what I had done. From that day to the hour of Robbie's death there has never been a moment when I would not have given my sight—yes, my life for his. And that is why I have been the devoted sister, as you have called me. I was trying to atone, and I did a little. Robbie told me so, for I confessed it all to him before he died; I told him just how vile I was, and he forgave me, and loved me just the same and went to sleep with my name on his lips. I can see it there now, the formation of the word Lucy, and it will be the first he utters when he welcomes me to heaven, if I am permitted to enter there.
"I have made this confession because I thought I ought, that you might not think me better than I am, I know you will despise me, but it does not matter; Robbie forgave and loved me to the last, and that alone will keep me from going mad."
She ceased speaking, and with a low, gasping sob fell forward into the arms of her father, who had stepped to her side in time to receive her.
It was a blustering March day when they buried Robert Grey in the cemetery at Allington, while his sister, who had been taken directly from the church to her home, lay unconscious in her room, only moaning occasionally, and whispering of Robbie, whose eyes she had put out.
"People will hate me always," she said, when after weeks of brain fever she was herself again. But in this she was mistaken, for the people who knew her best loved her most, and as the years went on, and all felt the influence of her pure, stainless, unselfish life, they came to esteem her as almost a saint, and no house was complete which had not in it some likeness of the sad, but inexpressibly sweet face which had a smile for every one, and which was oftenest seen in the cheerless houses where hunger and sickness were. There Lucy Grey was a ministering angel, and the good she did could never be told in words, but was known and felt by those who never breathed a prayer which did not have in it a thought of her and a wish for her happiness.
When Grey was first laid in her arms, and she saw in his great blue eyes a look like those other eyes hidden beneath the coffin-lid, she felt as if Robbie had come back to her, and there awoke within her a love for the child greater even than his own mother felt for him. And yet, so wholly unselfish was her nature that she never mourned or uttered a word of protest when, as the boy grew older, he evinced a preference for the farm-house in the pasture, rather than for the grand old place at Grey's Park, where, since her sister's marriage and her father's death, she had lived alone.
"Hannah needs him more than I do," she would say to herself, but her sweet face was always brighter, and in her great black eyes there was a softer light when she knew he was coming to break the monotony of her lonely life.
After her marriage, Geraldine did not often honor Allington with her presence. It was far too quiet there to suit her, and Lucy lived too much the life of a recluse. No little breakfasts, no lunches, no evening parties at which she could display her elegant Paris costumes; nothing except now and then a stupid dinner party, to which the rector and his wife were invited, and that detestable Miss McPherson, who said such rude things, and told her her complexion was not what it used to be, and that she looked older than her sister Lucy. Miss McPherson was an abomination, and going to the country was a bore, but still Geraldine felt obliged to visit Allington occasionally, and especially on Thanksgiving day, when it is expected that the sons and daughters of New England will return to the old home, and grow young again under the roof which sheltered their childhood.
And so, on the morning when our story properly opens, Mr. and Mrs. Burton Jerrold and their son Grey, a well grown lad of fourteen, left their home on Beacon street, and with crowds of other city people took the train for the country, to keep the festal day.
CHAPTER IV.
THANKSGIVING DAY AT GREY'S PARK.
The season had been unusually warm and pleasant for New England, and until the morning of Thanksgiving Day the grass upon the lawn at Grey's Park had been almost as fresh and green as in the May days of spring, for only the autumnal rains had fallen upon it, and the November wind had blown as softly as if it had just kissed the wave of some southern sea, where it is summer always. But with the dawning of Thanksgiving Day, there was a change, and the carriage which was sent from Grey's Park to the station to meet the guests from Boston was covered with snow, and Mrs. Geraldine shivered, and drew her fur-lined cloak more closely around her as she stepped from the train, and looking ruefully down at her little French boots, said petulantly:
"Why do they never clear the snow from the platform, I wonder, and how am I to walk to the carriage? It is positively ankle deep, and I with silk stockings on!"
Mrs. Geraldine was not in an enviable frame of mind. She had declined an invitation to a grand dinner party, for the sake of going to Allington, where it was always snowing or raining or doing something disagreeable, and her face was anything but pleasant as she stood there in the snow.
A very slave to her opinions and wishes, her husband always thought as she thought, and fondly agreed with her that going to Allington was a bore, and that he did not know how she was to wade through all that snow in thin boots and silk stockings, and not endanger her life by the exposure.
Only Grey was happy; Grey, grown from the blue-eyed baby boy, who used to dig his little heels so vigorously into the rotten base-board under the bench in the wood-shed of the farm house, into the tall, blue-eyed, open-faced lad of fourteen, of whom it could be truly said that never had his parents been called upon to blush for a mean or vicious act committed by him. Faulty he was, of course, with a hot temper when roused, and a strong, indomitable will, which, however, was seldom exercised on the wrong side. Honorable, generous, affectionate, and pure in all his thoughts as a young girl, he was the idol of his aunts and the pride of his father and mother, the latter of whom he treated with a teasing playfulness such as he would have shown to a sister, if he had one.
Mrs. Jerrold was very proud of her bright, handsome boy, and had a brilliant career marked out for him; Andover first, then Harvard, and two years or more at Oxford, and then some high-born English wife, for Mrs. Jerrold was thoroughly European in her tastes, and toadied to the English in a most disgusting manner.
During her many trips across the water, she had been presented to the queen, had attended, by invitation, a garden party, and a ball at which the Prince and Princess of Wales were present, and had spent several weeks in the country houses of some of the wealthy English. Consequently, she considered herself quite au fait with their style and customs, which she never failed to descant upon, greatly to the amusement of her listeners, and the mortification of Grey, who was now old enough to see how ridiculous it made his mother appear.
Grey was delighted to go to Allington, and the grandest dinner party in the world, with all the peers of England as guests, would have been a small compensation for the good cheer he expected both at Grey's Park, and at the farm-house. He was glad, too, for the snow and as the express train sped swiftly on, and he watched it from the window, falling in blinding sheets and covering all the hill-tops, he thought what fun it would be on the morrow to drive his Aunt Lucy's bays over to the farm-house after his Aunt Hannah, whom he would take for a long drive across the country, and frighten with the rapidity with which the bays would skim along.
"Hurrah! There's Allington, and there's Tom," he cried, springing up as the train shot under the bridge near the station. "Come on, mother, I have your traps, great box, little box, soap-stone, and bag. Here we are! And, my eyes what a blizzard! It's storming great guns, but here goes," and the eager boy jumped from the car into
