BY MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.

AUTHOR OF "PALACES AND PRISONS," "FASHION AND FAMINE," "MARRIED IN HASTE," "MABEL'S MISTAKE," "DOUBLY FALSE," "WIVES AND WIDOWS," "MARY DERWENT," "THE HEIRESS," "THE REJECTED WIFE," "THE SOLDIER'S ORPHANS," "THE OLD HOMESTEAD," "RUBY GRAY'S STRATEGY," "THE CURSE OF GOLD," "THE WIFE'S SECRET," "THE GOLD BRICK," "SILENT STRUGGLES," ETC.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

"A Noble Woman," is the name of the new novel written by Mrs. Ann S. Stephens. Its pages are replete with incidents of absorbing interest, and her admirers will read it with avidity, and with a zest which would indicate that the freshness and interest of each of her new novels are still as potent as were her earliest productions. The leading characters are carried through a series of exciting adventures, all of which are narrated and drawn out with such ingenuity that the reader's attention is kept on a tension of interest from the opening page to the close of the volume. This is the great secret of Mrs. Stephens' success—her readers cannot get out of her influence. She does not fatigue them with the subtleties of metaphysics or philosophy. She gives you a thrilling story, pure and simple, sensational if you please, and she leaves the whole affair in the hands of her readers, feeling quite secure of a favorable verdict on every new emanation from her pen. "A Noble Woman" will prove to be the most popular novel that she has ever written.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.—A PROPOSAL CHAPTER II.—TOM THE GROOMSMAN CHAPTER III.—A FRIGHT AND A RESCUE CHAPTER IV.—HIGH FESTIVAL AT PINEY COVE CHAPTER V.—A BALL IN THE BASEMENT CHAPTER VI.—THE WEDDING CHAPTER VII.—THE FIRST CLOUD CHAPTER VIII.—THE BRIDE'S WELCOME HOME CHAPTER IX.—COUSIN TOM VISITS PINEY COVE CHAPTER X.—SHADOWS OF A SEPARATION CHAPTER XI.—THE BALL CHAPTER XII.—TOM MAKES A DECLARATION CHAPTER XIII.—WHO COULD IT HAVE BEEN? CHAPTER XIV.—THE HUSBAND'S LAST CHARGE CHAPTER XV.—MRS. HARRINGTON'S FRIENDS CHAPTER XVI.—THE WIDOW'S FLIRTATION CHAPTER XVII.—STARTING FOR THE PIC-NIC CHAPTER XVIII.—FACE TO FACE CHAPTER XIX.—LETTERS CHAPTER XX.—AN INTERVIEW IN THE WOODS CHAPTER XXI.—FIRE AND WATER CHAPTER XXII.—AMONG THE BREAKERS CHAPTER XXIII.—DEAD AND GONE CHAPTER XXIV.—HOME IN A STORM CHAPTER XXV.—THE SUNSHINE OF THE HOUSE CHAPTER XXVI.—SUNSHINE AND STORMS CHAPTER XXVII.—COURTSHIP IN THE KITCHEN CHAPTER XXVIII.—THE DEAD SECRET CHAPTER XXIX.—TOM FULLER'S LETTER CHAPTER XXX.—THE WIDOW'S FASCINATIONS CHAPTER XXXI.—THE HEIR COMES HOME

