing to bear!

A step sounded suddenly on the path-a hurried eager step. Katharine had scarce

ly time to thrust the letter into her pocket when Dick Bentley stood beside her.

The sight of Dick's honest anxious face was a relief to her; she had been so afraid it was that other one!

"I have been searching everywhere for you. Why did you run away? You're not ill or anything? You look so awfully white!" said honest Dick.

"O no. I was tired, and wanted to get out of the crowd; that is all. The moonlight always gives one a sort of ghostly look, you know."

Katharine tried to speak gayly, but the voice sounded so unlike her own that it startled her.

But Dick was not suspicious, and seemed perfectly satisfied with her explanation.

"I can't go back-I don't want to go in quite yet, it is so warm there, and I am tired of dancing. Let us just walk to the end of this path and back," said Katharine, thoughtless of what people would say, thoughtless of poor Dick, and the declaration which she had been trying for the last week to prevent him from making.

Dick, thanking his stars for the opportunity, poured his love tale into Katharine's ears before they had reached the end of the path. Very fervent and passionate it was, but it fell, at first, upon almost utterly unheeding ears. Suddenly a thought flushed across Katharine's mind-here was a way of escape! They could not laugh at her or pity her, and she could go away, quite away from them both!

"I don't love you, Dick, you know. I don't think I ever could; but I like you very much. If you are sure you can be content with that, I will be your wife; if you'll take me away, Dick, if you'll only take me away, and newer bring me back here!"

If it was not quite the answer that Dick could have wished for, it was even better than he had hoped to have. He was very easy-going and matter-of-fact, and if Katharine's manner did seem a little strange, he reflected that there was "no understanding girls" as for her desire to go away, which surprised and puzzled him for a moment, that might be attributed to her stepmother; stepmothers were always ogresses, in books, at least, and this one, though she seemed so amiable and lovely, might be no exception to the rule.

He was a little chilled by Katharine's

anxiety to escape from his raptures; but it was late, and her absence must have been noticed long ago. That was a reason for it. The guests were fast dispersing when they reached the house, much to Katharine's relief.

Her stepmother chided her playfully for running away. Mr. Waldron stood apart, looking pale and grave. Had not his wooing prospered, after all? Katharine wondered. Her stepmother expressed the greatest delight at the engagement, which Dick insisted upon announcing the next day.

"It is just what I have been planning and hoping for, Katharine dear," she said. "Mr. Bentley is altogether the most eligible young man of our acquaintance, and you are so perfectly suited to each other in age and temperament!"

Her brother Tom was not so enthusiastic. "If you like him, it's all right, of course, Katty, and Dick is a right-down good fellow. He isn't what you could call brilliant, you know; we used to think him a little-well, softish. I thought-it's none of my business-but I thought there was something between you and Waldron."

Katharine was thankful that her stepmother interrupted them just then; she could not help flushing painfully under Tom's keen eyes.

Mr. Waldron's estate, an old family homestead, to which he had lately fallen heir, adjoined theirs, and since he had first come there in the spring, he had been a daily visitor, but now for nearly a week he did not come. Could her stepmother have refused him? Katharine wondered. But that did not seem likely, for she was evidently disturbed by his absence, and she vented her ill-nature upon Katharine, as if she were the cause of it. Katharine was puzzled; but as she had resolved, dutifully, to put him quite out of her mind, she would not allow herself to think about it. She had determined to give the place in her heart that he held, as was her bounden duty, to poor, blundering, impetuous, affectionate Dick, who followed her about like a spaniel, and drove her almost to frenzy with his demonstrations of affection. He had come to the Cedars to spend the summer, as Tom's guest, and there was no probability of his shortening his visit, under existing circumstances. Unless she should run away or drown herself in the

river, there was no way to escape from him for a single day. And one or the other Katharine was sometimes tempted to do.

"If he would only go away, I might learn to care for him-possibly-but I never can while he stays here!" she said, to herself, despairingly, only a week after she had given him her promise.

She had escaped into the garden, while Tom-good, keen-sighted fellow-had pinned Dick down to a game of billiards. In all that week she had not once seen Mr. Waldron. Was it any wonder that she could not keep back the flush that rose to her face as a turn in the garden path revealed him to her gaze? She tried hard to greet him as she would have greeted an ordinary friend-Dick, for instance-and he was so grave and composed, that after the first moment it grew easy. He had been "busy," was the only excuse he gave for bis absence, when Katharine reminded him of it.

"And you haven't congratulated me yet, Mr. Waldron," something prompted Katharine to say.

66

He grew paler, and looked away from her. "I hope you may be very happy," he answered, coldly and gravely.

And then he passed her with a stiff bow, and went on towards the house.

And Katharine went on, with her heart beating wildly. What did it mean? Surely, only very deep feeling could make a strong man like him change color. What if she had not been mistaken-what if he had really loved her? But the next moment she thought of the letter, the heartchilling proof, that left no room for doubt.

The summer days slipped slowly by. Mr. Waldron was only an infrequent visitor, and between her stepmother's ill-nature and Dick's excessive devotion, Katharine's life was growing unendurable. In the first cool days of October, Dick went-not so happy a lover as he had been on that June night when he had won Katharine's promise. It was too evident that his captive was tugging at her chains. She was so cold and capricious that his temper was sorely tried. Even his favorite maxim, "there's no understanding girls," failed to satisfy him. If he were only a little less in love, if she were only a little less pretty and bewitching, he would give her back her freedom! he said to himself, a dozen

times.

