"opportunities," so he had been very glad when the visit to her mother's sister in New York was planned, and took care to see that Stella's wardrobe was ample and appropriate. She was only sixteen, however, and had the simplest tastes, and so, on her return, she had surprised him by giving back about half the money he had provided her with, and assuring him she had not needed it. Her aunt, whose principles were much opposed to the premature entrance of young girls into society, had approved the simplicity of Stella's tastes, and had advised her to put away her extra money until she should be eighteen, when she proposed that Stella should return to New York, spend the winter with her, and make her début into society.
The anticipated winter had come and gone, finding and leaving Stella at Grassmere, her own safe home. Mrs. Lacy, her aunt, had written for her urgently, and could scarcely be made to understand that the only obstacle that lay in the way of this young girl's enjoyment of a brilliant winter in New York society was the young girl's own disinclination. Her father wrote that he was perfectly willing and left the matter entirely to Stella, and Stella persistently declined. All this would seem very unnatural in a healthy, attractive young girl if she had had no reason beyond what appeared; but I must do Stella the justice to say that, although it lay very far under the surface, she had a reason.
CHAPTER II.
The tract of land long known as Grassmere was a finely-located farm, stretching far and wide over great undulating fields, bounded on one side by a short range of hills, that were high for that country, one of which furnished a shelter from the sweeping winter winds for the big, rambling farm-house, half old and half new, and wholly inharmonious, that nestled down at its feet, not far from where the river ran. It was not a great, wide, expansive river, suggestive of the traffic of countries and the risk of lives, but a tranquil little landlocked stream, whose gentle waters rippled of peace and quiet and repose. Stella loved to watch its course from the window of her little bedroom, and she knew its cherished face in every expression, whether ruffled into superficial little frowns by the play of the hurrying winds, which were never strong enough to stir its placid bosom, or soothed into serene repose by the golden sunshine which seemed to shed upon it such a spell of calm that even the gently-flowing current in the centre seemed to move as if stealthily and to gurgle in a whisper. But better still did Stella love