CHAPTER XXXII.—THE GAUNTLET BRACELETS CHAPTER XXXIII.—SEARCHING FOR THE BRACELET CHAPTER XXXIV.—BELOW STAIRS CHAPTER XXXV.—MRS. MELLEN AND HER COUSIN CHAPTER XXXVI.—LURED INTO DANGER CHAPTER XXXVII.—THE AFTER STRUGGLE CHAPTER XXXVIII.—A HALF UNDERSTANDING CHAPTER XXXIX.—TRIFLES LIGHT AS AIR CHAPTER XL.—TWO FACES IN THE GLASS CHAPTER XLI.—SECRECY IMPOSED ON TOM FULLER CHAPTER XLII.—THE RIDE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES CHAPTER XLIII.—KINDLY ANXIETIES CHAPTER XLIV.—ALMOST DEFIANCE CHAPTER XLV.—THE TIGER IN HIS DEN CHAPTER XLVI.—THE PAWNBROKER'S SHOP CHAPTER XLVII.—TEASING CONTINUALLY CHAPTER XLVIII.—THE PET MESSENGER CHAPTER XLIX.—ELSIE FINDS THE BRACELET CHAPTER L.—IN THE TEMPEST CHAPTER LI.—THE OLD CEDAR TREE CHAPTER LII.—WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE CHAPTER LIII.—CLORINDA'S GHOST STORY CHAPTER LIV.—THE SABLE FORTUNE HUNTER CHAPTER LV.—IN THE NET CHAPTER LVI.—THE SECRET TELEGRAM CHAPTER LVII.—KITCHEN GOSSIP CHAPTER LVIII.—THE INTERCEPTED TELEGRAM CHAPTER LIX.—FORCED HOSPITALITY CHAPTER LX.—WAITING FOR THE HOUR

CHAPTER LXI.—THE MIDNIGHT SEARCH CHAPTER LXII.—UNDER THE CEDAR CHAPTER LXIII.—FACE TO FACE CHAPTER LXIV.—BURIED OUT OF SIGHT CHAPTER LXV.—THE HUSBAND RELENTS CHAPTER LXVI.—GONE CHAPTER LXVII.—UTTER LONELINESS CHAPTER LXVIII.—PLANS AND LETTERS CHAPTER LXIX.—ELSIE PROMISES TO BE FAITHLESS CHAPTER LXX.—ALMOST A PROPOSAL CHAPTER LXXI.—FUTILE PLEADINGS CHAPTER LXXII.—TOM FULLER RETURNS CHAPTER LXXIII.—A FEAST AND A LOVE FEAST CHAPTER LXXIV.—THAT MONEY IN THE BANK CHAPTER LXXV.—UNEXPECTED DEVELOPMENTS CHAPTER LXXVI.—THE CONFESSION CHAPTER LXXVII.—SEARCHING CHAPTER LXXVIII.—IN BENSON'S TAVERN CHAPTER LXXIX.—RECONCILIATIONS CHAPTER LXXX.—TOM ACCEPTS THE SITUATION MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS' WORKS.

CHAPTER I.

A PROPOSAL.

She was eighteen years old and would graduate in a few weeks, yet Elsie looked like a child, lying there in that little white bed, with her golden curls scattered on the pillow and the soft whiteness of her neck and hands shaded by the delicate Valenciennes with which her night robe was profusely decorated. A quantity of hot house flowers lay scattered on the counterpane, where the girl had flung them, one by one, from a bouquet she was still tearing to pieces. A frown was on her pretty forehead, and her large violet eyes shone feverishly. It was seldom anything half so lovely appeared in the confined sleeping rooms of that highly fashionable boarding school. Indeed, since its foundation it is doubtful if a creature half so beautiful as Elsie Mellen had ever slept within its walls.

Just as the girl had littered the whole bed with flowers, which she broke and crushed as a child breaks the toys he is weary of, the door of the room opened, and a young lady entered, with a plate of hot-house grapes in her hand. She was older than the sick girl by two or three years, and in all respects a grave and most womanly contrast. Calm, gracious and dignified, she came forward with an air of protection and sat down by the bed, holding out her grapes.

"See what your brother has sent you."

The girl started up and flung back the hair from her face.

"From Piney Bend," she exclaimed, lifting one of the purple clusters in her hand, and crowding two or three of the grapes into her mouth at once, with the delicious greed of a naughty child. "Oh, how cool and nice. Dear old Grant, I wonder when he is coming."

"Sometime to-day, the messenger said," answered the young lady, and a soft peach-like bloom swept over her face as she spoke.

