As it frequently happens that when an individual is talked or thought
about, that individual appears, so Adah now came in, asking how Hugh
was, and if she should not sit a while with him.
Hugh's face brightened at once, for next to Alice he liked best to have
Adah with him. With 'Lina's letter still fresh in his mind it was very
natural for him to think of what was said of Augusta Stanley, and after
Adah had sat a moment, he asked if she remembered such a person at Madam
Dupont's school, or Lottie Gardner either.
"Yes, I remember them both," and Adah looked up quickly. "Lottie was
proud and haughty, though quite popular with most of the girls, I
believe; but Augusta--oh, I liked her so much. Do you know her?"
"No; but Ad, it seems, has ingratiated herself into the good graces of
Mrs. Ellsworth, this Augusta's sister. There's a brother, too'--"
"Yes, I remember. He came one day with Augusta, and all the girls were
so delighted. I hardly noticed him myself, for my head was full of
George. It was there I met him first, you know."
There was a shadow now on Adah's face, and she sat silent for some time,
thinking of the past, while Hugh watched the changes of her beautiful
face, wondering what was the mystery which seemed to have shrouded the
whole of her young life.
"You have done me a great deal of good," he said; "and sometimes I think
it's wrong in me to let you go away, when, if I kept you, you might
teach me how to be a good man--a Christian man, I mean."
"Oh, if you only would be one," and the light which shone in Adah's eyes
seemed born of Heaven. "I am going, it is true, but there is One who
will stay with you--One who loves you so much."
He thought she meant Alice, and he grasped her hand, and exclaimed: "Loves me, Adah, does she? Say it again! Does Alice Johnson love me, me?
Hugh? Did she tell you so? Adah," and Hugh spoke vehemently, "I have
admitted to you what an hour ago I fancied nothing could wring from me,
but I trust to your discretion not to betray it; certainly not to her,
not to Alice, for, of course, there is no hope. You do not think there
is? You know her better than I," and he looked wistfully at Adah, who
felt constrained to answer: "There might have been, I'm sure, if she had seen no one else."