The "melancholy days" had come, and dead leaves were whirling in the garden paths, where the rose petals had been, when, one dreary afternoon, Katharine took her way down to that rustic arbor, where, since that June night, she had never been. She had avoided it carefully, but now something drew her there. As she stepped inside, she was startled by the sight of a figure half reclining on one of the rustic seats-a man-she hardly knew by his appearance whether to call him a gentleman or not-who rose to his feet at sight of her, and made her a most elaborate bow. He was dressed like a gentleman, but his clothes were worn and shabby, and there was something wild in his manner, and a strange glitter in his eye. Katharine's impulse was to fly, but before she could carry it out, he had put his hand on her shoulder, holding her firmly. She tried to cry for help, but terror made her voice fail utterly. Besides, at such a distance from the house, who could hear her? she thought, despairingly.

"You are my lovely little niece, whose acquaintance I have long been wishing to make; but my charming sister, madam, your mother, has denied me that felicity. She has also, of late, fallen into the dangerous error of refusing to recognize me herself-me, her only brother, a gentleman of birth and education, as you may easily see, merely because misfortune has overtaken me! Ah, well! perhaps it may be because she suspects that if misfortune had not overtaken me, that misfortune which, in this ill-regulated mundane sphere, alas! befalls often the noblest and most gifted-I refer to the want of filthy lucre I should never have forced myself into her charming society. We had one little interview here, in which she bestowed upon me a meagre pittance out of her abundant store, but she never condescended to reply to any of the notes which I told her I should deposit here for her."

Katharine almost forgot her terror of this strange being-who she began to suspect had been drinking-in the light that broke upon her mind. “J. II. W!" She remembered having heard that her stepmother had a brother, John H. Wilton, but she had understood that he had died years before.

"Now, you see, I am getting desperate; it is very sad that gifted beings should be

disturbed by these paltry needs, but I must have money! My dear, as your beautiful step-mamma proves obdurate, I must ask you for a small loan, as a token of regard, your watch, for instance, and what other trinkets you may have about you; and before I consent to deprive myself of your delightful society, I want your promisewhich I know you will keep to bring me to this place, this evening, a small addition to your loan in the shape of money."

"I will promise to bring you the money, if you will let me go, and let me keep my watch; it was my own mother's, and I prize it more than anything else in the world!" said poor Katharine.

"My dearest niece! I cannot express my grief at being obliged to insist; but when one has been so buffeted about by fate as your unfortunate uncle has been, he grows cautious-and this represents so much of the vulgar metal which is necessary to one!" He had taken the watch from her belt, looking with greedy eyes at its rich crusting of jewels, and was coolly transferring it to his own pocket, when poor Katharine, scarcely knowing what she did, uttered a faint cry of "help! help!"

It was answered. They both heard a rapid step.

"O Mr. Waldron! help me! save me!" cried Katharine, as his face looked in at the door.

With one strong arm he freed Katharine from the man's grasp, but the next moment Katharine heard the report of a pistol, saw Mr. Waldron reel, then fall heavily to the floor. Then everything whirled around her, and grew dark, and she knew nothing more.

When she came to herself, she was at home, with Tom's anxious face bending over her, and her stepmother on a sofa, in violent hysterics, with three maids attending her.

"O Tom! Mr. Waldron ?" said Katha

rine, with a shuddering gasp. "Is he -dead?"

"O no, dear," said Tom, cheerfully. "Only a rather ugly wound. The doctor says he'll pull through it-if he doesn't get too weak from loss of blood. I don't know what might have happened, if I had not got there just in time. That vagabond creature was perfectly desperate."

"I-I am going to him-to Mr. Waldron, Tom! I must see him!"

"Katharine, aren't you ashamed of yourself? Have you lost all sense of propriety ?" said her stepmother, tartly, recovering and sitting up with amazing suddenness.

"You'll take me, Tom? I must go!" said Katharine.

"Why, yes, Katty, if you must go," said Tom, who would have gone through fire and flood for her, without a moment's hesitation.

Katharine did not mind the wondering looks of Mr. Waldron's housekeeper or servants. She had forgotten everything but her love and his danger.

How his eyes lighted at sight of her!

"My darling! I have been fancying you were here. I knew you would come!-and you look as I haven't seen you since that night-don't you know? the night of the party, when she told me that you loved young Bentley."

The voice was very faint and feeble, but Katharine heard every word, and her heart filled with a great joy.

"She told you that? It wasn't-it isn't true! I-I-”

CHAPTER I.

AN ONLY CHILD.

"YES, I will! Yes, you shall! Give it to me, give it to me, give it to me!" And young Fred Markham seized with both hands the dish of preserve which his mother was endeavoring gently to remove from him, and succeeded in overturning the contents upon the table-cover, much to his own delight and his mother's dismay. Spreading itself into a sweet and limpid lake, the preserve ambitiously branched thence into a thousand little streams that ran ad libitum, threatening Mrs. Markham's silk and Fred's new jacket.

"I've half a mind to box your ears, Freddy," said his mother, in a voice by no means alarming to the youthful offender, who devoted himself to licking up the preserve, then to licking his fingers and his plate, both of which he wiped unreservedly on his hair; after which pleasing performance, he pushed aside his chair and precipitated himself into his mother's arms with anything but a show of sweetness, save so far as his hair was stiffly standing on end, and his face ridiculously daubed. He was, no doubt, a dear sweet child, but

Mrs. Markham thrust him aside with an "O dear, Freddy, you'll spoil my dress!" "I love you!" persisted the naughty boy, again attempting to caress her.

Mrs. Markham hastily summoned Bridget to take him away.

"Wash him from head to foot," she said, while Bridget surveyed the young reprobate with anything but an approving glance.

"Go 'way!" he screamed, disappearing under the table.

Bridget, unmindful, dragged him thence, and, struggling and screaming, bore him off.

"There's no need of being rough, Bridget," called Mrs. Markham after them. "Do not hurt the dear child."