CHAPTER XIII WILL HE BEAR THE TEST Editha knew something of all this, for she read the papers, and at the termination of the trial enough could not be said of the brilliant victory which the young lawyer had achieved. She was at Newport, but she would gladly have returned to the city with her father to attend the trial had she known of it in season. But he had merely said he was obliged to go home upon business, which she judged upon his return must have been of an unpleasant nature, since for several days afterward he was morose and in every way disagreeable. Every one remarked how much more beautiful Miss Dalton was this summer than the preceding one. Many attributed it to the change in her dress, as she no longer refused to wear colors, and her wardrobe was remarkable for its taste and elegance, while others said her sorrow was wearing away and her spirits were returning. No one but Editha herself, however, knew the secret of her own beauty—she had loved and was beloved; and, though her hopes might not be crowned for a long while, yet she waited in patience for Earle to speak, having full faith that he would eventually rise superior to every trial, and trample every obstacle beneath his feet. She and her father were less in sympathy than ever before. She had dared to displease him again by rejecting Mr. Tressalia’s proposals of marriage. The day following Earle’s call upon her—on that very Christmas Day when she had contemplated asking him to dinner, and making the day so pleasant to him—Mr. Dalton had brought Mr. Tressalia home with him to be their guest, and he had sat in the seat she had destined for Earle, and she had been obliged to exert herself to entertain him instead. He had also attended a grand reception with them in the evening, and altogether that Christmas was so entirely different from what she had planned it should be, that she was a little inclined to feel almost as much out of patience with the innocent cause of it as with her father. A few days later Paul Tressalia had asked her to be his wife, and she had been obliged to tell him “No, it could not be.” Mr. Dalton was very angry, but secretly bade the rejected lover hope, assuring him that Editha’s affections were not engaged, and he, three months later, taking courage, renewed his proposal, to receive the same answered as before. A stormy interview between father and daughter had followed, Mr. Dalton declaring that she _should_ marry the rich Englishman, and Editha as firmly asserting that she should not do so. The disappointed lover, however, followed them to Newport, where he continually haunted every scene of pleasure where the fair girl was to be found; and, to Editha’s shame, she was at last forced to believe that her father was still bidding him hope against hope.