The Senator's Favorite

"I am only seventeen, and I have a dozen. I thought I had thirteen, but when I tested them there were but twelve," cried Ladybird, tossing her dainty head with decided pique.

"Did—my—brother—jump in the water after you?" cried Precious quickly.

"No, indeed—he was not a hero like the others," and Ladybird curled a disdainful lip.

"Do you like heroes, Ladybird?"

"I adore them! If I ever marry any one, he must be brave and grand. I couldn't love a coward!"

"I admire heroes too," cried Precious, her cheek glowing with sudden warmth, her violet eyes shining; and then Ladybird cried eagerly:

"You must admire Lord Chester very much, dear, for I read in the papers how he rescued you from a burning house. It was grand, was it not? and I suppose you will be sure to marry him some day, for that is the way it always turns out in novels."

"You must be very romantic," answered Precious, smiling, though the crimson blushes seemed to burn her lovely face. A moment later she added, in a pensive tone: "I have never seen Lord Chester but once. He is very grand and handsome, but he is my sister Ethel's lover."

"Oh! So he saved your life for her sweet sake! She must really adore him for his bravery; but I wish he would fall in love with you now, you beautiful darling!" cried impulsive Ladybird, entirely disregarding Ethel's claim in her love of romantic denouements.

Norah came in just then with Ladybird's clothing nicely dried and pressed, and by the time she was dressed, and the fluffy curls dried, Earle Winans returned to take her home. As it was almost sunset, she took an affectionate leave of her new friend, promising to keep up the pleasant friendship begun to-day, neither of them dreaming of the untoward events that a day was to bring forth.

CHAPTER XV.

DID A SHADOW FROM THE FUTURE FALL OVER THAT YOUNG, DREAMING HEART?

"Like the changeful month of spring
Is my love, my lady-love;
Sunshine beams and glad birds sing,
Then a rain-cloud floats above:
So your moods change with the wind,
April-tempered lady-love;
All the sweeter to my mind,
You're a riddle, lady-love."

As Earle Winans took his seat by Ladybird in his elegant little phaeton, she stole a quick glance at his dark, handsome face, and wondered at the gravity of his thoughtful eyes. She did not know of the scene with Aura that afternoon, or she would have understood his mood.

He did not look at her nor speak to her for several minutes, and suddenly he heard a low, half-suppressed sob.

He turned to her quickly, exclaiming:

"What is the matter, Ladybird? You are not ill from your wetting?"

But a tempest of anger was swelling in the little beauty's breast, and her first words showed him the cause.

"You wouldn't care if I died, you great big coward!" she sobbed, and a pearly tear dropped from her long eyelash and splashed upon her cheek.

"Ladybird!" indignantly.

"Don't call me Ladybird! I'm Miss Conway to you ever after to-day! You didn't care if I was drowned! You didn't jump in the river to save me like those noble heroes! You just stood on the bank with your arms folded, afraid of getting drowned or spoiling your nice clothes, maybe," with a scornful glance. "Then, when the others had rescued me, and brought me to shore, you came so coolly and made me go up to your house with you for some dry clothes. And—and—before to-day I had thought you were so noble, so brave!" sobbed Ladybird, in passionate earnest, for she had plotted the little romance just to show Aura Stanley her power over Earle, and the failure was a cruel blow.

But Earle did not take her tirade seriously. His dark eyes twinkled and his lips twitched with repressed laughter as he answered significantly:

"Really, Miss Conway, I hope I am always brave enough to rescue any one in real danger, but I don't see any heroism in wetting one's self to rescue a girl from the river who threw herself in for fun, and who can swim as well as anybody!"

"Fun, indeed? How dare you say it, when I was almost drowned?" sobbed the little coquette perversely.

