ow
him many a picture which tore his heart, although look upon it he
would. He saw Dorothy Fair in her wedding-gown; he saw her blush like
a rose through her bridal lace; he saw her following Burr up the
meeting-house aisle the Sabbath after her marriage with a soft
rustling of silken finery, and a toss of white bridal plumes over her
fair locks. He saw those glances, which he swore to himself boldly
enough then had first been his, turned upon his rival; he imagined
sweet words and caresses which he had never tasted, and were
perchance the sweeter for that, bestowed upon Burr.

Suddenly he started up and flung down his book upon the settle, and
put on his fur cap and was out of the house. "The first turn of her
heart was towards me, and I was the first man she coupled with love
in her thoughts, and nothing can undo it," he said, aloud, fiercely
to himself as he went up the lonely snowy road; and he believed it
then. Those soft blue glances of Dorothy's came back to him so
vividly that he seemed to see them anew whenever his eyes fell upon
the way-side bushes, or the cloud-shadowed slopes of white fields, or
the dark gaps of solitude between the forest pines.

For the first time a fierce insistence of his rights of love was upon
him. Straight to the village he went, and to Parson Fair's house. But
he did not enter; his madness was not great enough for that. He did
not enter, but he went past with a bold, searching look at all the
windows and no pretence of indifference, and up the road a little
way. Then he returned and passed the house again, and looked again;
and this time Dorothy's face showed between the dimity sweeps of her
chamber curtains. He half stopped, and then came another glance of
blue eyes which verified those that had gone before, straight into
his, which replied with a dark flash of ardor, and then Dorothy's
face went red all of a sudden, and there was a vanishing curve of
blushing cheek and a flirt aside of fair curls, and the space between
the dimity curtains was clear.

Eugene stood still beneath the window for a few minutes. There were
watchful eyes in the neighboring windows. In the tavern-yard, farther
down the street, Dexter Beers and old Luke Basset stood, also fixedly
staring at Parson Fair's house.

"Wonder if he thinks there's any trouble--fire or anything," said
Dexter Beers.

"Don't see no smoke," said old Luke.

Eugene Hautville, rapt in that abstraction of love which is the
comple