“She behaves most outrageously for an engaged girl,” declared Lucy. “Her betrothed ought to know how she is flirting with another man when out of his sight, and Mr. Moore ought to be advised that she is not fancy free. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! why did I allow myself to become pledged to silence in regard to the matter? But for that I could tell him. She cares so little for her _fiancé_ that she has not even written him a line since she has been here--which is quite a week now. Why, every other young girl who is engaged, and who is away from the man she is to marry, writes to him every day of her life, I am sure. I know that is the way that I should do.” Lucy even ventured to drop a hint to Jess regarding this matter, and she never forgot the effect which it produced upon her, to the last day of her life. They were standing together out on the porch. Jess was watching eagerly down the road, in the direction Mr. Moore was sauntering, her cheeks slightly flushed, and her eyes full of a bright light which Lucy had not seen there before. “I can guess of whom you are thinking, Jess,” she says, lightly. A great flood of crimson stains Jess’ cheeks, quickly extending from chin to brow, as she wheels about and catches Lucy’s gray eyes, which have a malicious gleam in them. But this she does not note. Before she has time to utter the words that rise to her lips, Lucy adds, smoothly: “Of course, you were thinking of the young man whom you are soon to marry. How strange it is that you have not heard from him since you have been here. Now, were I in your place, I should feel worried, to say the least.” Jess throws herself face downward on the red-painted bench of the porch, sobbing as though her heart would break. All in an instant she had been hurled from the heights of bliss down to the very depths of dark despair. She had forgotten Mr. Dinsmore completely for one short, happy week, as completely as though he had never existed. “Oh, how cruel of you to remind me, Lucy,” she sobbed, bitterly. “You have brought me from heaven back to earth.” “You are talking wildly, and in riddles,” remarked Lucy, sharply. “Why should you not be pleased to hear of the man whom you are soon to marry? Yours is a strange sort of love, I should say.” Then the truth came out. Jess could keep it back no longer. “I do not love him. I--I fairly hate him,” she sobbed, vehemently. “I wrote to him in accordance with--with--the expressed desire of one who is dead--that I would marry him, and I have been regretting it every hour of my life since.” “You ought to be ashamed to acknowledge such a state of heart,” returned Lucy, indignantly. “It is sinful!” “I cannot help it. That is just how I feel,” cried Jess, great sighs welling up from her heart to her lips.