My Pretty Maid; or, Liane Lester

"Mr. Devereaux cares nothing for the girl! He is engaged to me, but we had a little tiff, and he was just flirting with her to pique me because I would not make up with him just yet!"

Although she regarded Dolly as greatly her inferior, she was placing herself on a level with her by these confidences, encouraging Dolly to reply:

"Of course, I know he wouldn't marry Liane, but she was foolish enough to think so, and I feel certain she's down to Boston with him now."

Roma knew better, but she only smiled significantly, giving Dolly the impression that she agreed with her entirely, and then she said:

"I will agree to give you a week's trial, and mamma's maid can instruct you as to your duties. When can you come?"

"To-morrow, if you wish."

"Very well. I shall expect you," returned Roma, abruptly ending the interview.

When Dolly was going back the next day, she stopped in at the post office for her mail, and the smiling little clerk in the window, as he handed it out, exclaimed:

"Don't Miss Liane Lester work with you at Miss Bray's, Miss Dolly? There's a letter for her this morning, the first letter, I believe, that ever came for her, and now that I come to think about it, she never calls here for mail, anyhow!"

Dolly's cheeks flushed guiltily, and her heart gave a strangling thump of surprise, but she said, quite coolly:

"Yes, Liane works at Miss Bray's with me, and I'm going down there now, so I'll take her letter, if you please, and save her the trouble of calling for it."

The unsuspecting clerk readily handed it out, and Dolly clutched it with a trembling hand, hurrying out so as to read the superscription and gratify her curiosity.

"What a beautiful handwriting! A man's, too, and postmarked Boston. Now, it must be Devereaux or Dean writing to her!" she muttered, longing to open it, yet not quite daring to commit the crime.

She placed it at last in her pocket, thinking curiously:

"As I don't know where Liane is, of course I cannot forward this letter to her, and—I would give anything in the world to know what is in it, and who wrote it! Perhaps Miss Clarke would know the writing."

That evening, when she was brushing out the long tresses of Roma's hair, she ventured on the subject:

"To-day the postmaster gave me a letter from Boston to Liane Lester, but I don't know where to send it, and I am wondering who wrote it!"

She felt Roma give a quick start as she cried:

"Let me see it!"

Dolly giggled, and brought it out of her pocket.

"Oh! It is Mr. Devereaux's writing," cried Roma excitedly.

"So I thought, miss. Now I wonder what he wrote to her about? I must be mistaken thinking he knew she had gone to Boston," cried Dolly.

Roma turned the letter over and over in her hand, her eyes blazing, her cheeks crimson, her heart throbbing with jealous rage.

How dared he write to Liane? How dared he forget her, Roma, so insolently, and so soon? She would have liked to see them both stretched dead at her feet!

They looked guiltily at each other, the mistress and maid, one thought in either mind. Dare they open the letter?

Dolly twittered:

"I shouldn't think you would allow him to write to her! He belongs to you!"

She felt like making common cause with Roma against Liane, in her bitter envy forgetting how often she had inveighed against Roma's pride and cruelty. She continued artfully:

"The letter can never do her any good, because we don't know where to send it. And—and would it be any harm for us to take a peep at it?"

"I think I have a right," Roma answered, her bosom heaving stormily, then she clutched Dolly's arm:

"Girl, girl, if we do this thing—you and I—will you swear never to betray me?" she breathed hoarsely.

"I swear!" Dolly muttered fiercely, in her anger at Liane, and then Roma's impatience burst all bounds. She quickly broke the seal of the letter, her angry eyes running over the scented sheets, while Dolly coolly read it over her shoulder.

And if ever two cruel hearts were punished for their curiosity, they were Roma's, the mistress, and Dolly's, the maid.

It was an impassioned love letter that Devereaux had written to Liane, and it ended with the offer of his hand, as she already possessed his heart.

The young lover had chosen the sweetest words and phrases to declare his passion, and he explained everything that she might have misunderstood.

He had fallen in love with her at first sight, but he was bound by a promise to one he no longer even admired. In honor he could not speak to Liane, but his betrothed had herself broken the fetters that bound him, and he was free now to woo his darling. He had intended to tell her so that night of the beauty contest, but Malcolm Dean had rivaled him. Then had come the summons to his sick father, tearing him away from Stonecliff. He must remain some time in Boston with his sinking father, and his impatience prompted this letter. Would Liane correspond with him? Would she be his beloved wife, the treasure of his heart and home? He should wait with burning impatience for her reply.

Roma threw the letter on the floor and stamped on it with her angry foot.

Not in such tender, passionate phrases had he wooed her when she promised him her hand, but in light, airy words, born of the flirtation through which she had successfully steered him to a proposal so quickly regretted, so gladly taken back. Oh, how she loved and hated him in a breath!

As for the girl, thank Heaven, granny had promised to keep her out of the way. Ay, even to kill her, if she commanded it. It was strange how the old woman had fallen so slavishly under her sway, but she was thankful for it, though she shuddered still with disgust at remembrance of granny's fond caress.

She said to herself that it were better for Liane Lester that she never had been born than to cross her path again, and to take from her the love of the man she had worked so hard to win, and then so rashly lost.

CHAPTER XVII.

A CRUEL FORGERY

At the elegant family mansion on Boston's most aristocratic avenue, Jesse Devereaux, watching by the bedside of his sick father, waited with burning impatience for the answer to the letter in which he had poured out the overwhelming tenderness of his soul.

No shadow of doubt clouded his love, he felt so sure of Liane's love in return. Had it not trembled in her voice, gleamed in her eyes, and blushed on her cheeks?

Oh, they would be so happy together, he and his young bride, Liane! He would make up to her for all the poverty and sorrow of her past life. Life should be flower-strewn and love-sweet for her now.

Of course he expected some opposition from Lyde, his proud, fashionable sister, when she learned that he was off with his engagement to the heiress, Miss Clarke, and meant to wed a poor girl, who worked for her living. But he meant to stand firm, and when she saw how sweet and beautiful Liane was, she would be ready to excuse him and accept his darling for a sister.

In these rosy daydreams the hours flew, and on the second day after posting his letter he received a reply.

It gave him something of an unpleasant shock when he held the square blue envelope in his hand and read the ill-written address:

MISTER JESS DEVEROW,

No. – Comonwelt Avnoo,