Elsie was looking at her friend; and a quick, mischievous light came into her own face.

"Bessie," she murmured, in a voice mellowed and muffled by the grapes in her mouth. "Don't tell me anything—only I think—I think—oh! wouldn't it be fun?—there, there, how you are blushing."

"Blushing, how foolish! But I am glad to see you well enough even to talk nonsense."

"Nonsense! look here, Miss Prim: if you're not in love with my brother Grantley Mellen, I never was in love with anybody in my life."

"Elsie!"

"There, there! I shan't believe a word you say—more than that, I believe he's in love with you."

No blushes burned that noble face now, for it grew white with a great surprise, and for a moment Elizabeth Fuller's heart ceased to beat.

Could this be true! These light, careless words from a young girl seemed to shake the foundation of her life. Did she love the man, who for three weeks had been a daily visitor in that sick room, whose voice had been music to her, whose eyes had been so often lifted to hers in tender gratitude. Could her heart have proved so cruelly rebellious? Then the other impossible things the girl had hinted at. Elsie had not meant it for cruelty, but still it was very cruel, to startle her with glimpses of a heaven she never must enter. What was she but a poor orphan girl, teaching in that school in order to pay for the tuition which had refined and educated her into the noble woman she unconsciously was. Of course Mr. Mellen was grateful for the care she had taken of his beautiful sister, and that was all. Elsie was almost well now, and would leave the school that term. After that there was little chance that she would ever see Grantley Mellen again.

"What on earth are you thinking about?" questioned Elsie, still busy with her grapes. "Just tell me if we are to be sisters,—and I'm set on it—you shall know all my secrets; it'll be so nice to have some one that won't tell,—and I'll know yours. To begin, dear old Bessie: somebody sent me these flowers, and I hate 'em. It's my way. So many at once, it stifles me. I wish he could see 'em now; wouldn't he just long to box my ears—there, that's my first secret."

"But who is the man, Elsie?" enquired Miss Fuller, really disturbed by this first confidence; for the girl was her room-mate, and had been placed particularly under her care.

"Oh, that's my second secret—I'll tell you that when you're Grant's wife. You haven't told me about your own adorer yet."

"How could I? One does not talk of lovers till they come."

"Oh Bessie Fuller; what a fraud you are! Just as if he hadn't been under this very window again and again: just as if the flowers that get into our room, no one can guess how, did not come from him. Why, half the girls in school have seen him prowling round here like a great, handsome, splendid tiger!"

"What are you talking of, Elsie?"

"No matter; I shan't tell Grant, he must think himself first and foremost—what a lovely sister-in-law you will make."

"Elsie, my dear girl——"

"Don't interrupt me—don't say you wouldn't have him: that you like the other fellow better, and all that. I tell you Grant is a prince, and you shall be his princess. He's awful rich, too; our horrid old uncle left him everything. I haven't got the value of a hair bracelet all my own—that's another secret. The girls all think we share and share alike, and I want them to keep up the idea; but you are different. Don't you see it would be horrid hard for me if my brother should marry some close, stingy thing, that might even grudge me a home at Piney Bend; but with you—oh Bessie! Promise me that you will marry him."

Here Elsie flung down the stem of her grapes, and reaching out her arms, threw them lovingly around Elizabeth's neck.

"Promise me, promise me!"

"You foolish darling! Lie down and be quiet, or I shall think you light-headed again."

"But you shall, I declare you shall!—Hush! there is some one at the door. Come in!"

A servant opened the door and informed the young ladies that Mr. Mellen was in the parlor.

"Tell him to come up," said Elsie.

The servant went out, and Elsie sat up among her pillows, twisting that splendid mass of hair around her head. As she stooped forward, her eyes fell on the litter of broken flowers, and she called out eagerly,

"Oh Bessie, do sweep them up; throw them out of the window, under the bed, anywhere, so that he does not know about them. There would be no end to his questions, if he saw so much as a broken rose bud."

