I had written to Adah more than once, and had made out a programme of what we should do when she came to town.

Quite early in the evening I started out to call upon her, but as I drew near the house I saw that a handsome coupe stood before the door, drawn by two horses, and that the coachman was in livery. My steps were speedily arrested, for the door of the dwelling was opened, and Mr.

Hearn came out, accompanied by Adah. They entered the coupe and were driven rapidly toward Fifth Avenue. I gave a long, low whistle, and took two or three turns around the block, muttering, "Gilbert Hearn, but you are shrewd. If you can't have the best thing in the world, you'll have the next best. Come to think of it, she is the best for you. If this comes about for Adah, I could throw my hat over yonder steeple."

I went back to the house, proposing to leave my card, and thus show Adah that I was not inattentive. The interior of the dwelling, like its exterior, was plain, but very substantial and elegant. The servant handed my card to a lady pa.s.sing through the hall.

"Oh, thee is Richard Morton?" she said. "Cousin Ruth and Adah have told us all about thee. Please come in, for I want to make thy acquaintance.

Adah will be so sorry to miss thee. She has gone out for the evening."

"If she will permit me," I said, "I will call to-morrow, on my way downtown, for I wish to see her very much."

"Do so, by all means. Come whenever thee can, and informally. Thee'll always find a welcome here."

Before I was aware I had spent an hour in pleasant chat, for with the Yocombs as mutual friends we had common interests.

Mrs. Winfield, my hostess, had all the elegance of Mrs. Bradford; but there was also a simple, friendly heartiness in her manner that stamped every word she spoke with sincerity. I was greatly pleased, and felt that the wealthy banker and his sister could find no fault with Adah's connections.

She greeted me the next morning like the sister she had become in very truth.

"Oh, Richard!" she exclaimed, "I'm so glad to see thee. Why! thee's so improved I'd hardly know thee. Seems to me thee's grown taller and larger every way."

"I fear I looked rather small sometimes in the country."

"No, Richard, thee never looked small to me; but when I think what I was when thee found me, I don't wonder thee went up to thy room in disgust. I've thought a great deal since that day, and I've read some too."

"If you knew how proud of you I am now, it would turn your head."

"Perhaps it isn't very strong. So thee's going to eat thy Thanksgiving dinner at home. I shall be well out of the way."

"You will never be in my way; but perhaps I might have been in somebody's way had I come earlier last night."

"I thought thee was blind," she said, an exquisite color coming into her beautiful face.

"Never to your interests, Adah. Count on me to the last drop."

"Oh, Richard, thee has been so kind and helpful to me. Thee'll never know all that's in my heart. When I think what I was when I first knew thee, I wonder at it all."

"Adah," I said, taking her hand, "you have become a genuine woman. The expression of your face has changed, and it has become a fine example of the truth, that even beauty follows the law of living growth--from within outward. Higher thoughts, n.o.ble principle, and unselfishness are making their impress. After our long separation I see the change distinctly, and I feel it still more. You have won my honest respect, Adah; I predict for you a happy life, and, what is more, you will make others happy. People will be the better for being with you."

"Well, Richard, now that we are brother and sister, I don't mind telling thee that it was thee who woke me up. I was a fool before thee came."

"But the true, sweet woman was in your nature ready to be awakened.

Other causes would soon have produced the same effect."

"Possibly; but I don't know anything about other causes. I do know thee, and I trust thee with my whole heart, and I'm going to talk frankly with thee because I want to ask thy advice. Thee knows how near to death I came. I've thought a great deal about it. Having come so near losing life, I began to think what life meant--what it was--and I was soon made to see how petty and silly my former life had been. My heart just overflowed with grat.i.tude toward thee. When thee was so ill I would often lie awake whole nights thinking and trembling lest thee should die. I felt so strangely, so weak and helpless, that I stretched out my hands to thee, and thy strong hands caught and sustained me through that time when I was neither woman nor child. Thee never humiliated me by even a glance. Thee treated me with a respect that I did not deserve, but which I want to deserve. I am not strong, like Emily Warren, but I am trying to do right. Thee changed a blind impulse into an abiding trust and sisterly affection. Thee may think I'm giving thee a strange proof of my trust. I am going to tell thee something that I've not told any one yet. Last evening Gilbert Hearn took me to see his sister, Mrs. Bradford, and I spent the evening with them and little Adela. Coming home he asked me to be his wife. I was not so very greatly surprised, for he spent every First Day in October at our house while Adela was with us, and he was very attentive to me. Father and mother don't like it very much, but I think they are a little prejudiced against him on thy account. I believe thee will tell me the truth about him."

"Adah dear, you _have_ honored me greatly. I will advise you just as I would my own sister. What did you answer him last evening?"

"I told him that I was a simple country girl, and not suited to be his wife. Then he said that he had a right to his own views about that. He said he wanted a genuine wife--one that would love him and his little girl, and not a society woman, who would marry him for his money."

"That is exceedingly sensible."

"Yes, he said he wanted a home, and that he was fond of quiet home life; that I came of a quiet, sincere people, and that he had seen enough of me to know that he could trust me. He said also that I could be both a mother and a companion to Adela, and that the child needed just such a disposition as I had."

I laughed as I said, "Mr. Hearn is sagacity itself. Even Solomon could not act more wisely than he is seeking to act. But what does your heart say to all this, Adah?"

