But I needed not to have left my room; my visit would be useless; for, lifting my eyes, as my boat came out from under the leaves, there, on the path by the river-side opposite, I saw the strange lady mounted on Swiftfoot, her light figure set off by a cloth riding-habit such as I had never seen before, the graceful folds of which struck me even then with a sense of beauty and fitness.  I could even distinguish the golden curls again, which fell close on George Hammond’s face, as he stood by her side arranging her stirrup, his own horse’s bridle over his arm.  A backward motion of the oar sent my boat under the branches again, and I sat motionless, watching them as they rode away.

Two hours afterward they stopped at our gate, and I heard George Hammond’s voice calling me.  The blood rushed to my forehead.  Had I been alone, I would not have heard; but my mother was in the room, and I had no excuse for not going forward.  He leaned from his horse and shook hands cordially, while, at the same time, he said,—­

“I have brought Miss Worthington to see you, Janet.  She has heard so much of your kindness to me, and of your courage last spring, that she was anxious to know you.

“This is Janet Rainsford, Amy,” he continued, turning to her.

The lovely, bright young face was bent towards me, the tiny hand stretched out to mine, and I heard a gentle voice say,—­

“Mr. Hammond has told me so much of you, Janet, (I may call you Janet, may I not?) that I was determined to come and see you.  I hope we shall know each other.”

A great fear seized me then,—­a fear which seemed to clutch my heart and stop its beatings, leaving me without any power of reply.  I only stammered a few words, and Mr. Hammond, pitying what he thought my bashfulness, rode on with a nod of farewell and some words, I could not take in their sense, which seemed to be requests that I would teach Miss Worthington all that I knew of the woods and the country.

I sat down with a stunned feeling, dizzied with the knowledge that seemed to blaze upon me with that horrid fear.  Yes, I knew now what it all meant,—­the happiness, the loneliness of the past weeks, the shrinking bashfulness of yesterday morning, and the chill that fell upon me when I first saw the stranger in the boat.

I loved George Hammond,—­I, the country-girl, without one beauty, one accomplishment, so ignorant, so beneath him.  I had been fool enough to fling away my heart,—­and now, now that it was gone from me, there came this terrible fear.  What was this young girl to him?  Were my intuitions right?  Did he love her?  Would she take him away from me? take away even that poor friendship which was all I asked?

That night,—­I cannot tell of it,—­the rapid, wearying walk from side to side of my little garret, the despairing flinging myself on the bed, the restlessness that would bring me to my feet again, the pressing my hot face against the cool window-pane, the convulsive sobs with which the struggle ended, the heavy, unrefreshing sleep that came at last, and the dull wakening in the morning, when nothing seemed left about my heart but a dead weight of insensibility.  But with the brightening hours came again the restlessness.  I would at least know the worst; let me face all my wretchedness; it could not be but strength would come to me when the worst was over.