Elizabeth swept up the scattered flowers with her hands and cast them through the open window, scarcely heeding what the girl said about them, in the agitation of the moment. As she turned from the open sash, Grantley Mellen came into the room. He was indeed a grand and noble looking man, with dignity in his manner, and character in his face; evidently possessed of strong but subdued passions, and a power of concentration that might engender prejudices difficult to overcome. That he was upright and honorable, you saw at a glance. When he sat down by that fair young creature, and took her hand in his, the tenderness in his voice and eyes thrilled Elizabeth to the heart. Elsie it simply gratified.

"Why Bessie," she said, with threatening mischief in her eyes, "you haven't spoken to Grant yet."

"Because he was occupied with you," answered Elizabeth with grave dignity, that kept down the rebellious spirit in Elsie's eyes. "Now I will shake hands with Mr. Mellen and go down to my class."

With a gentle, but not altogether unembarrassed greeting, the young lady went out of the room, leaving the brother and sister together.

Two days after this scene in Elsie's chamber, Elizabeth Fuller stood in one of the parlors of the establishment with her hand locked in that of Grantley Mellen; startled, trembling, almost terrified by the great happiness that had fallen upon her. He had asked her tenderly, earnestly, and with a thrill of passion in his voice, to become his wife.

The girl had not answered him: she literally could not speak; her large gray eyes were lifted to his, wild with astonishment one moment, soft with exquisite love light the next.

"Will you not speak to me?"

She attempted to answer him, but smiles rather than words parted her lips; and tears, soft as dew, flooded the joy in her eyes. What did the man want of words after that?

They sat down together on the nearest couch, and scarcely knowing how, she found her heart so close to his, that the two seemed beating together in a wild, sweet tumult. The glow of his first kiss was on her lips; he was telling her in earnest, broken words, how fondly, how dearly he loved her. Nobly would she feel herself mated when she became the mistress of his home.

There was something besides smiles on those beautiful lips now. The heart has its own language, and in that she had answered him.

"Do I love you?" she said; "who could help it? Is there a woman on earth who could refuse such happiness? I forget myself, forget everything, even the poor pride that might have struggled a little against the disparity between us which seems lost to me now. I did not think it would be so sweet to accept everything and give nothing."

"You certainly love me and no other living man!" he said in answer to her sweet trustfulness. "Tell me that in words! tell me in looks! Make me sure of it."

"Love you! Indeed, indeed I do. Never in my life have I given a thought of such feelings to any man. If you can find happiness in owning every pulse of a human soul, it is yours."

"I believe it and accept the happiness; now my wife—for in a few weeks you must be that—let us go up to Elsie. She must be made happy also, for the dear child loves you scarcely less than I do."

A thought of something like shame shot through the joy of the moment, with Elizabeth. Had Elsie suggested this?

"Will she be pleased? Will she be surprised?"

"I hope so, I think so!" was Mellen's frank answer; "for hereafter, my sweet wife must be a guardian angel to the dear child, for she has been, till now, the dearest creature to me on earth."

"I, too, have loved her better than anything," said Elizabeth.

"Have I not seen that? Yes, I am sure we shall make Elsie perfectly happy. She has dreaded the loneliness of my home. Now it will be bright as heaven for her and for me."

CHAPTER II.

TOM THE GROOMSMAN.

Music in the Central Park! Such music as made the flowering thicket, covered with late May blossoms, thrill in the soft air and glow out more richly from the sweet disturbance. It was a glorious afternoon, the lawns were as green as an English meadow, and my observation of beautiful things has no higher comparison. All the irregular hills, ravines, and rocky projections were so broken up with trailing vines and sweet masses of spring-flowers, that every corner and nook your eye turned upon, was like a glimpse of paradise.