"Not a bit of danger!" laughed the young man, amused at her pretense of anger. "Ah, Ladybird, no man could love you better than I do; but, indeed, you are a vain little darling, and ought to be ashamed of your little joke that caused the ruination of twelve good flannel suits and sashes. Don't you know, you willful little flirt, that they will be shrunk to the size of bathing suits? And all to gratify a whim of yours! Ah, little one, it was cleverly done, but no one but myself guesses it was a ruse. I saw you throw yourself out of the boat. I saw you dive, and I remembered then your little hint about heroes awhile before. It was all make-believe, little Miss Mischief, even your pretense of unconsciousness, when Jack Tennant pulled you out. As you lay on the bank I saw your eyelids twitch and your lips curl with secret amusement. You can't deny it, Ladybird."

But Ladybird would not meet the quizzical glance of the laughing dark eyes. Her bosom heaved with wounded pride as she thought how Aura Stanley would triumph over her defeat. Ladybird had been reared in a boarding-school, and had imbibed all sorts of romantic fancies from surreptitious novels. Earle Winans' failure to realize her ideal of a hero had almost broken her tender little heart.

So she would not be laughed or coaxed into a good humor. She pouted charmingly and willfully, and at length she sobbed angrily:

"You may think it very amusing to tease me so, Earle Winans, but I will make you sorry for to-day before the week is out!" and as they drew rein just then at her father's door, she sprang hastily out on the pavement and ran into the house without a word of thanks or good-by.

"Whew! what a tantrum! but the dear little heart will forget and forgive by to-morrow," thought Earle, as he drove back home to tell Norah that he expected a guest in the morning—Lord Chester, who would stay at Rosemont a day or two.

He did not tell her that he had telegraphed for his friend to come, much less that he wanted him to act as his second in a duel. But Jack Tennant's blow was one that Earle's fiery heart would never forgive without an apology. He had determined to challenge him, and he would not ask any of the young men in Rosemont to carry the message. He wanted Lord Chester.

He believed that Ethel held the young nobleman's heart; he did not dream of danger to the fair young sister whose waist he clasped with a loving arm as she stood by him on the piazza while he told Norah to prepare the finest rooms in the house for the coming guest.

And there was no hint of a tragedy or sorrow in the balmy air, nor in the sunset sky where the rosy tints faded to purple, and the full moon rose over the sharp outline of the distant hills and flooded the world with its silver glory.

Precious did not speak one word, but her heart thrilled with a silent rapture as pure as the moonlight flooding the world with light.

"I shall see him—I can thank him with my own lips for saving my life," she thought happily, and at night she sat alone at her window when Norah believed she was asleep, thinking of the morrow, when Ethel's lover was coming.

She thought of Ladybird too, and her romantic fancies and hero-worship.

"It was a strange fancy that Lord Chester might some day be my lover," she mused, and added, with an unconscious sigh: "Perhaps—he—might—have been—only that he loved Ethel first!"

Did a shadow from the nearing future fall over that young dreaming heart—some prescience of the pathetic truth of the poet's plaint:

"Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"

She sat long by the open window watching the beautiful night with solemn, wide blue eyes, and a strange sadness crept over her spirit, a loneliness never felt before. Tears came at last, tears, and low, soft sobs.

Norah caught the sound in the next room, where she dozed upon her pillow, and hurried in.

"What, darling! sitting up in your nightgown, catching cold at the open window?" and she carried her in her strong arms to the bed and piled the snowy covers over the shivering form. "Did you have dreams that frightened you, pet?" she continued, as she warmed the cold little hands between her own.

Precious, trying to hush her hysteric sobs, murmured faintly:

"I have never been asleep, Norah. I was sitting at the window watching the beautiful stars, and thinking—of many things. Then I grew sad—I do not know why—and—and the tears came. I think I am homesick. I want papa and mamma. I have been so long away from them."

"I will write to Mrs. Winans to-morrow, and tell her she must come to Rosemont very soon—that you are lonely."

"Yes, I am lonely," sighed Precious, all unconscious that it was the restlessness of an awakening young heart.

She fell asleep presently with the dew of tears still on her lashes—slept, and dreamed fantastic dreams, in which she saw Ladybird married to Lord Chester, and Ethel drowning in the river, and herself and Kay perishing again in the burning house.