This imaginary attack upon Mrs. Pinckney seemed to comfort her somewhat, for she dried her tears and tried to form a plan of action: "He evidently didn't put my advertisement in the paper, for I've looked in vain for it. I must go away where I shall never see Colonel Pinckney again. I'll stifle, throttle, this miserable love, and endeavor once more to be enduring and courageous."
Just then the house-door opened: some one walked down the veranda steps and came rapidly in her direction.
"I have been looking everywhere for you," cried Colonel Pinckney; and he seized both her hands: "no one seemed to know where you had gone."
The bright color rose in her cheeks, and in spite of her resolve her eyes beamed with delight. She murmured inarticulately that she had told Adèle, then relapsed into silence.
"I have to implore your forgiveness for neglecting to obey as to the advertisement, but the truth is----" and he hesitated--"I have a plan. It may not meet with your concurrence," he added, "but I wished to submit it before you made other and irrevocable arrangements."
"You have thought of some position for me?" she forced herself to say, all the bloom and delight vanishing from her face.
"Yes. I know an individual who wants precisely such a person as you are, for--a wife."
"Colonel Pinckney!" she exclaimed indignantly.
"Do forgive me, dear Miss Featherstone. I am such a confounded poltroon"--and he seized her hands again--"that I dare not risk my fate; but that person is"--and he looked down upon her, his heart beating so violently that he could scarcely speak--"that person is--myself!"
Of what happened then Mrs. Pinckney, roused by her brother-in-law's return, was cognizant, for actually, in the open air, with her blue eyes bent eagerly upon them, he clasped the governess in his arms. "It is a fact accomplished!" cried the fair widow with a sigh, and sank back upon her pillows.
There is a lonesome hamlet of the dead Spread on a high ridge, up above a lake-- A quiet meadow-slope, unfrequented, Where in the wind a thousand wild flowers shake.
But most of all, the delicate gentian here, Serenely blue as the sweet eyes of Hope, Doth prosper in th' untroubled atmosphere, Where wide its fringèd eyelids love to ope.