Heloise was wondrously beautiful, with an ease and grace about her which would have become a princess. From her father’s side she had inherited “good blood,” a fact which her mother kept constantly before her mind. And as she talked of the brilliant matches which had been made in the new world and could be made again, Heloise listened, at first quietly, with a peculiar look in her eyes and a bright flush on her cheek. Latterly, however, there had been a worried, anxious expression on her face when her mother was talking to her, and on the morning of which I write she had left her coffee untouched and stolen from the room so as not to hear what her mother was saying of Abelard Lyle. He had called upon them the previous night, and stayed too long and seemed too much at home, Mrs. Fordham thought. “He is a fine young man, I know, and I respect him very much,” she said; “but he is only a carpenter, and I do not think it well to be very intimate with him. I saw you give him a rose. I wouldn’t do it again, or encourage him to come here.” Mrs. Fordham was talking to herself now, for Heloise was in the garden, with her face turned toward Schuyler Hill, where the men were already at work. She could hear the sound of their hammers, as stroke after stroke fell upon the heavy timbers, and it seemed to her as if there were a low undertone of music in it all, especially in the strokes which rang out from the tall tower rising above the trees. There was a fascination about that tower; and all during the morning, while her mother, who had an errand in the village, was away, Heloise sat by the window, where she could see the square frame and the broad-shouldered figure upon it. Once, when she felt sure the face was turned toward her, she waved her handkerchief, and was rewarded with a flourish in the air of the right arm, and then she knew that Abelard could see her; and she sat very still, and applied herself to the ruffle she was hemming, and thought such thoughts as made her cheeks the color of the rose she had given to Abelard the previous night. And while she sat there thus, there was the sound of carriage-wheels, and Lady Emily Schuyler drove slowly down the road with her English maid in attendance. Heloise had seen the lady in church the day before, but instead of staring at her as the others had done, had shrunk from view, and was glad that she sat behind the Schuyler pew instead of in front of it. And now, as the carriage came near, she leaned back in her chair to avoid being seen. Thus screened from observation, she sat waiting for it to pass, and her heart gave a great thump when she heard it stop directly before the house, while Mrs. Schuyler uttered an exclamation of delight at the roses growing so profusely in the yard. “Oh, Janette, how lovely those roses are! I must have some for my hair,—they will brighten me up at dinner, and I am looking pale and forlorn, and that vexes Colonel Schuyler so. I wonder if there is any one at home.”