Virgies Inheritance | Page 9

he
had first heard his mellow, sympathetic tones, asking to be directed to a
place of shelter. He knew that he possessed a grand character, for he

carried the stamp of true nobility upon his frank, handsome face.
"That is a promising young man, Virgie," he said, as he returned to the
parlor after watching the horse and its rider disappear down the
mountain. "I should like to know where he came from, and more about
him."
Virgie did not reply, but she turned away from the window where she,
too, had been watching the receding horseman, with a shy, sweet smile
on her red lips. William Heath's last glance had been for her, as he
doffed his hat and bowed low in his saddle when he turned down the
road.
During all the week that followed her step was lighter and her face
brighter than its wont, and she went singing about the house to the
delight of her father, who was now at home all the day long, as he had
given up going to the mine.
Mr. Abbot had appeared very thoughtful after the departure of his
young guest, often falling into a profound reverie, in which he would
sit for hours.
Virgie often wondered what he could be thinking about, but she did not
feel like questioning him, lest he should refer again to the painful topic
of his leaving her.
One day, however, coming into the room suddenly, she saw her
mother's bible in his hands, and she was sure there were tears in his
eyes. She appeared not to notice either his employment or his emotion,
but soon stole softly away again, and went weeping up to her own
room.
After that he busied himself with writing a great deal, and she felt sure
that he was making arrangements for her of which he had spoken on
that stormy evening. A great dread came over her at the thought of
being left alone in the world; and yet, in spite of all, she looked forward
to the return of Mr. Heath with more of pleasure and anticipation than
she had known for many a year.

Thus more than a week went by, and one afternoon Virgie, her father
being asleep and the house oppressively still, took her book and went
out to a little nook back of her cottage, where she was in the habit of
going to study, and where Chi Lu had built a rustic seat for her beneath
a great pine tree that grew out of a cleft in the mountain.
But she could not concentrate her thoughts upon the page before her;
they went roving after a coal black steed and its handsome rider, until
finally her book dropped from her hands, her eyes fixed themselves
dreamily upon the lofty, far-off peaks of the Humboldt Mountains, and
she was lost to time and place--everything save her own delightful
musings.
So absorbed was she that she was not aware of the approach of any one
until a small but exquisitely arranged bouquet of mountain flowers
were laid upon the seat beside her, and a rich but well remembered
voice said:
"Pardon me, Miss Abbot, for intruding upon your solitude, but Chi Lu
told me that Mr. Abbot was resting and could not be disturbed at
present, and that I should find you here."
Virginia sprang to her feet, the tint of the wild rose in her cheeks, her
violet eyes grown black with repressed excitement.
"Mr. Heath?" she cried, her scarlet lips parting in a bewildering smile.
"Yes; forgive me for having startled you so," he said, gently, then
adding with a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. "You were surely in a
very brown study."
"I am afraid I was," she returned, laughing. "But what lovely flowers!"
she continued, taking them up and bending to inhale their fragrance.
"How kind of you to gather them for me."
The young man's eyes lingered about her in a delighted gaze, for she
made the fairest picture imaginable standing there in her soft gray dress
with its collar and cuffs of black velvet, a knot of scarlet ribbon at her

throat, the brilliant flowers in her hands, and a fleecy white shawl
wrapped about her shoulders. Her shining hair was gathered into a
satiny brown coil at the back of her head and pinned with a silver arrow,
while a few naturally curling locks lay lightly on her forehead. The
dark, moss-grown rock was behind her; the softly waving plumy
boughs of the pine tree above her, a carpet of tender green beneath her
feet.
"You are still trembling from the shock that I have given you," he said
in a tone of self-reproach, and noticing how the flowers quivered in her
grasp, "pray, pardon me