Amy was startled by the intensity with which these words were uttered.

There was no movement of the hands or head upon the part of the older woman. She stood erect by the table, and, as her words grew stronger, the gloom of her appearance appeared to intensify itself, as a thunder-cloud grows imperceptibly blacker and blacker.

When she stopped, Amy made no reply; but, troubled and uneasy, she drew a chair to the window and sat down. The older woman took up her work again.

Amy was lost in thought, wondering what she could do. She saw nothing as she looked down into the dirty yards of the houses; but after some time, forgetting, in the abstraction of her meditation, where she was, she was suddenly aware of the movement of some white object; and looking curiously to see what it was, discovered Lawrence Newt gazing up at her from the back window of his store, and waving his handkerchief to attract her attention.

As she saw the kindly face she smiled and shook her hand. There was a motion of inquiry: "Shall I come round?" And a very resolute telegraphing by the head back again: "No, no!" There was another question, in the language of shoulders, and handkerchief, and hands: "What on earth are you doing up there?" The answer was prompt and intelligible: "Nothing that I am ashamed of." Still there came another message of motion from below, which Amy, knowing Lawrence Newt, unconsciously interpreted to herself thus: "I know you, angel of mercy! You have brought some angelic soup to some poor woman." The only reply was a smile that shone down from the window into the heart of the merchant who stood below. The smile was followed by a wave of the hand from above that said farewell. Lawrence Newt looked up and kissed his own, but the smiling face was gone.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE CAMPAIGN.

Miss Fanny Newt went to Saratoga with a perfectly clear idea of what she intended to do. She intended to be engaged to Mr. Alfred Dinks.

That young gentleman was a second cousin of Hope Wayne's, and his mother had never objected to his little visits at Pinewood, when both he and Hope were young, and when the unsophisticated human heart is flexible as melted wax, and receives impressions which only harden with time.

"Let the children play together, my dear," she said, in conjugal seclusion to her husband, the Hon. Budlong Dinks, who needed only sufficient capacity and a proper opportunity to have been one of the most distinguished of American diplomatists. He thought he was such already.

There was, indeed, plenty of diplomacy in the family, and that most skillful of all diplomatic talents, the management of distinguished diplomatists, was not unknown there.

Fanny Newt had made the proper inquiries. The result was that there were rumors--"How _do_ such stories start?" asked Mrs. Budlong Dinks of all her friends who were likely to repeat the rumor--that it was a family understanding that Mr. Alfred Dinks and his cousin Hope were to make a match. "And they _do_ say," said Mrs. Dinks, "what ridiculous things people are! and they _do_ say that, for family reasons, we are going to keep it all quiet! What a world it is!"

The next day Mrs. Cod told Mrs. Dod, in a morning call, that Mrs. Budlong Dinks said that the engagement between her son Alfred and his cousin Hope Wayne was kept quiet for family reasons. Before sunset of that day society was keeping it quiet with the utmost diligence.

These little stories were brought by little birds to New York, so that when Mrs. Dinks arrived the air was full of hints and suggestions, and the name of Hope Wayne was not unknown. Farther acquaintance with Mr.

Alfred Dinks had revealed to Miss Fanny that there was a certain wealthy ancestor still living, in whom the Dinkses had an interest, and that the only participant with them in that interest was Miss Hope Wayne. That was enough for Miss Fanny, whose instinct at once assured her that Mrs. Dinks designed Hope Wayne for her son Alfred, in order that the fortune should be retained in the family.

Miss Fanny having settled this, and upon farther acquaintance with Mr.

Dinks having discovered that she might as well undertake the matrimonial management of him as of any other man, and that the Burt fortune would probably descend, in part at least, to the youth Alfred, she decided that the youth Alfred must marry her.

But how should Hope Wayne be disposed of? Fanny reflected.

She lived in Delafield. Brother Abel, now nearly nineteen--not a childish youth--not unhandsome--not too modest--lived also in Delafield. Had he ever met Hope Wayne?

By skillful correspondence, alluding to the solitude of the country, et cetera, and his natural wish for society, and what pleasant people were there in Delafield, Fanny had drawn her lines around Abel to carry the fact of his acquaintance, if possible, by pure strategy.

In reply, Abel wrote about many things--about Mrs. Kingo and Miss Broadbraid--the Sutlers and Grabeaus--he praised the peaceful tone of rural society, and begged Fanny to beware of city dissipation; but not a word of old Burt and Hope Wayne.

Sister Fanny wrote again in the most confiding manner. Brother Abel replied in a letter of beautiful sentiments and a quotation from Dr.

