After Jessie's return to the city, several days had elapsed ere she met with William; and when at last she did, he saw at once that there was a change in her demeanor,—that she was unusually reserved; but this he hoped might arise from the sad scene through which she had recently passed, and as he was fast nearing a point when something must be done, he resolved upon a decisive step.

His attentions to Jessie must have prepared her for a proposal, he thought, and as it would be better for him to know his fate at once, so that in case she refused him, he could look elsewhere for aid, he determined to improve the present opportunity, which, so far as outward circumstances were concerned, seemed propitious.

Mr. Graham was away, and Mrs. Bartow kindly absented herself from the room, as was her custom when William was present. The night was rainy, too, and they would not be liable to interruption. Accordingly when Jessie spoke to him of Nellie's death, and gave him the note which had been entrusted to her, he drew his chair to her side, and, after a few preliminary coughs, plunged at once into business, and made her a formal offer of himself, saying that he knew he was very faulty, but she could mould him as she pleased, and make him a good and useful man.

With a cold, haughty look upon her face, Jessie Graham listened to him until he finished, and then said:

"You astonish me more than I can express, for if you do not respect yourself, I hoped you had too much respect for me to offer me a hand reeking, as it were, with the blood of sweet Nellie Howland. I know it all,—know the lie you imposed upon the poor, weak girl, whose only fault was loving you too well. And now do you think I would marry you? I have never seen the hour when I would have done so,—much less will I do it now. I despise you, William Bellenger,—despise you more than I can tell."

She ceased speaking, but her eyes never for a moment left the white face, which had grown whiter as she proceeded, and which was now almost livid with chagrin, disappointment and rage.

"I have nothing to offer which can extenuate my sin toward Nellie," he answered, at last, "though I did love her,—better than I love you,—but for certain reasons, I preferred that you should be my wife. You refuse me, and I know well to whom I am indebted for the good opinion you are pleased to entertain of me; but I warn you now, fair lady, that my precious cousin is no better than myself."

"Hush!" interrupted Jessie. "You are not to speak of Walter in that way. Shall I consider our interview at an end?"

She spoke with dignity, and motioned him toward the door.

"Jessie," he stammered, as he started to leave the room, "I'll admit that I'm a wretch, but I trust that you will not think it necessary to repeat this to everybody."

"I have no desire to injure you," she answered, and walking to the window she stood until she heard him leave the house; then her unwonted calmness gave way, and she burst into a flood of tears, sometimes wishing she had spoken more harshly to him, and again regretting that she had been harsh at all.

She might have spared herself this last feeling, for at that moment the man she had discarded was pouring into the ear of Charlotte Reeves words similar to those he had breathed to her not an hour before. And Charlotte, knowing nothing of Nellie,—nothing of Jessie, save that the latter had been a dreaded rival, said yes to him, on condition that her father's consent could be won.

This last was an easy matter; for Mr. Reeves, who scarcely had an identity save that connected with his business, answered that in this thing Charlotte would do as she pleased, just as she did in everything else, adding in a kind of absent way:

"I always intended giving her fifty thousand the day she was married, and after that my duty will be done."

William could scarcely refrain from hugging his prospective father-in-law, but he wisely withheld the hug for the daughter, who, while he was closeted with the father, ran with the news to the grandmother.

The next morning, as Jessie sat at her work, she was surprised at a call from Charlotte, who, seating herself upon the sofa began at once to unfold the object of her visit.

"She was engaged, and Jessie could not guess to whom if she guessed a year."

"William Bellenger," Jessie said at once, her lip curling with scorn, and her cheek growing slightly pale.

"You wicked creature," exclaimed Charlotte, jumping up and giving her a squeeze. "What made you think of him? I always supposed he would marry you, and used to be awful jealous. Yes, it's William. He came in last night and as pa chanced to be home in his room, the whole thing was arranged at once. I wanted so badly to wait till fall, and have a grand affair, but William is in such a hurry, and says it will be so much nicer to be a bride and belle, too, at Newport or Nahant, that I gave it up, and we are to be married the 10th of July, and go right off. Won't it be fun? I'm going to employ every dressmaker in the city, that is, every fashionable one. Father gave me a thousand dollars this morning to begin my shopping with," and the thoughtless light-hearted Charlotte clapped her hands and danced around the room in childish delight.

"Shall I tell her? Ought I to tell her?" Jessie thought, looking into the bright face of the young girl.

