The Senator's Favorite

Every one laughed except Earle Winans. He bowed coldly to his hostess and withdrew from the room.

The others followed quickly, and the last sound they heard was Ladybird's gay laughter as she cried out mockingly:

"I invite you all to my wedding with Mr. Tennant ten years hence!"

They were gone, but Aura lingered, waiting to see what the whimsical little madcap would do next; no doubt, though, she would laugh at her victims.

But Ladybird staggered to a sofa and fell upon it with her face hidden on her arm. Then a low grieved sob broke the stillness of the room that had so lately echoed her mocking laughter.

She had humiliated Earle Winans, punished him as she had vowed to do in her childish resentment. But was the triumph sweet?

Aura thought not as she saw the white shoulders heaving with a storm of smothered sobs.

"She threw Earle's heart away, and now she is sorry," thought Aura, and fled back to her home somewhat comforted by the thought that all was over between Earle and Miss Conway. She would try to win him now herself while he was angry with the pretty coquette.

Earle was indeed very angry as he walked slowly toward his own home, leaving the twinkling village lights behind him in the distance.

He had received such a cruel shock that he could not tell whether he loved or hated Ladybird most.

With a heart full of love he had written to her that morning, asking leave to call that evening for the answer she had promised when he asked her to wear his ring.

She had answered with one simple little word: "Come."

"And I went for—what?" he growled furiously to himself; "to be made a fool of with a dozen other idiots—puppets that she pulled with a string!" and he gnashed his white teeth in rage.

But he knew that he had had his triumph, too. He had seen her quail momentarily at his proud refusal. He knew that she was wounded.

"She could not bend Earle Winans' proud spirit, and that will be a thorn in her pillow to-night," he laughed harshly.

He sat down inside the Rosemont grounds and bared his feverish brow to the cool, fragrant night. In the stillness a whip-poor-will called from a thicket in its eerie voice, and another replied so near at hand that he started with an uncanny thrill.

"I shall get the dismals if I stay here," rising impatiently. "Heigho! I wish I had never come to Rosemont, never met this romantic little maiden with her silly love-tests and her abominable coquetries! Well, I am done with her forever. But what would my friends all say if they knew that Earle Winans had been vanquished by a little village beauty? And how am I to keep it from Lord Chester?"

He flushed hotly out there in the dark, for he detested ridicule.

"I must swear Chester to secrecy," he decided. "Ah, how I wish I had never come down to Virginia! I'll leave here to-morrow, and go abroad again in a week. That is," with a start, "if I am alive to-morrow."

For he had suddenly remembered that at sunrise to-morrow he was to fight a duel with pistols with Jack Tennant, who had declined to apologize for his hasty blow at the picnic.

CHAPTER XIX.

"THE WOMAN I LOVED AND THE MAN THAT WAS ONCE MY MORTAL FOE!"

"What pulls at my heart so?
What tells me to roam?
What drags me and lures me
From chamber and home?"—Goethe.

Ladybird Conway, our little "April's lady," wept disconsolately some time upon the sofa after Aura Stanley had glided away. Her willful prank had not succeeded as she expected, and her young heart was very heavy.

"Oh, how could Earle treat me so coldly?" she sobbed. "I hate all the others—silly things. And I wouldn't marry Jack Tennant to save his life."

She heard the gate-latch click, then a masculine step on the porch, and started up in a flurry, dashing away her tears.

"It is Earle coming back to beg me not to have anything to do with Jack Tennant. Oh, I thought he would repent! I'll forgive the darling, of course, but—I'll be a little haughty just at first!" she thought, her spirits rising to the point of coquetry.

She stood up expectantly, a pretty dimpling smile on her rosy lips.

In another moment a man stood at the threshold of the open door—a tall handsome man past middle age, with many gray threads in his dark hair.

Ladybird looked at the intruder, then flew to his arms with a cry of delight:

"Dear papa, you have come at last!"

"At last, my pet!" and Bruce Conway hugged her with fervor, then drew her to a seat by him on the sofa.

"You have been well, my Ladybird, I see—you are blooming as a rose. And where is good Aunt Prue?"

"Oh, nodding in the dining-room, I expect. She always nods after tea, you know. Well, you have been away almost six weeks, you naughty papa."

"You have not missed me, I'm sure, for I find you sitting alone in the parlor, and as fine as a peacock, like a young lady expecting her beau. Were you?"

He pinched the blushing cheek and laughed mischievously as she affirmed:

"No, indeed!"

"Glad to hear it. I don't want any young fellow to carry you off from me for ages yet."

Miss Prudence Primrose entered presently and Bruce Conway rose with unaffected pleasure to greet this distant relative, a kindly old Quakeress that he had induced to come and live with Ladybird after he brought her home from her Virginia boarding-school.

But the old lady did not quite approve of the wildness of the prankish girl, and when she was alone with Bruce that night she said:

"Ladybird is asleep by now, so I must tell thee that thee art spoiling thy daughter, Bruce. She is too pretty and willful for her own good."

Bruce Conway smiled in a graceful, indolent way he had.

"Oh, nonsense, Aunt Prue; there is no harm in being pretty, and she has always been an obedient child."

"But she is so young, Bruce, and she has lovers by the dozen. They call her the village belle. I don't like it."

"She's only amusing herself, the little wild bird. It's pleasant to be pretty and popular. I don't suppose she has an idea of marrying any of those dozen lovers," laughed Bruce carelessly.

"Yes, there's one—she says she likes him best of all; but I don't know if she means it, she is so teasing. His name is Earle Winans."

"Earle Winans!" and the languid, elegant gentleman started up, alert and eager. "Earle Winans!" he repeated.

"Yes, that is his name. His father is a great statesman, and his mother owns Rosemont. He is very rich, this young man, and very much in love with our Ladybird."