s came
again the restlessness. I would at least know the worst; let me face all
my wretchedness; it could not be but strength would come to me when the
worst was over.

And so I went doggedly through my morning tasks, and the early afternoon
saw me at the store. I would not go to Miss Hammond's house, but I was
sure to hear something of the new-comers among the gossiping miners and
workmen,--or, if not there, I had only to drop into some of the
cottages, to learn from their wives all that they knew or imagined. How
little I learned,--how little compared to what my fierce, craving heart
asked!

"Miss Worthington was here with her father; they had come to see the
mines, so they said; but who knows the truth? More like it was to be a
wedding between the young folks, and the father wanted to see the Sandy
country before he let his daughter come into it. She was a sweet-spoken
young thing,--not like Miss Hammond, with her proud, quality airs."

But all this was only conjecture, and I must have certainty. The
certainty came that evening. Mr. Hammond passed the store as I was
standing by the counter, and insisted that I should go home to tea with
him. I had often done so before, and had no excuse, even when he said,--

"I want so much to make Miss Worthington like our Sandy people, Janet. I
want her father to see that there are people worth knowing even here.
You will tell her of all the pleasures we have,--our walks, our rides.
You cannot be afraid of her, dear Janet,--she is so gentle, so lovely."

A strange feeling seized me, one mingled of gentleness and bitterness.
Yes, for his sake, I would help him. I would do all I could to welcome
to his home her who was to be its blessing, and (here my good angel left
me and some evil one whispered) I would show her, too, that I was not so
altogether to be contemned; she should see that I was not merely the
poor country-girl she thought me. And all I had of thought or feeling,
all that George Hammond had called my inborn poetry, came out that
evening. I talked, I talked well, for I was talking of what I
understood,--of my own forests and streams, of the flowers whose haunts
I knew so well, of the changing seasons in their varying beauty,--nay,
as I gained courage, as I saw that I commanded attention, the books that
I had read so well, the thoughts of those great writers that I had made
my own, came to my aid, and quotation and allusion pressed readily to my
lips.

I saw Esther