"But I did not give her Daisy's ring," he said; and he spoke very

reverently as he continued, "Abigail was a good, sensible girl, and even

if she hears what I am saying she will pardon me when I tell you that it

did not seem to me that diamonds were befitting such as she; Daisy, I am

sure, had a different kind of person in view when she made me keep the

ring for the maiden who would prize such things, and who was worthy of

it. Abigail was worthy, but there was not a fitness in giving it to her,

neither would she have prized it; so I kept it in its little box with a

curl of Daisy's hair. Had she become my wife, I might eventually have

given it to her, but she died, and it was well. She would not have

satisfied me now, and I should--"

He was going to add "should not have been what I am," but that would

have savored too much of pride, and possibly of disrespect for the dead;

so he checked himself, and while his rare, pleasant smile broke all over

his beaming face, and his hazel eyes grew soft and tender in their

expression, he said: "You, Ethelyn, seem to me the one Daisy would have

chosen for a sister. You are quiet, and gentle, and pure like her, and I

am so glad of the Providence which led me to Chicopee. They said I was

looking for a wife, but I had no such idea. I never thought to marry

until I met you that afternoon when you wore the pretty delaine, with

the red ribbon in your hair. Do you remember it, Ethelyn?"

Ethelyn did not answer him at once. She was looking far off upon the

water, where the moonlight lay sleeping, and revolving in her mind the

expediency of being equally truthful with her future husband, and saying

to him, "I, too, have loved, and been promised to another." She knew

she ought to tell him this and she would, perhaps, have done so, for

Ethie meant to be honest, and her heart was touched and softened by

Richard's tender love for his sister; but when he was so unfortunate as

to call the green silk which Madame--, in Boston, had made, a pretty

delaine, and her scarlet velvet band a "red ribbon," her heart hardened,

and her secret remained untold, while her proud lip half curled in scorn

at the thought of Abigail Jones, who once stood, perhaps, as she was

standing, with her hand on Richard Markham's and the kiss of betrothal

wet upon her forehead. Ah, Ethie, there was this difference: Abigail had

kissed her lover back, and her great black eyes had looked straight into

his with an eager, blissful joy, as she promised to be his wife, and

when he wound his arm around her, she had leaned up to the bashful

youth, encouraging his caresses, while you--gave back no answering

caress, and shook lightly off the arm laid across your neck. Possibly

Richard thought of the difference, but if he did he imputed Ethelyn's

cold impassiveness to her modest, retiring nature, so different from

Abigail's. It was hardly fair to compare the two girls, they were so

wholly unlike, for Abigail had been a plain, simple-hearted, buxom

country girl of the West, whose world was all contained within the

limits of the neighborhood where she lived, while Ethie was a

high-spirited, petted, impulsive creature, knowing but little of such

people as Abigail Jones, and wholly unfitted to cope with any world

outside that to which she had been accustomed. But love is blind, and so

was Richard; for with his whole heart he did love Ethelyn Grant; and,

notwithstanding his habits of thirty years, she could then have molded

him to her will, had she tried, by the simple process of love. But,

alas! there was no answering throb in her heart when she felt the touch

of his hand or his breath upon her cheek. She was only conscious of a

desire to avoid his caress, if possible, while, as the days went by, she

felt a growing disgust for "Abigail Jones," whose family, she gathered

from her lover, lived near to, and were quite familiar with, his mother.




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