young lady's life. It was a
pleasant place, too--Mr. Abel Merryweather's, with a jolly, noisy
houseful of sons and daughters, and country frolics without end. Two
months ago, Norine had looked forward to this visit with delight. But
in two months the whole world had changed; and now, there was no
sunshine in heaven, no gladness on earth, since a well-looking,
well-dressed young man from the city would light her life with his smile
no more.

Mr. Thorndyke did depart the following Monday. He had been considerably
surprised on first missing Norine, and inquired of Aunt Hetty where she
was. The reply was very brief and reserved.

"Uncle Reuben has taken her away to visit some friends."

Mr. Thorndyke fixed his large, blue eyes full upon the speaker's face.
Aunt Hester, never looking at him, went on arranging the furniture.

"How long will she be gone?" he asked, at length.

"That depends upon circumstances," replied Miss Kent; "probably some
weeks."

Mr. Thorndyke said no more. Aunt Hetty poured out his tea, arranged his
buttered toast and boiled eggs, and left the room. It had been Norine's
labor of love hitherto, Norine's bright face that smiled across the
little round table, instead of the withered, sallow one of Aunt Hetty.
He sat alone now over his noon-day breakfast, an inexplicable look on
his handsome face.

"So," he thought, "they have gone even farther than I anticipated, they
have spirited her away altogether. Poor little girl! pretty little
Norry! I believe I am really fond of you, after all. I wonder if she
went willingly?" he smiled to himself, his vanity answered that question
pretty accurately. "It's rather hard on her, a modern case of Elizabeth
and the exiles. It's all my friend Gilbert's doing, of course. Very
well. It is his day now, it may be mine, to-morrow."

The intervening days were hopelessly long and dreary to Mr. Laurence
Thorndyke. How fond he had grown of that sparkling brunette face, those
limpid eyes of "liquid light," he never knew until he lost her. That
pleasant, homely room was so full of her--the closed piano, the little
rocker and work-stand by the window, her beloved books and birds. Life
became, all in an hour, a horrible bore in that dull red farm-house.
Come what might to ankle and arm, ailing still, he would go at once. He
dispatched a note to his friends in Portland, and early on Monday
morning drove away with Mr. Thomas Lydyard, his friend.

"Good-by Miss Kent," he sa