"Lost, my boy, lost with many others," was what his uncle had said.

He heard the words as plainly now as when they first were spoken,

remembering how his uncle's voice had faltered, and how the thought had

flashed upon his mind that John Stanley's heart was not as hard toward

womenkind as people had supposed. "Lost"--there was a world of meaning

in that word to Hugh more than any one had ever guessed, and, though it

was but a child he lost, yet in the quiet night, when all else around

Spring Bank was locked in sleep, he often lay thinking of that child and

of what he might perhaps have been had she been spared to him. He was

thinking of her now, and as he thought visions of a sweet, pale face,

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shadowed with curls of golden hair, came up before his mind, and he saw

again the look of bewildered surprise and pain which shone in the soft,

blue eyes and illumined every feature when in an unguarded moment he

gave vent to the half infidel principles he had learned from his uncle.

Her creed was different from his, and she explained it to him so

earnestly, so tearfully, that he had said to her at last he did but jest

to hear what she would say, and, though she seemed satisfied, he felt

there was a shadow between them--a shadow which was not swept away, even

after he promised to read the little Bible she gave him and see for

himself whether he or she were right. He had that Bible now hidden away

where no curious eye could find it, and carefully folded between its

leaves was a curl of golden hair. It was faded now, and its luster was

almost gone, but as often as he looked upon it, it brought to mind the

bright head it once adorned, and the fearful hour when he became its

owner. That tress and the Bible which inclosed it had made Hugh

Worthington a better man. He did not often read the Bible, it is true,

and his acquaintances were frequently startled with opinions which had

so pained the little girl on board the St. Helena, but this was merely

on the surface, for far below the rough exterior there was a world of

goodness, a mine of gems, kept bright by memories of the angel child

which flitted for so brief a span across his pathway and then was lost

forever.

He had tried so hard to save her--had clasped her so fondly to

his bosom when with extended arms she came to him for aid. He could save

her, he said--he could swim to the shore with perfect ease and so

without a moment's hesitation she had leaped with him into the surging

waves, and that was about the last he could remember, save that he

clutched frantically at the long, golden hair streaming above the water,

retaining in his firm grasp the lock which no one at Spring Bank had

ever seen, for this one romance of Hugh's seemingly unromantic life was

a secret with himself. No one save his uncle had witnessed his emotions

when told that she was dead; no one else had seen his bitter tears or

heard the vehement exclamation: "You've tried to teach me there was no

hereafter, no heaven for such as she, but I know better now, and I am

glad there is, for she is safe forever."




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