SN 
in the parior. She seemed irresolute 
for a moment, and then her face be- 
came hard as I had never seen it be- 
fore. She laid down her cue and start- 
ed to leave the room without a word. 
The blood flew to my face and hot 
words to my tongue; but, restraining 
myself as best I could, I cried: 
“Miss Hilen, if that man has dared 
to force his attentions on you or to an- 
noy you”— 
She bade me hush. “Squire Haw- 
kins is all that is kind and good,” she 
said. ‘His only wish is to serve me 
and my family. You must say noth- 
ing against him in my presence, Mr. 
Palmer.” 
“That man wants to force you into 
marrying him, Miss Ellen. ’Tis out- 
“Miss Ellen, if that man has dared to 
annoy you”— 
rageous!” I cried, beside myself with 
anger. “He is old enough to be your 
father.” 
She smiled sadly and said, “Almost 
old enough to be my grandfather.” 
“Surely any fate is better than that. 
Buch a sacrifice would be shameful. 
If you must sacrifice yourself at all 
let me”’— 
She put a stop to my passionate 
words, and before the mute appeal in 
her eyes I stood silent. 
“T am going, Mr. Palmer, and I must 
ask you not to speak what may be in 
your mind. I have a question to solve 
which no one in the world can help me 
to answer, and if I could not solve it 
without assistance I would be unwor- 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
thy of the regard or friendship of any 
man. No,” she added, for I had open- 
ed my lips to speak again the words 
of love that rose to them. “If you val- 
ue my good opinion, be silent.” 
“Miss Hllen,”’ I half whispered, “do 
you know how it will end?” 
“TI do not, Mr. Palmer,’”’ and she left 
me a prey to doubts that seemed to 
tear my soul asunder. When a woman 
hesitates I thought it always means 
yes, and had she not told me herself 
that she did not know how it would 
end? I spent the remainder of the aft- 
ernoon in my room in any agony of de- 
spair, and in the loneliness of that 
great, half emptied chamber I cried to 
God to prevent such a sacrilege. The 
next day and even the next one after 
that I never saw her alone for a mo- 
ment. Once I asked her to let me 
speak to her, if only fora minute. — 
“Not yet,” she said: “I am not 
worthy of your kindly thoughts. i 
wish you could forget me.”’ 
Hvery day now I was expecting a 
letter from my paper ordering me to 
leave Oglethorpe. Each morning I 
rode to the postoffice as if to meet my 
fate halfway. I was in an agony of 
suspense. I resolved that if my orders 
tame before I had reached some un- 
ferstanding with Miss Ellen to resign 
my post and remain in the vicinity of 
the Pines until I had either won her 
for my wife or else forced her to de- 
tlare herself engaged to Squire Haw- 
kins. I never believed that she seri- 
susly considered such a step until she 
jad told me to forget her. Even then 
I would not despair, but I was re- 
polved that if she thought me poor she 
should continue to think me such until 
the had become my affianced bride. I 
tully believed her capable of marrying 
the squire for the sake of lifting the 
mortgage and freeing Bud from the 
lrudgery that was telling on his health 
ind, what was worse. breaking his 
spirit. For herself she did not think. 
[tt was for the others. It had always 
been for the others. I had reason to 
think that in the matter of worldly 
roods I was the equal of the squire. 
put had I told her of this I verily be- 
eve that it would have militated 
igainst me, for she would not sell her- 
self to the man she loved, while she 
might sacrifice herself to one whom 
the regarded almost as an aged rela- 
ttve. I resolved to stand my ground 
and fight every inch of it with Squire 
Hawkins, and I was equally determin- 
ed to tell my love at the earliest mo- 
ment, so that there could be no mis- 
take as to my intentions. 
The opportunity came sooner than I 
thought, for, the next day being damp 
and chilly, we remained indoors, Bud 
alone being forced to face the rain. 
Mrs, Turpin had gone into the kitchen 
to get warm, she said, for the sitting 
room was damp and bad for rheuma- 
tism. I was only waiting for the colo- 
nel to go for his afternoon nap to 
speak what was in my mind to Miss 
Ellen. 
book she was reading and said: 
“Rather, there was another of those 
letters copied in the Augusta papers 
yesterday.” 
As I heard her words my heart seem- 
Presently she looked up from a 
ed to cease pulsation. I had never 
known that they had seen these let- 
ters, for they had not spoken of them 
before, probably because they did not 
want me to see them. My face grew 
scarlet, and I was thankful- that the 
room was gloomy and dark. 
“Yes, Ellen,” he said, “even some of 
our own people laugh at us when they 
get rich, so we can’t expect our ene- 
mies to do less. Have you got the pa- 
per, my dear? I had to laugh over that 
last description of what we had come 
to. It was very, very funny.” 
“Funny! Oh, father, to think that 
you can see anything funny in such 
misery as he depicted! The writer 
does not see with the eyes of a gentle- 
man or else he is blinded by prejudice 
or prosperity. How I should loathe to 
be such a man! I did not want you to 
see this last letter, father, so I burnt 
the paper. It was too true, too true!” 
she cried, and I saw her eyes fill with 
tears. 
She laid her book aside and went to 
the window to mend a rent in the lace 
curtain, but I thought more to hide 
her feelings from us. “The writer 
does not see with the eyes of a gen- 
tleman.” With that one sentence she 
had shattered to pieces every argu- 
ment I had used to myself that day 
in the room. She had not made use 
of any choice rhetoric, such as I had 
used to describe her, nor did she study 
the effect of her phrasing, but with 
one natural sentence, spoken from the 
heart, she seemed to paint me as I 
was or as she would always think of 
me after this. I realized how far my 
ambition had carried me and how low 
my literary instincts, as I had thought 
them then, had sunk me. In the re- 
action I saw myself as others would 
see me, and in my remorse I believed 
that I had sacrificed her for some tem- 
porary advantage in my profession. 
And I had fancied that she would un- 
derstand, forgetting that her scale of 
honor and truth was as far above mine 
as heaven is above earth. In the si- 
lence that followed I suffered a life- 
time of ordinary humiliation. To be 
unknown and yet denounced was like 
being alone with truth. My identity 
should be hid no longer, and I resolved 
to tell her that it was I she had de- 
nounced. As low as I seemed at that 
moment, I was not so low as to take 
her hand until I had confessed all. 
The past month rose before me, and 
{I asked myself if I was indeed a gen- . 
tleman measured from their stand- 
point. At any rate, I could not remain 
one and be silent. 
[TO BE CONTINUED.] 
II 
