As well as she could love any one, Ada had loved her guardian, and the knowledge that he was now lost to her, overcame her for a time, and covering her face with her hands, she cried aloud. Mrs. Lansing had never really loved in her life, so she could not appreciate the feeling, and she made no effort to soothe the weeping girl who that night wet her pillow with bitter tears, and who next morning looked weary, pale and old, as she languidly took her seat at the breakfast table. Still Ada was not one to love very deeply, and as on this occasion her pride was touched rather than her heart, she ere long grew calm, and with Mrs. Lansing wisely resolved to make the best of it. Then, too, there arose the very natural desire to conceal from Richard that she had ever cared for him, and to do this she thought she must _pretend_ to be pleased with his choice. Accordingly when Mrs. Lansing wrote to her brother, Ada inclosed a gilt-edged note, in which she congratulated him upon his intended marriage, telling him she had foreseen it from the first, and ended by sending her love to “_Rose_.” Thus, because she thought it would be for her interest, did Mrs. Lansing deem it best to change her tactics, while Ada was too proud to evince any open hostility, though in her heart she hated the future bride and lamented the fatality which had decreed that she should be rivalled by “both of those Lee girls.” CHAPTER XXX. “THE SOUTHERN PLANTER’S NORTHERN BRIDE.” Over the New England hills the hazy light of a most glorious Indian Summer was shining, while the forest trees, in their gorgeous array of crimson and gold, lifted their tall heads as proudly as if they heard not in the distance the voice of coming sorrows, and the sighing of winter winds. The birds had flown to their southern home where I fondly hoped to meet them, for I was to be a bride—Richard’s bride—and the day for my bridal had come. We had been everywhere—Richard and I—all over the old Meadow Brook farm, sacred to me for the many hallowed associations which clustered around it, and very, very dear to _him_ because it was my childhood’s home. So he told me when we stood for the last time beneath the spreading grape-vine, and I pointed out to him the place where years before I had lain in the long green grass and wept over the fickleness of one who was naught to me now, save a near friend.