Her color deepened, and she averted her face. "Thee will think I'm dreadfully matter-of-fact, Richard, but I think that perhaps we are suited to each other. I've thought about it a great deal. As I said before, my head isn't very strong. I couldn't understand half the things thee thinks and writes about. I've seen that clearly. He wouldn't expect a wife to understand his business, and he says he wants to forget all about it when he comes home. He says he likes a place full of beauty, repose, and genial light. He likes quiet dinner parties made up of his business friends, and not literary people like thee. We haven't got great, inquiring minds like thee and Emily Warren."

"You are making fun of me now, Adah. I fear Miss Warren has thrown me over in disgust."

"Nonsense, Richard. She loves thy little finger more than I am capable of loving any man. She is strong and intense, and she could go with thee in thought wherever thee pleases. I'm only Adah."

"Yes, you are Adah, and the man who has the reputation of having the best of everything in the city wants you badly, and with good reason.

But I want to know what _you_ want."

"I want to know what thee thinks of it. I want thee to tell me about him. Does thee know anything against him?"

"No, Adah. Even when I feared he would disappoint my dearest hope, I told your mother that he was an honorable man. He is exceedingly shrewd in business, but I never heard of his doing anything that was not square. I think he would make you a very kind, considerate husband, and, as he says, you could do so much for his little girl. But, rich as he is, Adah, he is not rich enough for you unless you can truly love him."

"I think I can love him in my quiet way. I think I would be happy in the life I would lead with him. I'm fond of housekeeping, and very fond of pretty things and of the city, as thee knows. Then I could do so much for them all at home. Father and mother are growing old. Father lent money some years ago, and lost it, and he and mother have to work too hard. I could do so much for them and for Zillah, and that would make me happy. But I am so simple, and I know so little, that I fear I can't satisfy him."

"I have no fear on that score. What I am anxious about is, will he satisfy you? You can't realize how bent upon your happiness I am."

"I thank thee, Richard. I was not wrong in coming to thee. Well, I told him that I wanted to think it all over, and I asked him to do the same.

He said he had fully made up his mind and that his sister heartily approved of his course, and had advised it. He said that he would wait for me as long as I pleased. Now if thee thinks it's best, thy words would have much influence with father and mother."

I raised her hand to my lips, and said, feelingly: "Adah, I am very grateful for this confidence. I feel more honored that you should have come to me than if I had been made Governor. In view of what you have said, I do think it's best. Mr. Hearn will always be kind and considerate. He will be very proud of you, and you will grow rapidly in those qualities that will adorn your high social position. Do not undervalue yourself. Gilbert Hearn may well thank G.o.d for you every day of his life."

I went down to the office in a mood to write an interminable Thanksgiving editorial, for it seemed as if the clouds were all breaking away.

CHAPTER XX

THANKSGIVING DAY

On the day before Thanksgiving one of my a.s.sociates clapped me on the shoulder, and said, laughing: "Morton, what's the matter? You are as nervous as a girl on her wedding-day. I've spoken to you twice, and you've not answered. Has one of the dragons got the best of you?"

I woke up, and said quietly, "It isn't a dragon this time."

Oh, how vividly that evening comes back to me, as I walked swiftly uptown! It would have been torture to have ridden in a lumbering stage or crawling street-car. I scarcely knew what I thrust into my travelling bag. I had no idea what I ate for dinner, and only remember that I scalded myself slightly with hot coffee. Calling a coupe, I dashed off to a late train that pa.s.sed through the village nearest to the farmhouse.

It had been arranged that I should come the following morning, and that Reuben should meet me, but I proposed to give them a surprise. I could not wait one moment longer than I must. I had horrible dreams in the stuffy little room at the village inn, but consoled myself with the thought that "dreams go by contraries."

After a breakfast on which mine host cleared two hundred per cent, I secured a light wagon and driver, and started for the world's one Mecca for me. My mind was in a tumult of mingled hope and fear, and I experienced all a young soldier's trepidation when going into his first battle. If she had not come: if she would not listen to me. The cold perspiration would start out on my brow at the very thought. What a mockery Thanksgiving Day would ever become if my hopes were disappointed. Even now I cannot recall that interminable ride without a faint awakening of the old unrest.

When within half a mile of the house I dismissed my driver, and started on at a tremendous pace; but my steps grew slower and slower, and when the turn of the road revealed the dear old place just before me, I leaned against a wall faint and trembling. I marked the spot on which I had stood when the fiery bolt descended, and some white shingles indicated the place on the mossy roof where it had burned its way into the home that even then enshrined my dearest treasures. I saw the window at which Emily Warren had directed the glance that had sustained my hope for months. I looked wistfully at the leafless, flowerless garden, where I had first recognized my Eve. "Will her manner be like the present aspect of that garden?" I groaned. I saw the arbor in which I had made my wretched blunder. I had about broken myself of profanity, but an ugly expression slipped out (I hope the good angel makes allowances for human nature). Recalling the vow I had made in that arbor, I s.n.a.t.c.hed up my valise and did not stop till I had mounted the piazza. Further suspense was unendurable. My approach had been unnoted, nor had I seen any of the family. Noiselessly as possible I opened the door and stood within the hallway. I heard Mrs. Yocomb's voice in the kitchen. Reuben was whistling upstairs, and Zillah singing her doll to sleep in the dining-room. I took these sounds to be good omens. If she had not come there would not have been such cheerfulness.