He began by telling Alice first of his early boyhood, uncheered by a single word of sympathy save as it came from dear Aunt Eunice, who alone understood the wayward boy whom people thought so bad.

“Even she did not quite understand me,” he said; “she did not dream of that hidden recess in my heart which yearned so terribly for a human love—­for something or somebody to check the evil passions so rapidly gaining the ascendant.  Neither did she know how often, in the silent night, the boy they thought so flinty, so averse to womankind, wept for the love he had no hope of gaining.

“Then mother and Ad came to Spring Bank, and that opened to me a new era.  In my odd way, I loved my mother so much—­so much; but Ad—­say, Alice, is it wicked in me if I can’t love Ad?”

“She is your sister,” was Alice’s reply; and Hugh rejoined: 

“Yes—­my sister.  I’m sorry for it, even, if it’s wicked to be sorry.  She gave me back only scorn and bitter words, until my heart closed up against her, and I harshly judged all others by her—­all but one!” and Hugh’s voice grew very low and tender in its tone, while Alice felt that now he was nearing the Golden Hair.

“Away off in New England, among the Yankee hills, there was a pure, white blossom growing; a blossom so pure, so fair, that few, very few, were worthy even so much as to look upon it, as day by day it unfolded some new beauty.  There was nothing to support this flower but a single frail parent stalk, which snapped asunder one day, and Blossom was left alone.  It was a strange idea, transplanting it to another soil; for the atmosphere of Spring Bank was not suited to such as she.  But she came, and, as by magic, the whole atmosphere was changed—­changed at least to one—­the bad, wayward Hugh, who dared to love this fair young girl with a love stronger than his life.  For her he would do anything, and beneath her influence he did improve rapidly.  He was conscious of it himself—­conscious of a greater degree of self-respect—­a desire to be what she would like to have him.

“She was very, very beautiful; more so than anything Hugh had ever looked upon.  Her face was like an angel’s face, and her hair—­much like yours, Alice;” and he laid his hand on the bright head, now bent down, so that he could not see that face so like an angel’s.

The little hand, too, had slid from his knee, and, fastlocked within the other, was buried in Alice’s lap, as she listened with throbbing heart to the story Hugh was telling.

“In all the world there was nothing so dear to Hugh as this young girl.  He thought of her by day and dreamed of her by night, seeing always in the darkness her face, with its eyes of blue bending over him—­hearing the music of her voice, like the falling of distant water, and even feeling the soft touch of her hands as he fancied them laid upon his brow.  She was good, too, as beautiful; and it was this very goodness which won on Hugh so fast, making him pray often that he might be worthy of her—­for, Alice, he came at last to dream that he could win her; she was so kind to him—­she spoke to him so softly, and, by a thousand little acts, endearing herself to him more and more.