Poor Hugh! He was mistaken with regard to Alice. She was not listening
to love words. She was telling Irving Stanley as much of 'Lina's sad
story as she thought necessary, and Irving, though really interested,
was, we must confess, too intent on watching the changing expressions of
her beautiful face to comprehend it clearly in all its complicated
parts.
He understood that 'Lina was not, and that a certain Adah Hastings was,
Mrs. Worthington's child; understood, too, that Adah was the wife of Dr.
Richards--that she had at some time, not quite clear to him, been at
Terrace Hill, but he somehow received the impression that she eventually
fled from Spring Bank after recognizing the doctor, and never once
thought of associating her with the young woman to whom, many months
previously, he had been so kind in the crowded car, and whose sad, brown
eyes had haunted him at intervals ever since.
Irving Stanley was not what could well be called fickle. He admired
ladies indiscriminately, respected them all, liked some very much, and
next to Alice was more attracted by and pleased with Adah's face than
any he had ever seen save that of "the Brownie," which seemed to him
much like it. He had thought of Adah often, but had as often associated
her with some tall, bewhiskered man, who loved her and her little boy as
she deserved to be loved. With this idea constantly before him, Adah had
gradually faded from his mind, leaving there only the image of one who
had made the strongest impression upon him of any whom he yet had met.
Alice Johnson, she was the star he followed now, hers the presence which
would make that projected tour through Europe all sunshine. Irving had
decided to be married; his mother said he ought; Augusta said he ought;
Mrs. Ellsworth said he ought; and so, as Hugh suspected, he had come to
Kentucky for the sole purpose of asking Alice to be his wife. At sight,
however, of Hugh, so much improved, so gentlemanly, and so fine looking,
his heart began to misgive him, and Hugh would have been surprised could
he have known that Irving Stanley was as jealous of him as he was of
Irving Stanley. Yet, such was the fact, and it was a hard matter to tell
which was the more miserable of the two, Irving or Hugh, when at last
the latter returned from 'Lina's grave, and seated himself upon the
moon-lighted piazza, a little apart from the lovers, as he believed
Irving and Alice to be.
By mutual consent the conversation turned upon the war, and Alice could
scarcely forbear laying her hand in Hugh's in token of approbation as
she watched the glow of enthusiasm kindling in his cheek, and the fire
of patriotism flashing from his dark, handsome eyes.