lings. I am very sorry. If he has done so, I think
he ought to have acknowledged it the other day. But I hope sincerely that
we shall all let by-gones be by-gones, and live happily together. Ah! I
see dinner is ready. Good-day, Mrs. Simcoe. Dr. Peewee, will you ask a
blessing?'"

It was already midnight, and the two women sat before the fire. It was
the moment when Abel Newt was stealing through his rooms, fastening doors
and windows. Hope Wayne was pale and cold like a statue as she listened
to the voice of Mrs. Simcoe, which had a wailing tone pitiful to hear.
After a long silence she began again:

"What ought I to have done? Should I have gone away? That was the easiest
course. But, Hope, the way of duty is not often the easiest way. I wrote
a long letter to the good old Bishop Asbury, who seemed to me like a
father, and after a while his answer came. He told me that I should seek
the Lord's leading, and if that bade me stay--if that told me that it
would be for my soul's blessing that my heart should break daily--then I
had better remain, seeing that the end is not here--that here we have no
continuing city, and that our proud hearts must be bruised by grief, even
as our Saviour's lowly forehead was pierced with thorns.

"So I staid. It was partly pity for your mother, who began to droop at
once. It was partly that I might keep my wound bleeding for my soul's
salvation; and partly--I see it now, but I could not then--because I
believed, as before God I do now believe, that in his secret heart I was
the woman your father loved, and I could not give him up.

"Your mother's lover wrote to me at once, I discovered afterward, but his
letters were intercepted, for your grandfather was a shrewd, resolute
man. Then he came to Pinewood, but he was not allowed to see your mother.
The poor boy was frantic; but before he could effect any thing your
mother was the wife of Colonel Wayne. Then, in the same ship in which he
had come from India, he returned; and after he was gone all his letters
were given to me. I wrote to him at once. I told him every thing about
your mother, but there was not much to tell. She never mentioned his name
after her marriage. There were gay parties given in honor of the wedding,
and her delicate, drooping, phantom-like figure hung upon the arm of her
handsome, elegant husband. People said that her maidenly shyness was
beautiful to behold, and that she clung to her husband like the waving
ivy to the