that
she was plain, but he forgot that in a moment, and it never occurred
to him again.

In the course of the evening she returned to him, and said she wished
to introduce him to a young lady friend, whom she was sure he would
like on her own account, and on that of his brother, to whom she was
to have been all that woman might be. It took Bart's breath away. He
was unaware that his brother had ever been engaged, or wished to be,
to any lady.

"She knows you are in Jefferson," said Miss Giddings, "and has wanted
very much to see you."

She conducted him into a small sitting-room, and leading: him up to
a young lady in black, introduced him to Miss Aikens--Ida Aikens. The
young lady came forward, gave him her little hand, and looked him full
and sadly in the face. "You are like him," she said, "and I have much
wanted to see you."

"I received a letter from you," said Bart, "and fear my answer was a
poor one. Had I known you better, I could have written differently.
My brother was more to me than most brothers can be, and all who were
dear to him come at once into my tenderest regard."

"You could not answer my letter better than you did. I never had a
brother, and nothing can be more grateful to me than to meet you as we
now meet."

They sat, and he held the hand that belonged to his dead brother, and
that the hand of lover was never again to clasp. Gentle in deeds of
charity and tenderness, it would linger in its widowed whiteness until
it signalled back to the hand that already beckoned over the dark
waters.

Strangers who saw them would have taken them for lovers. They were of
nearly the same age. She, with dark, luminous eyes, and hair colored
like Haidee's, matched well with the dark gray and light brown. What a
world of tender and mournful sweetness this interview opened up to the
hungry heart of Bart--the love of a sweet, thoughtful, considerate,
intellectual and cultivated sister, unselfish and pure, to which no
touch or color of earth or passion could come. How fully and tenderly
he wrote of her to his mother, and how the unbidden wish came to his
heart to tell another of her, and as if he had the right to do so.

Miss Aikens was a young lady of high mental endowments, and great
force of character, cultivated in the true sense of culture, and
very accomplished. How sad and bitter seemed the untimely fate of his
brother; and the meeting of this sweet and mourning girl lent another
anguish to his hear