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Transcriber's Note:

  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original book have
  been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
  The book frequently omits punctuation before quotes. The punctuation
  has been retained as in the original. The length and spacing of
  ellipses (...) has also been retained as printed.

  There is no Chapter IV.

  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.




  [Illustration: _Elizabeth_.]




     THE
     ORDEAL OF
     ELIZABETH


     NEW YORK
     GROSSET & DUNLAP
     PUBLISHERS




     COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY
     J. F. TAYLOR AND
     COMPANY, NEW YORK




     THE ORDEAL
     OF
     ELIZABETH




_Chapter I_


The Van Vorst Homestead stands close to the road-side; a dark,
low-built, gloomy old place. The horse-shoe on the door, testifies to
its age, and the devout superstition of the Van Vorst who built it.
However effectual against witches, the horse-shoe cannot be said to
have brought much luck otherwise. The Van Vorsts who lived there, a
junior branch of the old colonial house, did not prosper in worldly
matters, but sank more and more as time went on, in general respect
and consideration.

There was a break in the deterioration, and apparently a revival of
old glories, when Peter Van Vorst married his cousin, a brilliant
beauty from town, who had refused, as tradition asserts, half the
eligible men of her day, and accepted Peter for what seemed a sudden
and mysterious caprice. The marriage was a nine days' wonder; but
whatever the reasons that prompted her strange choice--whether love,
indifference, or some feeling more complicated and subtle; Elizabeth
Van Vorst made no effort to avert its consequences, but settled down
in silence to a life of monotonous poverty. She did not even try, as
less favored women have done under harder circumstances, to keep in
touch with the world she had given up. She never wrote to her old
friends, never recalled herself, by her presence in town, to her
former admirers. As for the Homestead, it wore, under the inert
indifference of her rule, the same neglected look which had prevailed
for years. The foliage grew in rank profusion about the house till it
shut out not only the sunlight, but all view of the river. Perhaps
Madam Van Vorst, as people called her, disliked the idea of change; or
perhaps she grudged the cost of a day's labor to cut the trees; or it
might be that she liked the gloom and the feeling of confinement, and
had no desire to feast her eyes on the river, after the fashion of the
Neighborhood. It reminded her too much, perhaps, of the outside world.

She was a stately, handsome old lady, and made an imposing appearance
when she came into church on Sunday, in the black silk gown which
rustled with an old-time dignity, and her puffs of snow-white hair
standing out against the rim of her widow's bonnet. Her daughters,
following timidly behind her, seemed to belong to a different sphere;
dull, faded women, in shabby gowns which the village girls would have
disdained. If you spoke to them after church, when the whole
Neighborhood exchanges greetings and discusses the news of the week,
they would answer you shyly, in embarrassed monosyllables. Still, in
some intangible way, you felt the innate breeding, which lurked behind
all the uncouthness of voice and manner.

Their life, under their mother's training, had been one long lesson in
self-effacement; they never even drove to the village without
consulting her, or bought a spool of cotton without her permission.
The stress of poverty, as time went on, grew less stringent at the
Homestead; but with Madam Van Vorst the penury which had been first
the result of necessity, had grown to be second nature. She let the
money accumulate and made no change in their manner of life. Her
daughters had no books, no teachers; no occupation but house-work; no
interest beyond the petty gossip of the country-side.

With Peter, the son, the downward process was more evident and had