Bad Hugh

He found her in a tasteful gown, its heavy tassels almost sweeping the

floor, while her long, glossy hair, loosened from its confinement of

ribbon and comb, covered her neck and shoulders as she sat before the

fire always kindled in her room.

"How picturesque you look," he said, gayly.

"John," and Anna's voice was soft and pleasing, "was Charlie greatly

changed? Tell me, please."

"I was so young in the days when he came wooing that I hardly remember

how he used to look. I should not have known him, but my impression is

that he looks about as well as men of forty usually look."

"Not forty, John, only thirty-eight," Anna interposed.

"Well, thirty-eight, then. You remember his age remarkably well," John

said, laughingly, adding: "Did you once love him very much?"

"Yes," and Anna's voice faltered a little.

"Why didn't you marry him, then?"

John spoke excitedly, and the flush deepened on his cheek when Anna

answered meekly: "Why didn't you marry that poor girl?"

"Why didn't I?" and John started to his feet; then he continued: "Anna,

I tell you there's a heap of wrong for somebody to answer for, but it is

not you, and it is not me--it's--it's mother!" and John whispered the

word, as if fearful lest the proud, overbearing woman should hear.

"You are mistaken," Anna replied, "for as far as Charlie was concerned

father had more to do with it than mother. I've never seen him since. He

did marry another, but I've never quite believed that he forgot me."

Anna was talking now more to herself than to John, and Charlie, could he

have seen her, would have said she was not far from the narrow way which

leadeth unto life. To John her white face, irradiated with gleams of the

soft firelight, was as the face of an angel, and for a time he kept

silence before her, then suddenly exclaimed: "Anna, you are good, and so was she, so good, so pure, so artless, and

that made it hard to leave her, to give her up. Anna, do you know what

my mother wrote me? Listen, while I tell, then see if she is not to

blame. She cruelly reminded me that by my father's will all of us, save

you, were wholly dependent upon her, and said the moment I threw myself

away upon a low, vulgar, penniless girl, that moment she'd cast me off,

and I might earn my bread and hers as best I could. She said, too, my

sisters, Anna and all, sanctioned what she wrote, and your opinion had

more weight than all the rest."

"Oh, John, mother could not have so misconstrued my words. Surely my

note explained--I sent one in mother's letter."

"It never reached me," John said, while Anna sighed at this proof of her

mother's treachery.