Bad Hugh

"More like a daughter you seem to me," she had said to Adah, in speaking

of her going; "and once I had a wild--" here she stopped, leaving the

sentence unfinished, for she did not care to tell Adah of the shock it

had given her when Hugh first pointed out to her the faint mark on

Adah's forehead.

It was fainter now even than then, for with increasing color and health

it seemed to disappear, and Mrs. Worthington could scarcely see it, when

with a caressing movement of her hand she put the silken hair back from

Adah's brow and kissed the bluish veins.

"There is none there. It was all a fancy," she murmured to herself, and

then thinking of 'Lina, she said to Adah what she had all along meant to

say, that if the Richards' family should question her of 'Lina, she was

to divulge nothing to her disparagement, whether she were rich or poor,

high or low. "You must not, of course, tell any untruths. I do not ask

that, but I--oh, I sometimes wish they need not know that you came from

here, as that would save all trouble, and 'Lina is so--so--"

Mrs. Worthington did not finish the sentence, for Adah instantly

silenced her by answering frankly: "I do not intend they shall know, not at present certainly."

Adah retired early, as did both Mrs. Worthington and Densie, for all

were unusually tired; only Hugh, as he supposed, was up, and he sat by

the parlor fire where they had passed the evening. He was very sorry

Adah was going, but it was not so much of her he was thinking as of

Alice. Had she dreamed of his real feelings, she never would have done

what she did, but she was wholly unconscious of it, and so, when, late

that night, she returned to the parlor in quest of something she had

left, and found him sitting there alone, she paused a moment on the

threshold, wondering if she had better join him or go away. His back was

toward her, and he did not hear her light step, so intently was he

gazing into the burning grate, and trying to frame the words he should

say if ever he dared tell Alice Johnson of his love.

There was much girlish playfulness in Alice's nature, and sliding across

the carpet, she clasped both her hands before his eyes, and exclaimed: "A penny for your thoughts."

Hugh started as suddenly as if some apparition had appeared before him,

and blushing guiltily, clasped and held upon his face the little soft,

warm hands which did not tremble, but lay still beneath his own. It was

Providence which sent her there, he thought; Providence indicating that

he might speak, and he would.