"And now," inquired Mell, scarcely able to articulate, so great was her agitation, "what is Clara going to do?" "She is going to marry the Honorable Archibald," replied Rube, adding, with the breezy disgust of a sunny temper: "It's a confounded shame! He's old enough for her father, and I don't believe she cares _that_ about him! But he's a great statesman, and there's a good prospect of his getting into the White House some of these days; and some women love social eminence better than they do their own souls! I am glad you are not one of that kind, Mell--you will be content with your planter husband, won't you, Mell?" "I have written him to come to our wedding," pursued Rube. "I like him as well as ever--even more! He's a splendid fellow! I hope he will come, but I think it hardly probable." Mell thought, too, it was hardly probable. After this, things went wrong again with Mell. Her trousseau ceased to occupy her time and attention; her wayward thoughts waged internecine strife in regions of turmoil and vain speculation. Meanwhile, Jerome made no sign. "Woe is me!" wept Mell. Much had she wept since her father died; but a dead man is not half so sore a subject of weeping as a living woman's unworthiness, when it falls under her own judgment. "To do right is the only thing," moaned the unhappy girl--"to do right and give no heed to consequences. I have learned the lesson at last. It has been a hard one. Henceforth I am going to do right though I slay myself in the doing." She prayed that night as she had never prayed in all her life before. She asked for divine help in doing right by Rube. And she arose from her knees strengthened to do her duty, as she then conceived it. CHAPTER VII. THE LAST STRUGGLE. And the quiet days pass one by one--each one very like the other--until the last sun has set, and the evening lights gleam in the old farm-house on the last night before the wedding-day--that wedding-day which she had, to the very last, put off to the latest possible time. Under the hush of evening skies, in the flower-decked garden, in the dreamy grey air, in the sight of fallow fields glistening in the moonlight, Rube is saying good-night. "To bed early," was the parting injunction of Mell's future lord; "we have a long journey before us." "Yes," answered Mell, solemnly, "a very long journey. The journey of life." "However long, all too short," was Rube's fond reply. He stroked her lovely hair. "Mell! 'May never night 'twixt me and you With thoughts less fond arise!'" After he was gone Mell repeated those words, "a very long journey." Then she sighed. It would have to be a very long journey, indeed, to correspond with this sigh of Mell's--a very long sigh. Well, there is no better time for a woman to sigh than the night before she is married. Nor are tears amiss. Not one in ten knows what she's about; for, if she did, she would not--