"It's no new thing," he said, while carefully dressing for a call upon Rachel in the evening, "for father to be harsh and unjust to me, and mother has one of her nervous spells, when everything goes wrong with her.""Anyhow," he continued, "there's Ned Burnleigh, who understands me and will do me justice, and he amounts to more than all of Sardis--except Rachel, who loves me and will always believe that what I do is right."He sat down at his desk and wrote a long letter to Ned, inveighing bitterly against the stupidity and malice of people living in small villages, and informing him of his intention to remove to Cincinnati as soon as an opening could be found for him there, which he begged Ned to busy himself in discovering.
Attired in his most becoming garb, and neglecting nothing that could enhance his personal appearance, he walked slowly up the hill in the evening to Rachel Bond's house.The shrinkage which his self-sufficiency had suffered had left room for a wonderful expansion of his affection for Rachel, whose love and loyalty were now essential to him, to compensate for the falling away of others.
The question of whether he should break with her was now one the answering of which could be postponed indefinitely.There was no reason why he should not enjoy the sweet privileges of an affianced lover during his stay in Sardis.What would happen afterward would depend upon the shape that things took in his new home.
He found Rachel sitting on the piazza.Though dressed in the deepest and plainest black she had never looked so surpassingly beautiful.
As is usually the case with young women of her type of beauty, grief had toned down the rich coloring that had at times seemed almost too exuberant into that delicate shell-like tint which is the perfection of nature's painting.Her round white arms shone like Juno's, as the outlines were revealed by the graceful motions which threw back the wide sleeves.Her wealth of silken black hair was drawn smoothly back from her white forehead, over her shapely head, and gathered into a simple knot behind.Save a black brooch at her throat, she wore no ornaments--not even a plain ring.
She rose as Harry came upon the piazza, and for a moment her face was rigid with intensity of feeling.This evidence of emotion went as quickly as it came, however, and she extended her hand with calm dignity, saying simply:
"You have returned, Mr.Glen."
In his anxiety to so play the impassioned lover as to conceal the recreancy he had fostered in his own heart, Harry did not notice the coolness of this greeting.Then, too, his self-satisfaction had always done him the invaluable service of preventing a ready perception of the repellant attitudes of others.
He came forward eagerly to press a kiss upon her lips, but she checked him with uplifted hand.
"O, the family's in there, are they?" said he, looking toward the open windows of the parlor."Well, what matter? Isn't it expected that a fellow will kiss his affianced wife on his return, and not care who knows it?"He pointed to the old apple-tree where they had plighted their troth that happy night, with a gesture and a look that was a reminder of their former meeting and an invitation to go thither again.She comprehended, but refused with a shudder, and, turning, motioned him to the farther end of the piazza, to which she led the way, moving with a sweeping gracefulness of carriage that Harry thought had wonderfully ripened and perfected in the three months that had elapsed since their parting.