Then as she remembered how really good-natured William was, and that after all he might make a kind husband, she resolved to throw no cloud over the happiness of her friend, and congratulated her as cordially as it was possible for her to do. But Charlotte detected the absence of something in her manner, and imputing it to a feeling of chagrin at having lost Mr. Bellenger, she soon brought her visit to a close, and hastened home, telling her grandmother that she believed Jessie Graham was terribly disappointed, for she was as white as a ghost, and could scarcely keep from crying.

Meantime William, in a most singular state of mind, tried to play the part of a devoted lover to Charlotte,—avoided an interview with Jessie,—received quite indifferently the congratulations of his friends, and spent the remainder of his time in hating Walter, who, he believed, stood between him and Jessie Graham, just as he was sure he stood between him and his rich grandmother.

"I'll torment him while I can," he thought. "I'll make him think for a time, at least, that Jessie is lost," and sitting down he wrote the carefully-worded letter which had sent Walter so suddenly from home. "There," said he, as he read it over, "he can infer what he pleases. I don't say it's Jessie I'm going to marry; but he can think so, if he likes, and I don't envy him his cogitations."

William could not have devised a way of wounding Walter more deeply than the letter had wounded him, or of affecting Jessie more sensibly than she was affected, when she heard that Walter had gone to California.

"Not gone!" she cried, when her father brought to her the news. "Not gone, without a word for me. Oh, father, it was cruel! Didn't he leave a message for you?"

"Yes, read it if you choose," and Mr. Graham passed to her the letter which had greatly puzzled him.

Was it possible he had been deceived? Was it Charlotte Reeves, and not his daughter, whom Walter Marshall loved? It would seem so, and yet he could not be so mistaken; Walter must have been misinformed as to the bride. Jessie, perhaps, could explain; and he stood watching her face as she read the letter.

At first it turned very red, then spotted, and then, as the horrible truth burst upon her, it became as white as marble, and stretching out her arms she moaned:

"Oh, father, I never thought that he loved Charlotte Reeves. I most wish I were dead;" and with another cry, Jessie lay sobbing in her father's arms. Very gently he tried to soothe her; and then, when she was better, laid her upon the sofa, and kneeling beside her, kissed away the tears which rolled down her cheeks so fast.

She had betrayed her secret, or rather it had been betrayed to herself, and winding her arms around her father's neck, she whispered:

"I didn't know that before I,—that I,—oh, father,—I guess I do love Walter better than I supposed; and I guess I thought that he loved me. You won't tell anybody, will you?" and she laid her burning cheek against his own.

"Jessie," he said, "I have known for a long time that you loved Walter Marshall. Once I believed that he loved you. I believe so still. There is surely some mistake. I will inquire of William."

Mr. Graham did not know why he should seek for an explanation from William Bellenger, but he could think of nothing else, and after Jessie was somewhat composed, he sought an interview with that young man, asking him if he knew of any reason why his cousin should start so suddenly for California, without a word from any one.

"I should suppose he might have waited until after your marriage with Miss Reeves?" and Mr. Graham fixed his eyes upon Will, who colored slightly as he replied:

"Oh, yes, I wrote to him about it, and invited him to be present."

Mr. Graham was puzzled. If William wrote as he said, Walter could not have been deceived, and he wended his way homeward, quite uncertain how to act. At last, he decided that as he must write to Walter by the next steamer, he would take particular pains to speak of Charlotte as having been the bride, and this might, perhaps, bring Walter back sooner than was expected. Still he would not tell this to Jessie, lest she should be disappointed, and day after day her face grew less merry than of old, until at last the kind-hearted Charlotte, who watched her narrowly, threw her arms around her neck, and said to her, entreatingly:

"What is it, Jessie? Did you love William, and does it make you so unhappy to have him marry me?"

"No, no," and Jessie recoiled from her in horror. "I never loved William Bellenger,—never saw the day when I would have married him,—never, as I live!" and she spoke so indignantly that Charlotte, a little piqued, replied:

"Don't scream so loud, if you didn't. I only asked you because I knew something had ailed you ever since I was engaged. Others notice it too; and, if I were you, I'd try to appear cheerful, even if I did not feel it."

Greatly as Jessie was annoyed, she resolved to act upon this advice, for she would not have people think that she cared for William Bellenger. So she roused herself from the state of listless indifference into which she had fallen, and Charlotte Reeves no longer had reason to complain of her dullness, or non-appreciation of the bridal finery, which was so ostentatiously displayed, and which greatly annoyed Mrs. Bartow.