This was the still life of the scene, but above and beyond was congregrated that active, cheerful bustle which springs out of a great multitude bent on enjoyment—cheerful, luxurious, refined, or otherwise, as humanity is always found. Carriages dashed in and out of the crowd, the inmates listening to the music or chatting together in subdued voices: groups of smiling pedestrians wandered through the labyrinths of blooming thickets, or sat tranquilly on rustic seats sheltered by such forest trees as art had spared to nature. The whole scene was one of brilliant confusion; but out of the constantly shifting groups, forms so lovely that you longed to gaze on them forever, were now and then given to the beholder; and equipages vied with each other that might have graced the royal parks of London or Paris without fear of criticism.

Just as the sun began to turn its silver gleams into gold, the music ceased with a grand crash. The final melody was over, and the swarm of carriages broke up, whirled off in different directions, and began to course about the ring again, or drive through the various outlets towards Harlem, Bloomingdale, or the city, which lay in the soft gathering haze of the distance.

Among the stylish equipages that disentangled themselves from the crowd was a light barouche, cushioned with a rich shade of drab which had a pink flush running through it, and drawn by a pair of jet-black horses. The carriage was so perfect in its proportions and so exquisitely neat in its appointments, that it would have been an object of general admiration during the whole concert, had not its inmates carried off public attention before it had time to settle on the vehicle.

The eldest, a woman of thirty-two or three, elegantly dressed and generally recognized, seemed to be the mistress, for it was her gloved hand which gave the signal for moving, and the coachman always looked to her for directions.

A slight gesture indicated home, the moment she saw her equipage free from the crowd, but the lovely young creature on the front seat uttered a merry protest and gave a laughing counter-order, threatening the elder lady with her half-closed parasol, till the point lace which covered it fluttered like the fringed leaves of a great white-hearted poppy.

"Only a short drive," she said; "you can't want to go into the house, dear Mrs. Harrington, such a heavenly day as this."

"But, my love, I have forty things to do!"

"All the more reason why you should neglect every one of them, since it is not possible for you to do them all," replied the young girl, with a laugh and a pretty wilful air that few people could have resisted. "Elizabeth, are you tired?"

The young lady whom she addressed had been leaning back in her seat by Mrs. Harrington, quite regardless of this laughing contention, looking straight before her in a smiling, dreamy way, which proved that the brightness of the scene and the spell of the music had wiled her into some deep and pleasant train of thought.

Her friend spoke twice before she heard, laughing gayly at her abstraction, and Mrs. Harrington added—

"Do come out of dreamland, dear Miss Fuller; I am sure I cannot manage this wilful little thing without your help."

The young girl shook her parasol again in a pretty, threatening way as she said—

"You are not tired, Elizabeth?"

"Tired! Oh no; it is very pleasant," she replied, in a voice that was low and musical with the sweetness of her broken reverie.

"See, you are in the minority, Mrs. Harrington," cried Elsie Mellen. "You had better submit with a good grace."

"Oh, I knew Elizabeth dared not side against you; she spoils you worse than anybody, even your brother."

"But it's so nice to be spoiled," said Elsie, gayly; "and you must help in it, or I shall do something dreadful to you just here before everybody's eyes."

She clenched her hand playfully, as if to carry her threat into instant execution, and Mrs. Harrington cried out—

"I promise! I promise! James, take another turn."

The man turned his horses with a broad sweep, taking the road around the largest lake. Here the spoiled beauty ordered him to stop. She wanted to look at the swans, "such great, white, lovely drifting snowballs as they were." Mrs. Harrington made no objection, but leaned back with a resigned smile on her lips.

A person possessed of far more imagination than Elsie Mellen ever dreamed of, might have stopped on the very road to paradise to gaze on that pretty, Arcadian scene.

The lake was one glow of silver, broken up in long, glittering swaths by troops of swans that sailed over it with leisurely gracefulness, now pausing to crop the short grass from the sloping banks, or ruffling their short white plumage, and stretching their arched necks for payments of fruit whenever they came near a group of children, or saw a rustic from the country, who was sure to delight in seeing the birds feed.