“Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight.”

CHAPTER XVI.

One afternoon, about ten days after the receipt of Mr. Manning’s letter, when Edna returned from the parsonage, she found the family assembled on the front veranda, and saw that the expected visitor had arrived.  As Mrs. Murray introduced her to Mr. Allston, the latter rose, advanced a few steps, and held out his hand.  Edna was in the act of giving him hers, when the heart-shaped diamond cluster on his finger flashed, and one swift glance at his face and figure made her snatch away her hand ere it touched his, and draw back with a half-smothered exclamation.

He bit his lip, looked inquiringly around the circle, smiled, and returning to his seat beside Estelle, resumed the gay conversation in which he had been engaged.

Mrs. Murray was leaning over the iron balustrade, twining a wreath of multiflora around one of the fluted columns, and did not witness the brief pantomime; but when she looked around she could not avoid remarking the unwonted pallor and troubled expression of the girl’s face.

“What is the matter, child?  You look as if you were either ill or dreadfully fatigued.”

“I am tired, thank you,” was the rather abstracted reply, and she walked into the house and sat down before the open window in the library.

The sun had just gone down behind a fleecy cloud-mountain and kindled a volcano, from whose silver-rimmed crater fiery rays of scarlet shot up, almost to the clear blue zenith; while here and there, through clefts and vapory gorges, the lurid lava light streamed down toward the horizon.

Vacantly her eyes rested on this sky-Hecla, and its splendor passed away unheeded, for she was looking far beyond the western gates of day, and saw a pool of blood—­a ghastly face turned up to the sky—­a coffined corpse strewn with white poppies and rosemary—­a wan, dying woman, whose waving hair braided the pillow with gold—­a wide, deep grave under the rustling chestnuts, from whose green arches rang the despairing wail of a broken heart: 

“Oh, Harry! my husband!”

Imagination travelling into the past, painted two sunny-haired, prattling babes, suddenly smitten with orphanage, and robed in mourning garments for parents whose fond, watchful eyes were closed forever under wild clover and trailing brambles.  Absorbed in retrospection of that June day, when she stood by the spring, and watched

“God make himself an awful rose of dawn,”

she sat with her head resting against the window-facing, and was not aware of Mr. Murray’s entrance until his harsh, querulous voice startled her.

“Edna Earl! what apology have you to offer for insulting a relative and guest of mine under my roof?”

“None, sir.”