Could
it be the mourning for sweet little Nina, or was it--?
And here the knot of gossippers, at the corner of the streets, or
in the stores, or in the parlors at home, would draw more closely
together as they whispered,
"Does she love Richard Harrington as she ought? Is not her heart
given rather to the younger, handsomer St. Claire?"
How they pitied her if it were so, and how curiously they watched
her whenever she appeared in their midst, remarking every action,
and construing it according to their convictions.
Victor, too, was on the alert, and fully aware of the public
feeling. Day after day he watched his young mistress, following
her when she left the house alone, and seeing her more than once
when in the Deering woods she laid her face in the springing grass
and prayed that she might die. But for her promise, sworn to
Richard, she would have gone to him, and kneeling at his feet
begged him to release her from her vow, and so spare her the
dreadful trial from which she shrank more and more as she saw it
fast approaching.
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