piness for me, for I had Mabel's plighted troth, although I had determined it should remain a secret until I came of age, of which time there wanted but another year. I confided my love but to Stephen, feeling how much opposition I must expect with my mother. I had determined to forego even the sweet indulgence of spending the vacation at home, in order to be prepared for the final examination that was to take place before I left; and I was the more satisfied when I saw that Mabel, who had so excited my jealousy in regard to Stephen, now shunned him, more like a timid child than the frank-hearted girl. Shortly before the examination letters reached me from Hazlehurst, on the part of Mabel short and constrained, and from my sister urging my return. With a mind and nerves unstrung I went up for the ordeal of examination for my degree, only to be rejected. The disgrace fell heavily on me; but the thought of Mabel overwhelmed every other. "Stephen Gower came to visit me in my rooms, where I had passed hours with my face buried in my hands, feeling as only the young feel on their first defeat. To me there was something irritating in his words of sympathy: he urged me to travel for a time, and I feigned to consent. A gleam of ill-concealed joy stole over his pale face. He was on his road to Hazlehurst, where already the circumstance of my disappointment was known. I commenced my preparations for departure, and no sooner had he quitted me than I was on my road to the only source that could at that time soften or remove the fearful auguries of evil that pressed heavily on my heart. By the evening of the second day I reached Hazlehurst, and, springing into a boat that lay at its moorings, paused not in my eager way until I reached the opposite shore, and made my way on foot to the outskirts of the village. I reached the parsonage. Under the trellis porch, beneath the clustering |