Bad Hugh

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."