Chapter 6

IT was an hour from the time Mr. Hendrickson left the house of Mrs. Denison before he found himself in one of Mrs. Loring's parlors. He had been home, where a caller detained him.

Full ten minutes elapsed after his entrance, ere Jessie's light tread was heard on the stairs. She came down slowly, and as she entered the room, Hendrickson was struck with the singular expression of her face. At the first glance he scarcely recognized her.

"Are you not well, Miss Loring?" he asked, stepping forward to meet her.

His manner was warm, and his tones full of sympathy.

She smiled faintly as she answered--

"Not very well. I have a blinding headache."

Still holding the hand she had extended to him in meeting, Mr. Hendrickson led her to a sofa, and sat down by her side. He would have retained the hand, but she gently withdrew it, though not in a way that involved repulsion.

"I am sorry for your indisposition," he said, in a tone of interest so unusual for him, that Miss Loring lifted her eyes, which had fallen to the carpet, and looked at him half shyly--half interrogatingly.

"If you had sent me word that you were not well, Miss Loring"--

He paused, gazing very earnestly upon her face, into which crimsoning blushes began to come.

"I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Hendrickson. I did not wish to be excused," she answered, and then, as if she had been led to utter more than maidenly modesty approved, averted her face suddenly, and seemed confused. There followed a moment or two of silence; when her visitor said, leaning close to her, and speaking in a low, penetrating, steady voice--

"Your reply, Miss Loring, is an admission of more than I had expected--not more than I had hoped."

He saw her start, as if she had touched an electric wire. But her face remained averted.

"Miss Loring"--

Warmer words were on his lips, hut he hesitated to give them utterance. There was a pause. Motionless sat the young maiden, her face still partly turned away. Suddenly, and with an almost wild impulse, Hendrickson caught her hand, and raising it to his lips, said--

"I cannot hold back the words a moment longer, dear Miss Loring! From the hour I first looked into your face, I felt that we were made for each other; and now"--

But ere he could finish the sentence, Jessie had flung his hand away and started to her feet.

"Miss Loring!"

He was on his feet also. For some moments they stood gazing at each other. The countenance of Miss Loring was of an ashen hue; her lips, almost as pallid as her cheeks, stood arching apart, and her eyes had the stare of one frightened by some fearful apparition.

"Miss Loring! pardon my folly! Your language made me bold to utter what had else slept in my heart