she sat alone to brood over her life, a new dream took the place of the old. Always there was a lovely home all her own, with comfortable chairs and plenty of books, and thin, sprigged china, such as had been her mother's. In this home she was sole mistress. Day by day she dreamed out the pretty rooms, and dwelt in them, and even occasionally let her imagination people them. The image of her beautiful mother hovered about that home and stayed, but there came into it no one to annoy or disturb.
When the two men settled themselves in the stage that night, the younger began to talk:
"Do you know you have a very beautiful daughter, Mr. Van Rensselaer?"
The father started from the reverie into which he had fallen. The look of the moonlight was reminding him of a night over sixteen years ago, when he and Mary had taken this same stage trip. Strange he could not get away from the thought of it. Ah, yes! it had been the look of his daughter that had brought back Mary's face, for the girl was grown to be the image of her mother, save for a certain sad flitting of severity. In the moonlight outside the coach he seemed to see again the sweet face in the coffin, and he compared it with the warm living face of the girl whom he had been to see that day. He knew that between his daughter and him was an impenetrable barrier that could never be removed, and the thought of it pierced his soul as it never had before. A great yearning and pity for his motherless, fatherless girl had come into his cold, empty heart as he had watched her move silently about. But ever present was the thought that he had no right—no right in her either, no matter how much he might try. No one would have suspected him of such feelings. He hid them deep under his grim and brilliant exterior, sternly self-contained in any situation. But now, in the half-darkness, a new thought came into his mind, and he started and gave his attention to the words of his companion.
"Is she your only child?"
The question made him start again. There was a long pause, so long that Harrington Winthrop thought he had not been heard; then a husky voice answered out of the shadows of the coach:
"No, there was another—a little boy. He died soon after his mother."
Outside in the moonlight, the vision of a ruddy-haired boy rode in a wreath of mist. The words were the man's acknowledgment to the two who ever attended him now through life. He did not wish to give his confidence to this business companion.
"Ah! Then this beautiful young woman will likely be sole heir to the Van Rensselaer estate," said the young man to himself, rejoicing inwardly at the ease with which he was obtaining information.
There was silence in the coach while Winthrop pondered the great discovery he had made, and how he should act upon it.
But the elder man was lost in gloomy thoughts. He had a vague feeling that Mary, out there in the moonlight with her bright-haired boy, would hold him to account for the little girl she had loved and lost in life. A sudden glimpse into the future had been given him, partly by the young man's words, partly by the beauty of Dawn herself. She was blossoming into womanhood, and with that change would come new perplexities. She could not stay always at the school. Where in the world was there a place for his child? More and more he saw that the woman whom in the fierceness of his wrath he had selected to take the place of mother to the girl was both unable and unwilling to do so. He shrank from the time when his daughter would have to come home. As he thought of it, it seemed an impossible situation to have her there; it would be almost like having Mary in the flesh to live with them, with reproachful eyes ever upon their smallest acts. At that moment it came to him that he was enduring the torments of a lost soul, his conscience having sat in judgment and condemned him.
The stage-coach rumbled on, stopping now and again through the night for a change of horses, and the two who sat within its gloomy depths said little to each other, yet slept not, for one was musing on the evil of the past and its results, while the other was plotting evil for the future.
CHAPTER III
Harrington Winthrop kept his promise about the sweets. Five times during the winter that followed his first visit with Mr. Van Rensselaer, he invented some excuse to visit Dawn.
The first time he came, he found her in the maple grove behind the pasture, with a group of other girls, all decked in autumn leaves and playing out some story that Dawn had read.
He persuaded her to walk a little way into the woods with him; and when he came to take his leave asked for a kiss, but Dawn sprang away from him in sudden panic:
"No," she said sharply; "I have never kissed anybody but my mother." Then, fearing she had been impolite in view of his gift, she added:
"We don't kiss people here at this school. It isn't the custom."
And she knew so little of the customs of the world that the incident passed without further apprehension on her part, or understanding of the young man's meaning.
"That's all right, my dear," he said pleasantly. "But don't forget about the house. I'm going to tell you all about it next time I come. You still want a home of your very own, don't you?"
"Why, of course," said Dawn; "but I can't see how you can know anything about it, or care. What have you to do with it?" And then with sudden alarm, "Has my father been talking to you about any such thing?"
"No, indeed! Your father does not even know I am interested in you. I care for my own sake. Didn't I tell you that I liked you the minute I saw you? And I'm just as interested in this future home of yours as you are."
"I'm sure I can't see why," said Dawn, perplexed, yet trying to be polite.
"Suppose you think about it hard, dear, and see if you can find out why I care. Just think it all over, everything I have said, and then if you are still in doubt go and look in the looking-glass and keep on thinking, and I'm sure you'll find out by the time I come back. I'm coming soon again, and I want you to be watching for me every day. I'll bring you something nice next time, besides another box of sweets."
Dawn tried to smile, but felt uncomfortable. She murmured her thanks again, and turned uneasily toward the woods and her companions, and he deemed it prudent to leave her without further ado.
Back in the woods, the girls were making merry with her confections, and had nothing but praise for the handsome stranger who had brought them; but all through the eager questions and merry jibes Dawn was silent and thoughtful.
"Where are your thoughts, Dawn?" said Desire Hathaway. "Has the stranger stolen them away to pay for his goodies?"
"She looks as if he had asked her to marry him, and she didn't know whether to say yes or to wait for somebody else," laughed Matilda Hale, a new-comer among them, and older than the rest.
"I guess he kissed her good-by," chimed in silly Polly Phelps, who aspired to be Matilda's shadow. "I peeked through the bushes and saw him bending over her."
Amid the thoughtless laugh that rose, Dawn stood defiant, the crimson leaping into her cheeks, the steel into her eyes. For an instant she looked as if she would turn upon the offending Matilda and tear her to pieces. Then a sudden revelation came to her: this, this was what the handsome stranger had meant!
Instantly the light of anger died out of her face, and a gentle dignity took its place. Her little clenched hands relaxed, the tenseness of the graceful body softened, and she turned toward the offender with a haughty condescension:
