Bad Hugh

This last caught Adah's ear and changed the whole current of her

thoughts and wishes. Greatly to Mrs. Richards' surprise, she said

abruptly, "If I cannot see Miss Anna, I need not trouble you longer.

When does the next train go west?"

Adah's voice never faltered, though her heart seemed bursting from her

throat, for she had not the most remote idea as to where the next train

going west would take her. She had reached a point when she no longer

thought or reasoned; she would leave Terrace Hill; that was all she

knew, except that in her mind there was a vague fancy or hope that she

might meet Irving Stanley again. Not George, she did not even think of

him, as she stood before Dr. Richards' mother, who looked at her in

surprise, marveling that she had given up so quietly what she had

apparently so much desired.

Very civilly she told her when the next train went west, and then added

kindly, "You cannot walk. You must stay here till car-time, when Jim

will carry you back."

At this unexpected kindness Adah's calmness gave way, and sitting down

by the table, she laid her face upon it and sobbed almost convulsively.

"Mamma tie, mam-ma tie," and he pulled Mrs. Richards' skirts vigorously

indicating that she must do something for mamma.

Just then the doorbell rang. It was the doctor, come to visit Anna, and

both Mrs. Richards and Eudora left the room at once.

"Oh, why did I come here, and where shall I go?" Adah moaned, as a sense

of her lonely condition came over her.

"Will my Father in heaven direct me? will He tell me what to do?" she

murmured brokenly, praying softly to herself that a way might be opened

for her, a path which she could tread.

She could not tell how it was, but a quiet peace stole over her, a

feeling which had no thought or care for the future, and it had been

many nights since she had slept as sweetly or soundly as she did for

one half hour with her head upon the table in that little room at

Terrace Hill, Dr. Richards' home and Anna's. She did not see the

good-humored face which looked in at her a moment, nor hear the

whispering in the hall; neither did she know when Willie, nothing loath,

was coaxed from the room and carried up the stairs into the upper hall,

where he was purposely left to himself, while Pamelia, the mother of

Jim's two pairs of twins, went to Anna's room, where she was to sit for

an hour or so, while the ladies had their lunch. Anna's head was better;

the paroxysms of pain were leas frequent than in the morning, and she

lay upon her pillow, her eyes closed wearily, and her thoughts with

Charlie Millbrook. Why had he never written?--why never come to see her?