is dead?"
"Yes Fillmore, I am quite sure; although it is just possible that I may have misunderstood Mrs. Bainbridge. In my hotel acquaintance with that lady I discover that she is a very intelligent and accomplished person of rare good sense. Splendid company; we seem to get on famously together, I shall miss her very much I am sure. As usual, I am doing all the talking: it is now your turn to say something."
"I think I could," said Fillmore Flagg, "if my chatterbox friend, George Gaylord, would only give me a chance. Miss Fenwick I regard as the most beautiful and cultured woman I have ever met. I do admire her very much, but the possibility of ever winning her for a wife is, at this time, too remote for me to consider for a moment. I must now pack my trunk and then see the hotel clerk about getting it to the railway station. So good night, George, I will see you again in the morning."
That night Fillmore Flagg could not sleep. The beautiful image of Fern Fenwick was before him the moment he closed his eyes. The events of the past two days, with their crowding memories, kept racing through his mind: he could not think calmly or connectedly. He was in a fever of expectancy regarding the meeting at Newburgh, and the prospect of spending a whole week at Miss Fenwick's cottage on the Hudson. Then and there, no doubt, she would tell him all about herself, her father, her particular work, when and why she became interested in it etc. But what about the father? How could he have an interview with her father, if Mrs. Bainbridge was correct in saying that Mr. Fenwick had been dead for several years? It was a mystery he could not solve. He did not doubt Fern Fenwick for a moment and felt sure she would, at the proper time, make everything plain. How gracious and winning she had been to him; she seemed to bid him to have courage. In spite of her great wealth, and a hundred other obstacles that might exist, he was more and more in love every hour. If proving himself worthy of her confidence in every way would win her love, surely then, he would win it. With this determination fixed in his mind he fell asleep.
In her room that night, as Fern Fenwick brushed her hair and prepared herself for rest, she often paused to ponder over her strange meeting with Fillmore Flagg; thinking what a fine, manly looking fellow he was, and how well he could talk; how thoroughly equipped he was to take up the question of improving farm life, the lives of farmers and their families—the question of all questions for her. Surely, Mr. Flagg bore the stamp of destiny! He was the man of all men to make her work a complete success. How fortunate she was to secure his valuable services. How strange, that after a brief acquaintance of only two days, she should have such perfect confidence in a comparative stranger. Yet, she did not doubt his integrity; she knew he was loyalty itself; she intuitively felt that she could trust him implicitly—he would never betray her interests under any circumstances. She knew from his every look, tone and gesture that he admired her intensely, devotedly. Her own feelings, she did not care to analyze. With a sigh, more of pleasure than weariness, she composed herself for the night and was soon lost in sleep.
CHAPTER V.
FAIRY FERN COTTAGE.
One week has passed since the events narrated in the previous chapter. At Cornwall on the Hudson, on a West Shore train speeding north, we find Fillmore Flagg; his mission at Washington successfully accomplished, the letter of introduction from Bitterwood & Barnard secured. In another short hour he will be at Newburgh. Will the lovely face of Fern Fenwick be the first to greet him? As the moments fly by, his heart beats faster. He feels the surging tide of his all-absorbing love for this beautiful woman, thrilling and permeating his entire being. He tries to be calm, to think what he ought to say that would be fitting and appropriate; he knows his eyes are blazing and his cheeks glowing with an unwonted fire, still his thoughts refuse to flow into the satisfying forms of speech he most desires to use at the coming meeting, which seems to him to be the marking of a great crisis in his life. Ah! There is the whistle sounding! The speed of the train is checked as it approaches the station. He steps on to the platform while the train is still moving. He beholds many upturned faces in the surging crowd between him and the doorway of the ladies' waiting room, but Miss Fenwick he cannot see. Will he ever reach that room? Has anything happened to her? A great fear contracts his heart, he fancies he fairly staggers as he enters the door. In an instant he is suffused with a great joy. By the window, awaiting his approach, stands Fern Fenwick, the perfect picture of cool, contented loveliness. She extends her hand and greets him with a firm clasp of hearty welcome, and a second edition of that dazzling smile, so becoming to her, so bewitching to him.
"How do you do, Mr. Flagg? I believe your train must be late. How well you are looking, in spite of the heat and the dust! We will have your baggage secured as soon as possible and placed in the carriage, then we will drive to the cottage in time for lunch."
"Thank you Miss Fenwick, I am delighted to see you looking so well. My journey from Washington has been a very pleasant one; I have enjoyed it and have not suffered from the heat."
The carriage now came up, they stepped in and commenced the beautiful drive of one and one-half miles to "Fairy Fern Cottage," which was charmingly located on the summit of these famously terraced hills. Hills that have been historic since the revolutionary days of General Washington, when their slopes were white with the tents of his soldiers. As they approached the cottage, the artistic eye of Fillmore Flagg noted with pleasure the broad expanse of spacious lawn, gently sloping down to the road. Half-moon-shaped, it presented for his admiration five acres of smoothly shaven, velvety green. For one-eighth of a mile, the entire width of the lawn and cottage grounds, a low wall of ornamental cut stone separated the lawn from the road and formed the straight line of the half-moon. From the gates at either end of the wall a broad, beautifully kept driveway swept around the semicircle of the lawn, passing just in front of the cottage at the center of the deep bay of the half-moon. On each side of the driveway the greensward was beautified by alternating star and diamond-shaped plots of geraniums, roses, gladioluses, canna and nasturtions. Sitting close to the outer edge of the drive, about ten feet apart, commencing at the corners of the porch on either side, were rows of potted palms extending around the curve, one hundred and fifty feet each way—the palms gradually growing smaller as the distance from the cottage became greater. The effect was beautifully unique and suggestively semi-tropical. The cottage and lawn was embayed by a crowning crescent of choice foliage and shade trees; the thin horns of the crescent terminated at the gateways in low gray stone towers. From these points the horns gradually grew broader and the shrubbery rose higher. First the rhododendrons mixed with clumps of hollyhocks, next flowering almonds, roses, spireas and syringas; then came the drooping long leaf sugar pines, with an artistic mingling of slender limbed graceful silver birches: farther back were the taller firs and spruces, interspersed with thick clumps of small copper beeches, extending to and joining at the back of the cottage, the dense forest of tall, straight bodied elms, oaks and maples which partly hid and shaded the stables and the kitchen portion of the cottage.
The cottage itself was built of gray stone; with thick walls and large, low, deep seated windows. It was two stories in height, with three square towers rising twenty feet higher. The central tower was larger, and gave space within its walls for one grand room of magnificent proportions, thirty feet square and with a fifteen foot ceiling. The general effect of the cottage, lawn, and crescent background of foliage and forest, was as novel as it was beautiful. As the carriage entered the farther gateway, Fillmore Flagg was surprised and delighted:
"How perfectly exquisite!" he exclaimed: "A real gem! A romantic scene from fairyland! Rightly named 'Fairy Fern Cottage!' It is a fitting home for Fern Fenwick."
"Thank you, Mr. Flagg," said Fern Fenwick as they stepped from the carriage to the porch: "I appreciate your praise of my cottage home. I love
