to return to his friends in
Portland in a week, and to tell the truth, I shan't be sorry to be rid
of him. As for you, Norry, by the way you object, one would think you
didn't want to go, after all."

Again Norine flushed angrily.

"I don't object to going," she said, in a tone that contradicted her
words. "It is the manner of going I don't like. I do think you might
have told me last night, Uncle Reuben."

Uncle Reuben stopped the cutter abruptly, and looked at her.

"Shall I turn and drive back?" he asked.

What could she say? The black eyes emitted an angry flash, the voice
that answered was sharp and petulant.

"No--go on."

He drove on, without another word. Norine lay back in the sleigh,
wrapped her cloak about her, pulled a little veil she wore, over her
face, and was silent. A great fear, a great dismay, a great foreboding
filled Uncle Reuben's heart. Had this girl lived with them so long, made
herself so dear, and hidden the nature that was within her, after all?
What lay under that sparkling surface that had seemed as clear as limpid
water? Dark depths he could never fathom, depths undreamed of as yet by
herself. Was she--he wondered this vaguely, with a keen sense of
pain--the gentle, affectionate, yielding child they had thought her, or
a self-willed, passionate, headstrong woman, ready, woman-like, to throw
over her oldest and truest friends if they stood between her and the man
she loved?

CHAPTER V.

"I WILL BE YOUR WIFE."

Miss Bourdon's visit to the family of Mr. Abel Merryweather lasted just
three weeks and two days, and unspeakably dull and empty the old red
farm-house seemed without her. Uncle Joe had gone out with her trunk on
Saturday, and with the news that everybody was well, and Mr. Thorndyke
was to go for good the following Monday.

"To New York?" Norine asked, turning very pale.

"I reckon so," Uncle Joe responded, coolly; "that's to say, he's to stop
a few days in Portland with his friends there; he's going to spend the
rest of the winter South--so he told Hetty--down to Maryland somewhere."

Norine set her lips, and turned away without a word. She would have
given half her life to be able to return with Uncle Joe, but she was far
too proud to ask. Some dim inkling of the truth was beginning to dawn
upon her. For some cruel reason they did not wish her to be with Mr.
Thorndyke, and they had sent her here to be out of his way.

They were the dullest three weeks of the