only to extend its poverty to some remoter barrier; the blackened stumps
of the burnt forest stood bleaker against the sky, like broken and
twisted pillars of iron. The cavity of the broken ledge where Richelieu
had prospected was a hideous chasm of bluish blackness, over which a
purple vapor seemed to hover; the "brush dump" beside the house showed
a cavern of writhing and distorted objects stiffened into dark rigidity.
She had often looked upon the prospect: it had never seemed so hard and
changeless; yet she accepted it, as she had accepted it before.

She turned away, undressed herself mechanically, and went to bed. She
had an idea that she had been very foolish; that her escape from
being still more foolish was something miraculous, and in some measure
connected with Providence, her father, her little brother, and her dead
mother, whose dress she had recklessly spoiled. But that she had even so
slightly touched the bitterness and glory of renunciation--as written
of heroines and fine ladies by novelists and poets--never entered the
foolish head of Minty Sharpe, the blacksmith's daughter.




CHAPER IV.


It was a little after daybreak next morning that Mainwaring awoke from
the first unrefreshing night he had passed at The Lookout. He was so
feverish and restless that he dressed himself at sunrise, and cautiously
stepped out upon the still silent veranda. The chairs which he and
Louise Macy had occupied were still, it seemed to him, conspicuously
confidential with each other, and he separated them, but as he looked