light in his deep-gray eyes. He had, too, a tender tone in his voice
when he addressed the girl. Perhaps, a vision came to him at times of
another country lad, well-born like this one, and, like this one, poor,
wandering on the New England hills with another young girl, primmer,
perhaps, and less sophisticated than this little maiden, who had come
from the westward to spend a brief holiday on the banks of the
Piscataqua, and had come into his life never to depart--of his dreams
and his hopes; of his struggles to achieve the education which would
make him worthy of her; and then of the overthrow of all: of darkness
and exile and wanderings.

When the Doctor sat on his porch of an evening, with his pipe, looking
out over the sloping hills, sometimes his face grew almost melancholy.
Had he not been intended for other things than this exile? Abigail
Brooke had never married, he knew. What might have happened had he gone
back? And when he next saw Alice Yorke there would be a softer tone in
his voice, and he would talk a deeper and higher philosophy to her than
she had ever heard, belittling the gaudy rewards of life, and instilling
in her mind ideas of something loftier and better and finer than they.
He even told her once something of the story of his life, and of the
suffering and sorrow that had been visited upon the victims of a foolish
pride and a selfish ambition. Though he did not confide to her that it
was of himself he spoke, the girl's instinct instantly told her that it
was his own experience that he related, and her interest was
deeply excited.

"Did she ever marry, Doctor?" she asked eagerly. "Oh, I hope she did
not. I might forgive her if she did not; but if she married I would
never forgive her!"