This lady was secretly chagrined at what she considered Charlotte's good luck, and at Mrs. Reeves' evident exultation, and she took great pains to let the latter know that she did not care and on the whole was glad William was going to do so well. Jessie would never have accepted him, even if she had had a chance; and for the sake of dear Mrs. Bellenger she was pleased to think the Reeves family was so respectable. Of course she never did believe that ridiculous story about the tin-peddler, and she couldn't see who had reported it. She had been asked about it, two or three times, and had always told exactly how the story originated, and said it was not true.

This speech she made in substance several times to Mrs. Reeves, when that lady was congratulating herself upon her granddaughter's brilliant prospects, and insisting that "Jessie was a year the oldest; basing her assertion upon the fact that she bought her camel's hair shawl so many years ago, and Jessie was born that very day."

"And I," retorted Mrs. Bartow, "remember that my daughter Graham's silver tea-set was sent home the morning after Jessie was born, and that has the date on it, so I can't be wrong. And another thing which makes me sure, is that a raw country girl we had just hired insisted that it was tin, saying her father was a peddler, and she guessed she knew."

At the mention of tin of any kind, Mrs. Reeves always seemed uneasy; and as Mrs. Bartow frequently took occasion to name the offensive article in her hearing, she resolved at last to steal a day or so from the excitement at home, and see if she too, could not find a weapon with which to fight her friend.

Accordingly, one morning, when Mrs. Bartow called to tell her that "people said William Bellenger would drink and gamble too," she was informed that the lady was out of town, and so she contented herself with repeating the story to Charlotte, adding that she didn't believe it herself and she wondered why people would talk so.

Charlotte wondered too, and said that those who repeated such scandal were quite as bad as the originators, a remark in which Mrs. Bartow fully concurred, saying, "if there was anything she despised it was a talebearer."

The next day about one as she sat with Jessie in her little sewing-room, Mrs. Reeves was announced, and after a few preliminary remarks, began:

"By the way, my dear Mrs. Bartow, I have been to Springfield, and remembering what you said about that woman in Deerwood, I thought I'd run over there and see her just to convince her that she was mistaken in thinking she ever knew me or my father."

"Yes, yes. It's pretty warm in here, isn't it? Jessie, hadn't you better go where it is cooler?" said Mrs. Bartow, and Jessie replied:

"I am not uncomfortable, and I want to hear about Deerwood. Isn't it a pleasant old town?" and she turned to Mrs. Reeves, who answered:

"Charming! and those Marshalls are such kind, worthy people. But what an odd specimen that Aunt Debby is; and what a wonderful memory she has, though, of course, she remembers some things which never could have been, for instance——"

"Jessie, will you bring me my salts, or will you go away, it's so close in here," came faintly from the distressed lady, who had dropped her work, and was nervously unbuttoning the top of her dress.

"Do you feel choked?" asked Mrs. Reeves, while Jessie answered:

"I'll get your salts, grandma; but I don't wish to go out, unless Mrs. Reeves has something to tell which I must not hear."

"Certainly not," returned Mrs. Reeves. "It's false, I'm sure, just as false as that ridiculous story about the tin peddler and factory girl. I convinced Aunt Debby that she was wrong. It was some other Charlotte Gregory she used to know."

"Of course it was; I always said so," and a violent sneeze followed the remark and a too strong inhalation of the salts.

"As I was saying," persisted Mrs. Reeves, "Aunt Debby knows everybody who has lived since the flood, and even pretended to have known you, after I told her your name was Lummis, before you were adopted by Mrs. Stanwood."

"Oh, delightful," cried Jessie. "Do pray give us the entire family tree, root and all. Was grandma's father a cobbler, or did he make the tin things yours used to peddle?" and the saucy black eyes looked archly at both the ladies.

"I don't know what her father was," said Mrs. Reeves, "but Aunt Debby pretends that Martha Lummis,—Patty, she called her——"

"That's the name in the old black book, grandma, that you said belonged to a friend," interrupted Jessie, and while grandma groaned, Mrs. Reeves continued:

"Said that Patty did housework in Hopkinton, and I believe could milk seventeen cows to her one!"

