355

LXVI.--THREATS AND PERSUASIONS 360

LXVII.--THE EVENING RIDE 367

LXVIII.--RALPH FINDS LINA 372

LXIX.--AGNES BECOMES PATHETIC 376

LXX.--MABEL HARRINGTON AND HER SON 382

LXXI.--THE MISSING BOOK 387

LXXII.--FRAGMENTS OF MABEL'S JOURNAL 391

LXXIII.--THE TWO BROTHERS 393

LXXIV.--GENERAL HARRINGTON'S SECRET 399

LXXV.--THE DESERTED CHAMBER 404

LXXVI.--THE UNEXPECTED RETURN 407

LXXVII.--MOTHER AND DAUGHTER 411

LXXVIII.--A STORMY PARTING 414

LXXIX.--UNDER THE ICE 419

LXXX.--WHO WAS LINA 423

LXXXI.--THE MANIAC 426

MABEL'S MISTAKE.

CHAPTER I.

THE STEP-MOTHER AND STEP-SON.

It was autumn, one of those balmy Indian summer days which, if the eyes
were closed, would remind you of Andalusia when the orange trees put
forth their blossoms with the matured fruit still clinging to their
boughs, burying its golden ripeness among cool, green leaves, and buds
of fragrant snow. Still, save in the delicious atmosphere that autumnal
sunset would not have reminded you of any land but our own. For what
other climate ever gave the white wings of the frost the power to
scatter that rich combination of red, green, gold and dusky purple upon
a thousand forests in a single night? What other land ever saw the sun
go down upon a world of green foliage, and rise to find the same foliage
bathed in a sea of brilliant tints, till the east was paled by its
gorgeousness?

Indeed, there was nothing in this calm, Indian-summer twilight to remind
you of any other land, save its stillness and the balm of dying flowers
giving up their lives to the frost. But the links of association are
rapid and mysterious, and the scenes that awaken a reminiscence are
sometimes entirely opposite to the memory awakened.

Be this as it may, there was something in the landscape suddenly clad
in its gorgeous fall tints--in