Down in the little northern valley below the spruce grove lived her uncle , Alexis Gordon . His son , Meredith , had seemed to Corona as her own brother . The mothers of both were dead ; neither had any other brother or sister . The two children had grown up together , playmates and devoted friends . There had never been any sentiment or lovemaking between them to mar a perfect comradeship . They were only the best of friends , whatever plans the fathers might have cherished for the union of their estates and children , putting the property consideration first , as the Gordons were always prone to do . But , if Roderick and Alexis Gordon had any such plans , all went by the board when they quarreled . Corona shivered yet over the bitterness of that time . The Gordons never did anything half-heartedly . The strife between the two brothers was determined and irreconcilable . Corona 's father forbade her to speak to her uncle and cousin or to hold any communication with them . Corona wept and obeyed him . She had always obeyed her father ; it had never entered into her mind to do anything else . Meredith had resented her attitude hotly , and from that day they had never spoken or met , while the years came and went , each making a little wider and more hopeless the gulf of coldness and anger and distrust . Ten years later Roderick Gordon died , and in five months Alexis Gordon followed him to the grave . The two brothers who had hated each other so unyieldingly in life slept very peaceably side by side in the old Gordon plot of the country graveyard , but their rancour still served to embitter the lives of their descendants . Corona , with a half-guilty sense of disloyalty to her father , hoped that she and Meredith might now be friends again . He was married , and had one little daughter . In her new and intolerable loneliness Corona 's heart yearned after her own people . But she was too timid to make any advances , and Meredith never made any .
XXXXX believed that he hated her , and let slip her last fluttering hope that the old breach would ever be healed .
Corona Gordon Gordons Meredith Roderick day first lovemaking rancour years