"Oh," said Jessie, "how I wish I could milk. It's such fun. I did try once, but got the tiniest stream, and Walter said I'd dry the cows all up. I wish you could hear him when he first begins. It sounds like hail stones rattling on the tin pail. Did yours sound so, grandma, and did you buy the pail of Mr. Gregory?"

Mrs. Reeves, by this time, began to think that Jessie might be making fun of her, and smothering her wrath, she proceeded:

"I shouldn't care anything about the housework or the milking, but I'll confess I was shocked, when she spoke of——"

"I certainly am going to faint, Jessie, do go out," gasped the white figure in the rocking chair, while Jessie rejoined:

"I don't see how my going out can help you." Then crossing over to her grandmother, she whispered, "Brave it out. Don't let her see that you care."

Thus entreated Mrs. Bartow became somewhat composed, and her tormentor went on:

"This Patty Lummis, Aunt Debby said, was blood relation to three Thayers, who were hung some years ago for murdering John Love, or some such name. I remember hearing of it at the time, but did not suppose I knew any of their relatives."

"Horrid!" cried Jessie, and then, as she saw how white her grandmother was, she added quickly:

"And didn't she say too, that the Gregorys ought to have been hung if they weren't?"

"Such impertinence," muttered Mrs. Reeves, while Jessie rejoined:

"There are very few families, which, if traced to the fountain head, have not a halter, or a peddler's cart, or a smell of tallow, or shoemaker's wax——"

"Or a woollen factory, Jessie. Don't forget that," suggested Mrs. Bartow, and Jessie added, laughingly:

"Yes, a woollen factory, and as you and grandma do not belong to the few who are exempt from a stain of any kind, if honorable work can be called a stain, I advise you to drop old scores, and let the past be forgotten."

"I'm sure I'm willing," sobbed Mrs. Bartow. "I never did tell that ridiculous story to but one, and she promised not to breathe it as long as she lived."

"And will you take it back?" chimed in Mrs. Reeves.

"Ye-es. I'll do everything I can toward it," answered the distracted old lady. "I couldn't help those Thayers. I never saw them in my life, and they were only second cousins."

"Fourth to you, then," and Mrs. Reeves nodded to Jessie, who replied:

"I don't care if they were first. Everybody knows me, and my position in society does not depend upon what my family have been before me, but upon what I am myself. Isn't it so, father?" and she turned to Mr. Graham, who had just entered the room.

"I don't know the nature of your conversation," he replied, "but I overheard your last remarks, and fully concur with you, that persons are to be respected for themselves and not for their family; neither are they to be despised for what their family or any member of it may do."

There was a tremor in his voice, and looking at him closely, Jessie saw that he was very pale, and evidently much agitated.

"What is it, father?" she cried, forgetting the three Thayers and thinking only of Walter. "What has happened?"

Mr. Graham did not reply to her, but turning to Mrs. Reeves, he said:

"Excuse me, madam, but I think your duty calls you home, where poor Charlotte needs your sympathy."

"Why poor Charlotte?" replied Jessie, grasping his arm. "Is William sick or dead?"

"He has been arrested for forgery. I may as well tell it first as last," and the words dropped slowly from Mr. Graham's lips.

"Forgery! William arrested! It's false!" shrieked Mrs. Reeves, and the salts which Mrs. Bartow had used so vigorously a little time before changed hands, while Jessie passed her arm around the lady to keep her from falling to the floor. "It's false. He never forged. Why should he? Isn't he rich, and a Bellenger?" she kept repeating, until at last Mr. Graham answered:

"It is too true, my dear madam, that for some time past Mr. Bellenger has been engaged in a systematic course of forging, managing always to escape detection, until now, it has been clearly proved against him, and he is in the hands of the law."

There was no reason why Mrs. Reeves, at this point, should think of Walter, but she did, and fancying that her auditors might possibly be drawing comparisons between the two cousins she said:

"It's the Marshall blood with which he is tainted."

"Marshall blood!" repeated Jessie, indignantly. "I'd like to know by what chemical process you have mingled the Marshall blood with William Bellenger's."

Mrs. Reeves could not explain. She only knew that she was completely overwhelmed with surprise and mortification, and she seemed so bewildered and helpless that Mr. Graham ordered his carriage, and sent her to No.—, whither the sad news had preceded her, and where Charlotte lay fainting and moaning in the midst of her bridal finery, which would never be worn. She had noticed William's absence from the house for the last twenty-four hours, and was wondering at it, when her father, roused by the shock from his usual state of quiet passiveness, rushed in, telling her in thunder tones that her affianced husband had been guilty of forging Graham & Marshall's name, not once, not twice, but many times, until at last he was detected and under arrest.

