keep it still because his folks in Car'lina wouldn't like it. Of
course he got sick of her, and jest afore the baby was born he gin
her five hundred dollars and left her."

A murmur of surprise ran round the room, accompanied with a look of
incredulity, which Grandma Nichols quickly divined, and while her
withered cheek crimsoned at the implied disgrace, she added in an
elevated tone of voice, "It's true as the Bible. Old Father
Blanchard's son, that used to preach here, married them, and Heleny
brought us a letter from him, saying it was true. Here 'tis,--read
it yourselves, if you don't b'lieve me;" and she drew from a side
drawer a letter, on the back of which, the villagers recognized the
well remembered handwriting of their former pastor.

This proof of Helena's innocence was hardly relished by the clever
gossips of Oakland, for the young girl, though kind-hearted and
gentle, was far too beautiful to be a general favorite. Mothers saw
in her a rival for their daughters, while the daughters looked
enviously upon her clear white brow, and shining chestnut hair; which
fell in wavy curls about her neck and shoulders. Two years before
our story opens, she had left her mountain home to try the mysteries
of millinery in the city, where a distant relative of her mother was
living. Here her uncommon beauty attracted much attention, drawing
erelong to her side a wealthy young southerner, who, just freed from
the restraints of college life, found it vastly agreeable making love
to the fair Helena. Simple-minded, and wholly unused to the ways of
the world, she believed each word he said, and when at last he
proposed marriage, she not only consented, but also promised to keep
it a secret for a time, until he could in a measure reconcile his
father, who he feared might disinherit him for wedding a penniless