My Pretty Maid; or, Liane Lester

"You are mistaken!"

"Oh, no, I cannot be! I recall you perfectly," declared Mrs. Clarke, who had an astonishing memory for faces.

"I never saw you before in my whole life! I never was a sick nurse!" declared the old woman, so positively and angrily that Mrs. Clarke thought that, after all, she might be mistaken.

"Really, it does not matter. I was misled by a resemblance, and I thought you would be glad to hear of your nurse child again," she said.

A strange eagerness appeared on the old woman's face as she muttered:

"It's my misfortune that I haven't such a claim on your kindness, ma'am. God knows I'd be glad to meet with rich friends that would pity my poverty-stricken old age!"

Mrs. Clarke's white hand slipped readily into her pocket, taking the hint, and granny was made richer by a dollar, which she acknowledged with profuse gratitude.

"And as for Liane going as maid to your daughter, ma'am, I'd like to see this Miss Roma first, before I give my consent. I want to see if she looks like a kind young lady, that would not scold and slap my granddaughter," she declared cunningly.

Mrs. Clarke colored, wondering if Sophie's tales had reached the old woman's ears, but she said quickly:

"I would insure kind treatment to your grandchild if she came to serve my daughter."

"Thank you kindly, ma'am. I believe you, but will you humor an old woman's whim and persuade Miss Roma to come to me herself?" persisted granny, with veiled eagerness.

"I will do so if I can, but I cannot promise certainly," Mrs. Clarke replied, rather coldly, as she rustled through the door.

She was vexed and disappointed. Everything seemed to go against her that day. How angry Roma would be at the old woman's obstinacy, and how insolently she would talk to her, looking down on her from her height of pride and position. It was as well to give up the thought of having Liane come at all.

And how strangely like the old woman was to Mrs. Jenks, the nurse she had had with her when Roma was born. She was mistaken, of course, since the old creature said so; but she had such a good memory for faces, and she had never thought of two such faces alike in the world.

But if Mrs. Clarke went away perturbed from this rencontre, she left granny sadly flustrated also.

The old creature sat down in the doorway, her chin in her hands, and gazed with starting eyes at the grand carriage from Cliffdene rolling away.

"Who would have dreamed such a thing?" she muttered. "Here I have lived two years neighbor to the Clarkes, and never suspected their identity, and never heard their girl's name spoken before! Well, well, well! And they want Liane to wait on Roma. Ha, ha, ha!"

She seemed to find the idea amusing, for she kept laughing at intervals in a grim, mocking fashion, while she watched the road to Cliffdene as if she had seen a ghost from the past.

"Will the girl come, as I wish? Will she condescend to cross old granny's humble threshold? I should like to see her in her pride and beauty. Perhaps she, too, might have a dollar to fling to a poor old wretch like me!" she muttered darkly.

CHAPTER XI.

THE BEAUTY SHOW

Roma was indeed surprised and angry at granny's summons. She flatly refused to go, declaring:

"The insolence of the lower classes is indeed insufferable. Why, I offered that girl a situation much more profitable than the one she holds now, and here that crazy old witch, her grandmother, wishes to annoy me with all sorts of conditions! Call on her, indeed, in her old rookery of a house! I shall do nothing of the kind, but I will write a note to the girl, at Miss Bray's, and I have no doubt she will fairly jump at the chance, without saying 'by your leave' to that old hag!"

Delighted at the idea of outwitting the insolent old woman, as she deemed her, Roma quickly dispatched a patronizing, supercilious note to Liane, and waited impatiently for the reply.

She hardly gave another thought to poor Sophie Nutter, now that she was gone. Least of all did it enter her beautiful head that the maid had quit in fear and horror at the crime she had seen her commit that night.

Mrs. Clarke, in her tenderness over Roma's feelings, had bound all the servants never to betray Sophie's wild ravings to her daughter.

So, secure in her consciousness that her terrible deed had had no witness, Roma tried to dismiss the whole affair from her mind, believing that her victim lay at the bottom of the sea and could never rise again to menace her with threats of exposure, as he had done that night, bringing down on himself an awful fate.

The man she had remorselessly hurled from the cliff to a watery grave belonged to an episode of Roma's boarding-school days, that she hoped was forever hidden from the knowledge of the world. The thought of exposure and betrayal was intolerable. It was a moment when she dare not hesitate. Desperation made her reckless, branded her soul with crime.

