Anna could not take his arm, so she replied: “Somebody might gossip; I’d better walk alone,” and coquettishly swinging the hat she carried instead of wore, she walked by his side silently, save when he addressed her directly. Poor Adam! there were clouds gathering around his heart, blacker far than the dark rift rising so rapidly in the western sky. There was something the matter with Anna more than weariness or heat, but he would not question her there, and so a dead silence fell between them until the cottage was reached, and standing with her on the threshold of the door, he said, mournfully, but oh! so tenderly, “Does my little Blossom like the home I have prepared for her, and is she willing to live here with me?” CHAPTER III. IN THE COTTAGE. She seemed to him so fair, so pure, so like the apple blossoms of early June, that he often called her his little Blossom, but now there was a touching pathos in the tones of his voice as he repeated the pet name, and it wrung from Anna a gush of tears. Lifting her blue eyes to his for an instant, she laid her head upon his arm and cried piteously: “Oh, Adam, you are so good, so much better than I deserve. Yes, I like it, so much.” Was it a sense of his goodness which made her cry, or was it something else? Adam wished he knew, but he would rather she should tell him of her own accord, and winding his arm around her, he lifted up her head and wiping her tears away, kissed her gently, saying, “Does Blossom like to have me kiss her?” She did not, but she could not tell him so when he bent so fondly over her, his face all aglow with the mighty love he bore her. Affecting not to hear his question she broke away from his embrace and seating herself in the bay window, began talking of its pretty effect from the road, and the great improvement it was to the cottage. Still she did not deceive Adam Floyd, who all the while her playful remarks were sounding in his ear was nerving himself to a task he meant to perform. But not in any of the rooms he had fitted up for her could he say that if she would have it so she was free from him, even though the bridal was only a week in advance and the bridal guests were bidden. Only in one room, his dead mother’s, could he tell her this. That had been to him a Bethel since his blind mother left it. Its walls had witnessed most of his secret sorrows and his joys, and there, if it must be, he would break his heart by giving Anna up. “I did not change mother’s room,” he said, leading Anna to the arm-chair where none had sat since an aged, withered form, last rested there. “I’d rather see it as it used to be when she was here, and I thought you would not mind.” “It is better to leave it so,” Anna said, while Adam continued, “I’m glad you like our home. I think myself it is pleasant, and so does every one. Even Dunallen complimented it very highly.”