Peewee.

He overdid it a little, as we sometimes do in this world. We appear so intensely unconscious that it is perfectly evident we know that somebody is looking at us. So Fanny, knowing that Christopher Burt was the richest man in the village, and lived in a beautiful place, and that his lovely grand-daughter lived with him constantly, with which information in detail Alfred Dinks supplied her, and perceiving from Abel's letter that he was not a recluse, but knew the society of the village, arrived very naturally and easily at the conclusion that brother Abel did know Hope Wayne, and was in love with her. She inferred the latter from the fact that she had long ago decided that brother Abel would not fall in love with any poor girl, and therefore she was sure that if he were in the immediate neighborhood of a lady at once young, beautiful, of good family and very rich, he would be immediately in love--very much in love.

To make every thing sure, Abel had not been at home half an hour before Fanny's well-directed allusion to Hope as the future Mrs. Dinks had caused her brother to indicate an interest which revealed every thing.

"If now," pondered Miss Fanny, "somebody who shall be nameless becomes Mrs. Alfred Dinks, and the nameless somebody's brother marries Miss Hope Wayne, what becomes of the Burt property?"

She went, therefore, to Saratoga in great spirits, and with an unusual wardrobe. The opposing general, Field-marshal Mrs. Budlong Dinks, had certainly the advantage of position, for Hope Wayne was of her immediate party, and she could devise as many opportunities as she chose for bringing Mr. Alfred and his cousin together. She did not lose her chances. There were little parties for bowling in the morning, and early walking, and Fanny was invited very often, but sometimes omitted, as if to indicate that she was not an essential part of the composition. There was music in the parlor before dinner, and working of purses and bags before the dressing-bell. There was the dinner itself, and the promenade, with music, afterward. Drives, then, and riding; the glowing return at sunset--the cheerful cup of tea--the reappearance, in delightful toilet, for the evening dance--windows--balconies--piazzas--moonlight!

Every time that Fanny, warm with the dance, declared that she must have fresh air, and that was every time she danced with Alfred, she withdrew, attended by him, to the cool, dim piazza, and every time Mrs. Dinks beheld the departure. On the cool, dim piazza the music sounded more faintly, the quiet moonlight filled the air, and life seemed all romance and festival.

"How beautiful after the hot room!" Fanny said, one evening as they sat there.

"Yes, how beautiful!" replied Alfred.

"How happy I feel!" sighed Fanny. "Ever since I have been here I have been so happy!"

"Have you been happy? So I have been happy too. How very funny!" replied Alfred.

"Yes; but pleasant too. Sympathy is always pleasant." And Fanny turned her large black eyes upon him, while the young Dinks was perplexed by a singular feeling of happiness.

They were content to moralize upon sympathy for some time. Alfred was fascinated, and a little afraid. Fanny moved her Junonine shoulders, bent her swan-like neck, drew off one glove and played with her rings, fanned herself gently at intervals, and, with just enough embarrassment not to frighten her companion, opened and closed her fan.

"What a fine fellow Bowdoin Beacon is!" said Miss Fanny, a little suddenly, and in a tone of suppressed admiration, as she drew on her glove and laid her fan in her lap, as if on the point of departure.

"Yes, he's a very good sort of fellow."

"How cold you men always are in speaking of each other! I think him a splendid fellow. He's so handsome. He has such glorious dark hair--almost as dark as yours, Mr. Dinks."

Alfred half raged, half smiled.

"Do you know," continued Fanny, looking down a little, and speaking a little lower--"do you know if he has any particular favorites among the girls here?"

Alfred was dreadfully alarmed.

"If he has, how happy they must be! I think him a magnificent sort of man; but not precisely the kind I should think a girl would fall in love with. Should you?"

"No," replied Alfred, mollified and bewildered. He rallied in a moment.

"What sort of man do girls fall in love with, Miss Fanny?"

Fanny Newt was perfectly silent. She looked down upon the floor of the piazza, fixing her eyes upon a pine-knot, patiently waiting, and wondering which way the grain of the wood ran.

The silence continued. Every moment Alfred was conscious of an increasing nervousness. There were the Junonine shoulders--the neck--the downcast eyes--moonlight--the softened music.

"Why don't you answer?" asked he, at length.

Fanny bent her head nearer to him, and dropped these words into his waistcoat:

"How good you are! I am so happy!"

"What on earth have I done?" was the perplexed, and pleased, and ridiculous reply.

"Mr. Dinks, how could I answer the question you asked without betraying--?"

"What?" inquired Alfred, earnestly.