"He'll go to State prison, girl—do you hear? To State prison! Why don't you speak, and not sit staring at me with that milky face?"

Poor Charlotte could not speak, but she fainted and fell at the feet of her father, who became himself at once, and bending kindly over her brought her back to life. It was not that Charlotte loved William so very much. It was rather her pride which was wounded, and she moaned and wept until her grandmother came, and with her lamentations and reproaches, so wholly out-did all Charlotte had done, that the latter grew suddenly calm, and without a word or a tear, sat motionless, while the old lady raved on, one moment talking as if they were all going to prison together, and the next giving Charlotte most uncomfortable squeezes to think she was not the wife of a forger after all.

The three Thayers were for the time forgotten, and when at Charlotte's request Jessie came to see her, accompanied by her grandmother, Mrs. Reeves kissed the latter affectionately, whispering in her ear:

"We'll not mind the past, for the present has enough of trouble and disgrace."

Great was the excitement among William's friends, the majority of whom turned against him, saying "they expected it and knew all the time that something was wrong."

Mr. Graham stood by and pitied the cowed and wretched young man, and pitied him all the more that his father kept aloof, saying:

"He's made his bed and he may lie in it."

At the first intimation of the sad affair, Mrs. Bellenger hastened home, but neither her money nor her influence, and both were freely used, could disprove the guilt of the young man, who awaited his trial in a state of mind bordering on despair.

Only once did he speak of Charlotte, and that on the day which was to have seen her his bride. Then, with Mr. Graham, he talked of her freely, asking what effect it had on her, and appearing greatly agitated when told that she was very ill, and would see none of her friends but Jessie.

"God bless her,—Jessie, I mean," he said, "and bless poor Lottie, too. I am sorry I brought this trouble upon her. I thought to pay the notes with her money, and I resolved after that to be a better man. I am glad Nellie did not live to see this day. Do you think that up in Heaven she knows what I have done and prays for me still?"

Then, as talking of Nellie naturally brought Walter to his mind, he confessed to Mr. Graham how his letter had sent his cousin away.

"I thought once to win Jessie for myself," he said, "and so I broke poor Nellie's heart. I purposely withheld the note the deacon sent to Jessie, bidding her come ere Nellie died. And this I did, because I feared what the result might be of Jessie's going there. But my sin has found me out, and I shall never cross Walter's path again; it's Jessie he loves; tell her so, and bring the light back to her eyes, which were heavy with tears when I saw her last."

Mr. Graham did tell her, and when next she went to the chamber where Charlotte lay sick of a slow fever, there was an increased bloom upon her cheek and a brighter flash in her dark eye, while from her own great happiness she strove to draw some comfort for her friend, who would suffer no other one of her acquaintance to approach her.

Jessie alone could comfort her, Jessie alone knew what to say, and the right time to say it, and when at last the trial came, and the verdict of "guilty" was pronounced, it was Jessie who broke the news as gently as possible to the pale invalid.

Locked in each others' arms they wept together; the one, tears of pity; the other, tears of regret and mortification over the misguided man whose home for the next five years would be a dreary prison.

There was no going to Saratoga that summer, no trip to Newport; and when the gay world congregated there asked for the sprightly girl who had been with them the season before, and for the old lady who carried her head so proudly and sported such superb diamonds, the answer was a mysterious whisper of some dire misfortune or disgrace which had befallen them, and then the dance and the song in which Charlotte had ever been the first to join, went on the same as before.

Gradually as Charlotte recovered her strength and her spirits, she began to wish for some quiet spot where no one knew her, and remembering dear old Deerwood, now a thousand times more dear since she knew of Walter's love, Jessie told her of its shadowy woods, its pleasant walks, its musical pines with the rustic seat beneath, and Charlotte, pleased with her rural picture, bade her write and ask if she could come.

So Jessie wrote, and in less than one week's time two girls walked again upon the mountain side, or paused by the little grave where Nellie was buried. Upon the bank close to the mound a single rose was growing,—the last of the sisterhood. It had been late in unfolding its delicate leaves, and when at last, it was full blown, Jessie picked it, and pressing it carefully, sent it with the message, "it grew near Nellie's grave," to the weary man whose life was now one of toil and loneliness.