The Bishop's Son A Novel Author:Alice Cary Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: jamb she listened to the heart beating loud and fast under the ring in her bosom, and thought of him who gave it, with twice the accustomed tenderness. Hitherto,... more » she had had him only to love; henceforth he was to defend, to protect, to carefully guard and encourage as well; for that she would stand for him against the world, she did not for a moment doubt. We do not know much of ourselves until we are tried, not even the best of us, and " Deliver us from temptation," is a prayer that should evermore ascend unto Heaven. When Margaret closed her chamber door that night, she turned the key, a precaution she was not used to take, and going back directly, tried it again, to make assurance sure. Then reverting to the experience of the morning, she congratulated herself that that was safely locked too, and resolved that, in spite of any momentary impulse to the contrary, she would, for the future, wisely keep her own counsel. Then she took the ring from her bosom, held it up in the light, kissed it again and again, slipt it on her finger, and at last, with her hand beneath her cheek, fell asleep to dream such dreams as women dream when they love much. CHAPTER III. A LOVER'S QUARREL. T was near the sunset of a lovely day, early in June, that Margaret Fairfax tripped down the steps of the front door, (she experienced special pleasure in tripping over those steps,) and running lightly along the walk, passed through the door-yard gate, which as it swung back behind her, brushed from the rose-bush beside it a shower of fragrant leaves. Her dress was plain to homeliness, her feet bare, and her bright hair clipped, but not too short to blow about her forehead and eyes as she went; and her face was so illuminated that at a glance you would have seen there was some delicious exp...« less