The Rector of St. Marks

Thornton Hastings had proved a most treacherous knight and overthrown

his general's plans entirely. Arthur's letter had affected him

strangely, for he readily guessed how deeply wounded his sensitive

friend had been by Anna Ruthven's refusal, while added to this was a

fear lest Anna had been influenced by a thought of him and what might

possibly result from an acquaintance. Thornton Hastings had been

flattered and angled for until he had grown somewhat vain, and it did

not strike him as at all improbable that the unsophisticated Anna

should have designs upon him.

"But I won't give her a chance," he said, when he finished Arthur's

letter. "I thought once I might like her, but I shan't, and I'll be

revenged on her for refusing the best man that ever breathed. I'll go

to Newport instead of Saratoga, and so be clear of the entire Meredith

clique, the Hethertons, the little Harcourt, and all."

This, then, was the secret of his being there at the Ocean House. He

was keeping away from Anna Ruthven, who never had heard of him but

once, and that from Lucy Harcourt. After that scene in the Glen, where

Anna had exclaimed against intriguing mothers and their bold,

shameless daughters, Mrs. Meredith had been too wise a maneuverer to

mention Thornton Hastings, so that Anna was wholly ignorant of his

presence at Newport, and looked up in unfeigned surprise at the tall,

elegant man whom her aunt presented as Mr. Hastings. With all

Thornton's affected indifference, there was still a curiosity to see

the girl who could say "no" to Arthur Leighton, and he had not waited

long after receiving Mrs. Meredith's card before going down to find

her.

"That's the girl, I'll lay a wager," he thought of a high-colored,

showily-dressed hoyden, who was whirling around the room with Ned

Peters, from Boston, and whose corn-colored dress swept against his

boots as he entered the parlor.

How, then, was he disappointed in the apparition Mrs. Meredith

presented as "my niece," the modest, self-possessed young girl, whose

cheeks grew not a whit redder, and whose pulse did not quicken at the

sight of him, though a gleam of something like curiosity shone in the

brown eyes which scanned him so quietly. She was thinking of Lucy, and

her injunction "not to speak to the hateful if she saw him;" but she

did speak to him, and Mrs. Meredith fanned herself complacently as she

saw how fast they became acquainted.

"You do not dance," Mr. Hastings said, as she declined an invitation

from Ned Peters, whom she had met at Saratoga. "I am glad, for now you

will, perhaps, walk with me outside upon the piazza. You won't take

cold, I think," and he glanced thoughtfully at the white neck and

shoulders gleaming beneath the gauzy muslin.

Mrs. Meredith was in rhapsodies and sat a full hour with the tiresome

dowagers around her, while up and down the broad piazza Thornton

Hastings walked with Anna, talking to her as he seldom talked to

women, and feeling greatly surprised to find that what he said was

fully appreciated and understood. That he was pleased with her he

could not deny himself, as he sat alone in his room that night,

feeling more and more how keenly Arthur Leighton must have felt at her

refusal.