Chapter 7 AT NEWPORT.

Moved by a strange impulse, Thornton Hastings took himself and his fast bays to Newport, instead of Saratoga, and thither, the first week in August, came Mrs. Meredith, with eight large trunks, her niece and her niece's wardrobe, which had cost the pretty sum of eighteen hundred dollars.

Mrs. Meredith was not naturally lavish of her money except where her own interests were concerned, as they were in Anna's case. Conscious of having come between her niece and the man she loved, she determined that in the procuring of a substitute for this man, no advantages which dress could afford should be lacking. Besides, Thornton Hastings was a perfect connoisseur in everything pertaining to a lady's toilet, and it was with him and his preference before her mind that Mrs. Meredith opened her purse so widely and bought so extensively. There were sun hats and round hats, and hats à la cavalier-there were bonnets and veils, and dresses and shawls of every color and kind, with the lesser matters of sashes and gloves and slippers and fans, the whole making an array such as Anna had never seen before, and from which she at first shrank back appalled and dismayed. But she was not now quite so much of a novice as when she first reached New York the Saturday following the picnic at Prospect Hill. She had passed successfully and safely through the hands of mantua-makers, milliners and hairdressers since then. She had laid aside every article brought from home. She wore her hair in puffs and waterfalls, and her dresses in the latest mode. She had seen the fashionable world as represented at Saratoga, and, sickening at the sight, had gladly acquiesced in her aunt's proposal to go on to Newport, where the air was purer and the hotels not so densely packed. She had been called a beauty and a belle, but her heart was longing for the leafy woods and fresh green fields of Hanover; and Newport, she fancied, would be more like the country than sultry, crowded Saratoga, and never since leaving home had she looked so bright and pretty as the evening after her arrival at the Ocean House, when invigorated by the bath she had taken in the morning, and gladdened by sight of the glorious sea and the soothing tones it murmured in her ear, she came down to the parlor clad in simple white, with only a bunch of violets in her hair, and no other ornament than the handsome pearls her aunt had given to her. Standing at the open window, with the drapery of the lace curtain sweeping gracefully behind her, she did not look much like the Anna who led the choir in Hanover and visited the Widow Hobbs, nor yet much like the picture which Thornton Hastings had formed of the girl who he knew was there for his inspection. He had been absent the entire day, and had not seen Mrs. Meredith, when she arrived early in the morning, but he found her card in his room, and a strange smile curled his lip as he said:

"And so I have not escaped her."

Thornton Hastings had proved a most treacherous knight and overthrown his general's plans entirely. Arthur's letter had affected him strangely, for he readily guessed how deeply wounded his sensitive friend had been by Anna Ruthven's refusal, while added to this was a fear lest Anna had been influenced by a thought of him and what might possibly result from an acquaintance. Thornton Hastings had been flattered and angled for until he had grown somewhat vain, and it did not strike him as at all improbable that the unsophisticated Anna should have designs upon him.

"But I won't give her a chance," he said, when he finished Arthur's letter. "I thought once I might like her, but I shan't, and I'll be revenged on her for refusing the best man that ever breathed. I'll go to Newport instead of Saratoga, and so be clear of the entire Meredith clique, the Hethertons, the little Harcourt, and all."

This, then, was the secret of his being there at the Ocean House. He was keeping away from Anna Ruthven, who never had heard of him but once, and that from Lucy Harcourt. After that scene in the Glen, where Anna had exclaimed against intriguing mothers and their bold, shameless daughters, Mrs. Meredith had been too wise a maneuverer to mention Thornton Hastings, so that Anna was wholly ignorant of his presence at Newport, and looked up in unfeigned surprise at the tall, elegant man whom her aunt presented as Mr. Hastings. With all Thornton's affected indifference, there was still a curiosity to see the girl who could say "no" to Arthur Leighton, and he had not waited long after receiving Mrs. Meredith's card before going down to find her.

"That's the girl, I'll lay a wager," he thought of a high-colored, showily-dressed hoyden, who was whirling around the room with Ned Peters, from Boston, and whose corn-colored dress swept against his boots as he entered the parlor.

How, then, was he disappointed in the apparition Mrs. Meredith presented as "my niece," the modest, self-possessed young girl, whose cheeks grew not a whit redder, and whose pulse did not quicken at the sight of him, though a gleam of something like curiosity shone in the brown eyes which scanned him so quietly. She was thinking of Lucy, and her injunction "not to speak to the hateful if she saw him;" but she did speak to him, and Mrs. Meredith fanned herself complacently as she saw how fast they became acquainted.

"You do not dance," Mr. Hastings said, as she declined an invitation from Ned Peters, whom she had met at Saratoga. "I am glad, for now you will, perhaps, walk with me outside upon the piazza. You won't take cold, I think," and he glanced thoughtfully at the white neck and shoulders gleaming beneath the gauzy muslin.