The strongest love of her life had been given to Jesse Devereaux. Woe be to any one who came between her and that selfish love! Woe be to Devereaux himself when he scorned that love! Turbulent passion, that brooked no obstacle, burned fiercely in Roma's breast. Proud, vain, self-indulgent, she would brook no opposition in anything.

Out of all the five hundred girls whose portraits had been accepted for the Beauty Show, there was not one more eager than Roma to win the prize—not for the money, but for the additional prestige it would add to her belleship.

Her handsomest portrait had been offered, and Roma had scrutinized it most anxiously, hour by hour, searching for the slightest flaw.

She had a wealth of rich coloring in eyes, hair, and complexion, but her features were not quite regular; her nose was a trifle too large, her mouth too wide. Aware of these defects, she would have been a little uneasy, only that she counted on the votes of her father and Devereaux as most certain. Besides, she considered that her brilliant social position must prove a trump card.

"The palm will surely be mine, both by reason of beauty and belleship," she thought triumphantly, sneering, as she added: "The town will surely choose one of its own maidens for the honor, and who would think of awarding the prize to any one here except myself? True, they say that all of Miss Bray's pretty sewing girls have had their pictures accepted, and it's true that some of them are rather pretty, especially that Liane Lester, but who would think of giving a vote to a common sewing girl? I don't fear any of them, I'm sure! But, how I should hate any girl that took the prize from me!" she concluded, with a gleam of deadly jealousy in her great, flashing eyes, that could burn like live coals in their peculiar, reddish-brown shade.

But an element of uncertainty was added to the situation, now, in the defection of Jesse Devereaux.

"What if, in his passionate resentment against me, he should cast his vote for another?" she thought, in dismay so great that she determined to humble herself to the dust if she could but win him back.

She sent him flowers every day, and, accompanying them, love letters, in which she poured out her grief and repentance; but, alas, all her efforts fell on stony ground.

The recreant knight, busy with his new love dream, scarcely wasted a thought on Roma. He replied to her letters, thanking her for the flowers and her kindly sentiments, assuring her that he bore no malice, and forgave her for her folly; but he added unequivocally that his fancy for her was dead, and could never be resurrected.

"His fancy! He can call it a fancy now!" the girl moaned bitterly, and in that moment she tasted, for the first time, the bitterness of a cruel defeat, where she had been so confident of success.

She could not realize that he loved her no more, that the fancy she had so carefully cultivated was dead so soon! The pain and humiliation were most bitter. She rued in dust and ashes her hasty severance of her engagement.

Added to the bitterness of losing his love was the pain of having him vote against her at the Beauty Show.

"He will be sure to do so out of pure spite, even if he thought me the most beautiful of all!" she thought bitterly. "Oh, I wonder for whom he will cast his vote! How I should hate her if I knew! I—I could trample her pretty face beneath my feet!"

In desperation she resolved to cultivate the acquaintance of the artist, Malcolm Dean. He was to be one of the judges, she knew. Perhaps she could win him over to her side.

Gradually she took heart of hope again.

It could not be possible Jesse's heart had turned against her so suddenly. No, no! When they met again she would be able to draw him back again.

She had heard that he was going to be present at the Beauty Show. She would wear her new rubies and her most becoming gown for his eyes.

There were other girls than Roma planning to look their prettiest that night, and one was Liane Lester.

Her girl friends had persuaded her to send in her picture with theirs, and all six had been photographed in a large group by the Stonecliff artist.

No one could gainsay the fact that it was a beautiful group, from the petite, flaxen-haired Dolly, to the tall, stately brunette, Mary Lang. Miss Bray was quite proud of them, and wished she had not been too old and homely to compete for the prize.

"How sweet they look in their plain white gowns—as pretty as any millionaire's daughters!" she said proudly. "Indeed, I don't see why one of them can't take the prize? What if they are just poor sewing girls? Almost any of them is as pretty as Miss Clarke, with her fame as a beauty! But her pa's money helped her to that! Look at Liane Lester, now; that girl's pretty enough for a princess, and if she had fine fixings, like Roma Clarke, she could outshine her as the sun outshines the stars! But, of course, I wouldn't have Liane know I said it, because a poor girl must never cultivate vanity," she concluded to her crony, Widow Smith, who agreed to everything she said.

Liane had been almost frightened at first when the girls insisted on her going to the Beauty Show to see the exhibition of photographs, and hear the prize awarded.