“Some one might lose their way on that terrible night,” he said, “and the blaze of the fire on the hearth, which could be seen from afar, would be to them a beacon light to guide them on their way. Nobody would look in upon them, as Adaline, or ’Lina as she chose to be called seemed to think there might, and even if they did, why need she care? She was looking well enough, and she’d undone all those little braids which disfigured her so shockingly in the morning, but which, when brushed and carefully arranged, gave her hair that waving appearance she so much desired. As for himself, he never meant to do anything of which he was ashamed, so he did not care how many were watching him through the window,” and stamping his heavy boots upon the rug, for he had just come in from the storm, Hugh Worthington piled fresh fuel upon the fire, and shaking back the mass of short brown curls which had fallen upon his forehead, strode across the room and arranged the shades to his liking, then, sitting down before the fire, he went off into a reverie, the nature of which his mother, who was watching him, could not guess; and when at last she asked of what he was thinking so intently, he made her no reply. He could hardly have told himself, so varied were the thoughts crowding upon his brain that wintry night. Now they were of the eccentric old man, from whom he had received Spring Bank, together with the many peculiar ideas which made him the strange, odd creature he was, a mystery to his own sex, and a kind of terror to the female portion of the neighborhood, who, looking upon him as a woman-hater, avoided or coveted his society, just as their fancy dictated. For years the old man and the boy had lived alone in that great house, enjoying the freedom from all restraint, the liberty of turning the parlors into kennels if they chose, and converting the upper rooms into a hay-loft, if they would. No white woman was ever seen upon the premises, unless she came as a beggar, when some new gown, or surplice, or organ, or chandelier, was needed for the pretty little church, lifting its modest spire so unobtrusively among the forest trees, not very far from Spring Bank. John Stanley didn’t believe in churches, nor gowns nor organs, nor women, but he was proverbially liberal and so the fair ones of Glen’s Creek neighborhood ventured into his den, finding it much pleasanter to do so after the handsome, dark-haired boy came to live with him for about Hugh there was then something very attractive to the little girls, while their mothers pitied him, wondering why he had been permitted to come there, and watching for the change in him, which was sure to ensue.