Mrs. Meredith was in rhapsodies and sat a full hour with the tiresome dowagers around her, while up and down the broad piazza Thornton Hastings walked with Anna, talking to her as he seldom talked to women, and feeling greatly surprised to find that what he said was fully appreciated and understood. That he was pleased with her he could not deny himself, as he sat alone in his room that night, feeling more and more how keenly Arthur Leighton must have felt at her refusal.

"But why did she refuse him?" he wished he knew, and ere he slept he had resolved to study Anna Ruthven closely, and ascertain, if possible, the motive which prompted her to discard a man like Arthur Leighton.

The next day brought the Hetherton party, all but Lucy Harcourt, who, Fanny laughingly said, was just now suffering from clergyman on the brain, and, as a certain cure for the disease, had turned my Lady Bountiful, and was playing the pretty patroness to all Mr. Leighton's parishioners, especially a Widow Hobbs, whom she had actually taken to ride in the carriage, and to whose ragged children she had sent a bundle of cast-off party dresses; and the tears ran down Fanny's cheeks as she described the appearance of the elder Hobbs, who came to church with a soiled pink silk skirt, her black, tattered petticoat hanging down below and one of Lucy's opera hoods upon her head.

"And the clergyman on the brain? Does he appreciate the situation? I have an interest there. He is an old friend of mine," Thornton Hastings asked.

He had been an amused listener to Fanny's gay badinage, laughing merrily at the idea of Lucy's taking old women out to air and clothing her children in party dresses. His opinion of Lucy, as she had said, was that she was a pretty, but frivolous, plaything, and it showed upon his face as he asked the question he did, watching Anna furtively as Fanny replied:

"Oh, yes, he is certainly smitten, and I must say I never saw Lucy so thoroughly in earnest. Why, she really seems to enjoy traveling all over Christendom to find the hovels and huts, though she is mortally afraid of the smallpox, and always carries with her a bit of chloride of lime as a disinfecting agent. I am sure she ought to win the parson. And so you know him, do you?"

"Yes; we were in college together, and I esteem him so highly that, had I a sister, there is no man living to whom I would so readily give her as to him."

He was looking now at Anna, whose face was very pale, and who pressed a rose she held so tightly that the sharp thorns pierced her flesh, and a drop of blood stained the whiteness of her hand.

"See, you have hurt yourself," Mr. Hastings said. "Come to the water pitcher and wash the stain away."

She went with him mechanically, and let him hold her hand in his while he wiped off the blood with his own handkerchief, treating her with a tenderness for which he could hardly account himself. He pitied her, he said, suspecting that she had repented of her rashness, and because he pitied her he asked her to ride with him that day after the fast bays, of which he had written to Arthur. Many admiring eyes were cast after them as they drove away, and Mrs. Hetherton whispered softly to Mrs. Meredith:

"A match in progress, I see. You have done well for your charming niece."

And yet matrimony, as concerned himself, was very far from Thornton Hastings' thoughts that afternoon, when, because he saw that it pleased Anna to have him do so, he talked to her of Arthur, hoping in his unselfish heart that what he said in his praise might influence her to reconsider her decision and give him a different answer. This was the second day of Thornton Hastings' acquaintance with Anna Ruthven, but as the days went on, bringing the usual routine of life at Newport, the drives, the rides, the pleasant piazza talks, and the quiet moonlight rambles, when Anna was always his companion, Thornton Hastings came to feel an unwillingness to surrender, even to Arthur Leighton, the beautiful girl who pleased him better than any one he had known.

Mrs. Meredith's plans were working well, and so, though the autumn days had come, and one after another the devotees of fashion were dropping off, she lingered on, and Thornton Hastings still rode and walked with Anna Ruthven, until there came a night when they wandered farther than usual from the hotel, and sat down together on a height of land which overlooked the placid waters, where the moonlight lay softly sleeping. It was a most lovely night, and for a while they listened in silence to the music of the sea, then talked of the breaking up which came in a few days when the hotel was to be closed, and wondered if next year they would come again to the old haunts and find them unchanged.

There was witchery in the hour, and Thornton felt its spell, speaking out at last, and asking Anna if she would be his wife. He would shield her so tenderly, he said, protecting her from every care, and making her as happy as love and money could make her. Then he told her of his home in the far-off city, which needed only her presence to make it a paradise, and then he waited for her answer, watching anxiously the limp white hands, which, when he first began to talk, had fallen so helplessly upon her lap, and then had crept up to her face, which was turned away from him, so that he could not see its expression, or guess at the struggle going on in Anna's mind. She was not wholly surprised, for she could not mistake the nature of the interest which, for the last two weeks, Thornton Hastings had manifested in her. But, now that the moment had come, it seemed to her that she never had expected it, and she sat silent for a time, dreading so much to speak the words which she knew would inflict pain on one whom she respected so highly but whom she could not marry.

"Don't you like me, Anna?" Thornton asked at last, his voice very low and tender, as he bent over her and tried to take her hand.

