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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 said, as he shook hands with her on the doorstep. "I can never repay all your kindness, I know, but I will do my best if the opportunity ever offers. Give my very best regards to Miss Bourdon, and tell her how much I regretted her running away."
And so he was gone. Uncle Reuben watched him out of sight with a great breath of relief.
"Thank the Lord he's gone, and that danger's over."
Ah, was it? Had you known Mr. Laurence Thorndyke better, Reuben Kent, you would have known, also, that the danger was but beginning.
Mr. Thorndyke remained four days with his friends in the city, and then started for New York. Reuben Kent heard it with immense relief and satisfaction.
"He's gone, Hetty," he said to his sister, "and the good Lord send he may never cross our little girl's path again. I can see her now, with the color fading out of her face, and that white look of disappointment coming over it. I hope she's forgot him before this."
"Will you go for her to-day?" Aunt Hetty asked. "It's dreadful lonesome without her."
"Not to-day. Next week will do. She'll forget him faster there than here, Hetty."
It wanted but three days of Christmas when Uncle Reuben went for his niece, and it was late on Christmas eve when they returned. The snow was piled high and white everywhere. The trees stood up, black, rattling skeletons around the old house. All things seemed to have changed in the weeks of her absence, and nothing more than Norine Bourdon.
She sank down in a chair, in a tired, spiritless sort of way, and let Aunt Hetty remove her wraps. She had grown thin, in the past fortnight, and pale and worn-looking.
"You precious little Norry," aunt Hetty said, giving her a welcoming hug. "You can't tell how glad we are to have you back again; how dreadfully we missed you. I expect you enjoyed your visit awfully now?"
"No," the young girl answered, with an impatient sigh; "it was dull."
"Dull, Norry! with four girls and three young men in the house?"
"Well, it was dull to me. I didn't care for their frolics and sleighing parties and quilting bees. It was horridly stupid, the whole of it."
"Then you are glad to be home again?"
"Yes."
She did not look particularly glad, however. She leaned her head against the back of the chair, and closed her eyes with weary listlessness. Aunt Hetty watched her with a thrill of apprehension. Was her fancy for their departed guest something more than mere fancy? – had she not begun even to forget yet, after all?
She opened her eyes suddenly while Aunt Hetty was thinking this, and spoke abruptly.
"What did Mr. Thorndyke say when he found I was gone?"
"Nothing. Oh – he asked how long you were going to stay."
"Was that all?"
"That was all."
"Did he not inquire where I had gone?"
"No, my dear."
Norine said no more. The firelight shone full on her face, and she lifted a book and held it as a screen. So long she sat mute and motionless that Aunt Hetty fancied she had fallen asleep. She laid her hand on her shoulder. Norine's black, sombre eyes looked up.
"I thought you were asleep, my dear, you sat so still. Is anything the matter?"
"I am tired, and my head aches. I believe I will go to bed."
"But, Norry, it is Christmas eve. Supper is ready, and – "
"I can't eat supper – I don't wish any. Give me a cup of tea, aunty, and let me go."
With a sigh, aunty obeyed, and slowly and wearily Norine toiled up to her room. It was very cosy, very pleasant, very home-like and warm, that snug upper chamber, with its striped, home-made carpet of scarlet and green, its blazing fire and shaded lamp. Outside, the keen, Christmas stars shone coldly, and the world lay white in its chill winding sheet of snow.
But Norine thought neither of the comfort within nor the desolation without. She sank down into a low chair before the fire and looked blankly into the red coals.
"Gone!" something in her head seemed beating that one word, like the ticking of a clock; "gone – gone – gone forever. And it was only thirty miles, and the cars would have taken him, and he never came. And I thought, I thought, he liked me a little."
It was a dismal Christmas eve at Kent Farm; how were they to eat, drink and be merry with Norine absent. No she had not begun to forget; the mischief was wrought, every room in the house was haunted by the image of the "youth who had loved, and who rode away."
The New Year dawned, passed, and the ides of February came. And Norine – she was only seventeen, remember, began to pluck up heart of grace once more, and her laugh rang out, and her songs began to be as merry, almost, as before the coming and going of Prince Charming. Almost; the woman's heart had awakened in the girl's breast, and the old childish joyousness could never be quite the same. He never wrote, she never heard his name, even Mr. Gilbert had ceased to write. March came. "Time, that blunts the edge of things, dries our tears and spoils our bliss," had dried all hers long ago, and the splendor of Laurence Thorndyke's image was wofully dimmed by this time. Life had flown back into the old, dull channels, comfortable, but dull. No letters to look for now from Mr. Gilbert, no books, no music, everybody forgot her, Richard Gilbert, Laurence Thorndyke – all.
She sighed a little over the quilt she was making – a wonderful quilt of white and "Turkey red," a bewildering Chinese puzzle to the uninitiated. It was a dull March afternoon, cheerless and slushy, the house still as a tomb, and no living thing to be seen in the outer world, as she sat alone at her work.
"What a stupid, dismal humdrum sort of life it is." Miss Bourdon thought, drearily, "and I suppose it will go on for thirty or forty years exactly like this, and I'll dry up, and wrinkle and grow yellow and ugly, and be an old maid like Aunt Hetty. I think it would be a great deal better if some people never were born at all."
She paused suddenly, with this wise generality in her mind. A man was approaching – a tall man, a familiar and rather distinguished-looking man. One glance was enough. With a cry of delight she dropped the Chinese-puzzle quilt, sprang up, rushed out, and plumped full into the arms of the gentleman.
"Oh, Mr. Gilbert!" she cried, her black eyes, her whole face radiant with the delight of seeing some one, "how glad I am to see you! It has been so dull, and I thought you had forgotten us altogether. Come in – come in."
She held both his hands, and pulled him in. Unhappy Richard Gilbert! Who is to blame you for construing that enthusiastic welcome to suit yourself? In fear and foreboding, you had approached that house – you had looked for coldness, aversion, reproaches, perhaps. You had nerved yourself to bear them, and defend yourself, and instead —this.
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