"I think we have the grandest storms at Ridgeley that visit our

continent," resumed Mabel thoughtfully. "I suppose because the house

stands so high. The wind never sounds to me anywhere else as it does

here on winter nights."

Yielding to the weird attraction of the scene invoked by her fancy,

she arose and walked to the window at the eastern extremity of the

hall, pulling aside the curtain that she might peer into the wild

darkness. The crimson light of the burning logs and the lamp rays

threw a strongly defined shadow of her figure upon the piazza floor,

distinct as that projected by a solar microscope upon a sheeted

wall; sent long, searching rays into the misty fall of the snow,

past the spot from which she had her last glimpse of Frederic

Chilton, so many, many months agone, showing the black outline of

the gate where he had looked back to lift his hat to her.

What was there in the wintry night and thick tempest to recall the

warmth and odor of that moist September morning, the smell of the

dripping roses overhead, the balmy humidity of every breath she

drew? What in her present companion that reminded her of the loving

clasp that had thrilled her heart into palpitation? the earnest

depth of the eyes that held hers during the one sharp, yet sweet

moment of parting--eyes that pledged the fealty of her lover's soul,

and demanded hers then and forever? His conscience might have been

sullied by crimes more heinous than those charged upon him by her

brother and his friends; he might--he HAD--let her go easily, as one

resigns his careless hold upon a paltry, unprized toy; but when her

hand had rested thus in his, and his passionate regards penetrated

her soul, he loved her, alone and entirely! She would fold this

conviction to her torpid heart for a little while before she turned

herself away finally from the memories of that love-summer and

battle-autumn of her existence. If it aroused in the chilled thing

some slight pangs of sentiency, it would do her no hurt to realize

through these that it had once been alive.

She saw a shadow approaching to join itself to hers upon the

whitened floor without, before Mr. Dorrance interrupted her reverie

by words.

"The fury of the tempest you admire proves its paternity," he said,

with a manifest effort at lightness. "It emanates from the vast

magazines of frost, snow, and wintry wind that lie far to the

north-east even of my home, and THAT is in a region you would think

drear and inhospitable after the more clement airs of of your native

State."




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