"Yes, very much," she answered, and, emboldened by her reply, Thornton lifted up her head, and was about to kiss her forehead, when she started away from him, exclaiming:

"No, Mr. Hastings. You must not do that. I cannot be your wife. It hurts me to tell you so, for I believe you are sincere in your proposal; but it can never be. Forgive me, and let us both forget this wretched summer."

"It has not been wretched to me. It has been a very happy summer, since I knew you, at least," Mr. Hastings said, and then he asked again that she should reconsider her decision. He could not take it as her final one. He had loved her too much, had thought too much of making her his own to give her up so easily, he said, urging so many reasons why she should think again, that Anna said to him, at last:

"If you would rather have it so, I will wait a month, but you must not hope that my answer will be different from what it is to-night. I want your friendship, though, the same as if this had never happened. I like you, Mr. Hastings, because you have been kind to me, and made my stay in Newport so much pleasanter than I thought it could be. You have not talked to me like other men. You have treated me as if I, at least, had common sense. I thank you for that; and I like you because--"

She did not finish the sentence, for she could not say "because you are Arthur's friend." That would have betrayed the miserable secret tugging at her heart, and prompting her to refuse Thornton Hastings, who had also thought of Arthur Leighton, wondering if it were thus that she rejected him, and if in the background there was another love standing between her and the two men to win whom many a woman would almost have given her right hand. To say that Thornton was not a little piqued at her refusal would be false. He had not expected it, accustomed, as he was, to adulation; but he tried to put that feeling down, and his manner was even more kind and considerate than ever as he walked slowly back to the hotel, where Mrs. Meredith was waiting for them, her practised eye detecting at once that something was amiss. Thornton Hastings knew Mrs. Meredith thoroughly, and, wishing to shield Anna from her displeasure, he preferred stating the facts himself to having them wrung from the pale, agitated girl who, bidding him good night, went quickly to her room; so, when she was gone, and he stood for a moment alone with Mrs. Meredith, he said:

"I have proposed to your niece, but she cannot answer me now. She wishes for a month's probation, which I have granted, and I ask that she shall not be persecuted about the matter. I wish for an unbiassed answer."

He bowed politely, and walked away, while Mrs. Meredith almost trod on air as she climbed the three flights of stairs and sought her niece's chamber. Over the interview which ensued that night we pass silently, and come to the next morning, when Anna sat alone on the piazza at the rear of the hotel, watching the playful gambols of some children on the grass, and wondering if she ever could conscientiously say "yes" to Thornton Hastings' suit. He was coming toward her now, lifting his hat politely, and asking what she would give for news from home.

"I found this on my table," he said, holding up a dainty little missive, on the corner of which was written "In haste," as if its contents were of the utmost importance. "The boy must have made a mistake, or else he thought it well enough to begin at once bringing your letters to me," he continued, with a smile, as he handed Anna the letter from Lucy Harcourt. "I have one too, from Arthur which I will read while you are devouring yours, and then, perhaps, you will take a little ride. The September air is very bracing this morning," he said, walking away to the far end of the piazza, while Anna broke the seal of the envelope, hesitating a moment ere taking the letter from it, and trembling as if she guessed what it might contain.

There was a quivering of the eyelids, a paling of the lips as she glanced at the first few lines, then with a low, moaning cry, "No, no, oh, no, not that," she fell upon her face.

To lift her in his arms and carry her to her room was the work of an instant, and then, leaving her to Mrs. Meredith's care, Thornton Hastings went back to finish Arthur's letter, which might or might not throw light upon the fainting fit.

"Dear Thornton," Arthur wrote, "you will be surprised, no doubt, to hear that your old college chum is at last engaged-positively engaged-but not to one of the fifty lambs about whom you once jocosely wrote. The shepherd has wandered from his flock, and is about to take into his bosom a little, stray ewe-lamb-Lucy Harcourt by name-"

"The deuce he is," was Thornton's ejaculation, and then he read on.

"She is an acquaintance of yours, I believe, so I need not describe her, except to say that she is somewhat changed from the gay butterfly of fashion she used to be, and in time will make as demure a little Quakeress as one could wish to see. She visits constantly among my poor, who love her almost as well as they once loved Anna Ruthven.

"Don't ask me, Thorne, in your blunt, straightforward manner if I have so soon forgotten Anna. That is a matter with which you've nothing to do. Let it suffice that I am engaged to another, and mean to make a kind and faithful husband to her. Lucy would have suited you better, perhaps, than she does me; that is, the world would think so, but the world does not always know, and if I am satisfied, surely it ought to be. Yours truly,

"A. Leighton."

"Engaged to Lucy Harcourt? I never could have believed it. He's right in saying that she is far more suitable for me than him." Thornton exclaimed, dashing aside the letter and feeling conscious of a pang as he remembered the bright, airy little beauty in whom he had once been strongly interested, even if he did call her frivolous and ridicule her childish ways.

She was frivolous, too much so, by far, to be a clergyman's wife, and for a full half hour Thornton paced up and down the room, meditating on Arthur's choice and wondering how upon earth it ever happened.

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