Lancaster's Choice

"I hardly think I understand you, Lady Lancaster," said she, calmly.

"I fail to make my meaning clear, do I?" cried the dowager, furious. "Tell me this, then. How dared you come into my drawing-room and play on the piano?"

"Your drawing-room?" the girl lifted her eyes in gentle, courteous inquiry.

"Lord Lancaster's, then; and just as good as mine, since he is too poor to live at home. But that is no concern of yours. I repeat—how dared you play on the piano?"

Leonora looked very innocent and wondering and candid.

"I assure you I have not injured the piano one bit," she said. "It is a very nice one; but I understand how to use it, and my touch is very soft."

"Who cares about your touch? I was not talking about that. No one cares for that," contemptuously. "I referred to your impertinence in coming out of your proper place in the housekeeper's rooms and entering this drawing-room."

"Oh!" intelligently.

"Well, what do you mean by 'oh'?" inquired the angry dowager.

"I mean that there was no harm done by my entrance here. I have not hurt anything. I was very curious to know what great people's houses looked like, so I persuaded my aunt to let me come and see; but I really can not understand what terrible offense I have committed against your ladyship," said Leonora, with her gentle, candid air.

"You are poor and lowly born, and your place is in the rooms of the servants, and—and—I thought you were a child," sputtered Lady Lancaster, unable to fence with the polished tools of her fair opponent, and continuing, incoherently: "What did you mean, anyway, by—by—"

"By being a tall, grown-up girl instead of a child?" interposed Leonora, allowing a soft little smile to flicker over her rosy lips. "Oh, Lady Lancaster, pray be reasonable! Could I help it, really? Can one turn back the hands of Time? If that were possible, surely you would have availed yourself long ago of that wondrous art;" and with a graceful little bow, Leonora walked deliberately out of the room, having fired this Parthian shot of delicate feminine spite into the camp of the astounded enemy.

Lady Lancaster was purple with rage and dismay. She had sallied upon the field ready to drive the intruder from her grounds, and she, Lady Lancaster, the great rich lady, had been vanquished by the sharp little tongue of a low-born girl who had so innocent and candid an air that she did not at this moment quite realize that the girl herself knew the enormity of the offense she had committed.

Elise, full of silent, demure laughter, waited for her mistress to speak.

It was several minutes before she rallied from her fit of rage enough to speak clearly. When she did, she said, sharply:

"Put me into a chair, Elise, and bring Mrs. West to me."

"Hadn't I better take you back to your room first? Perhaps some one may come in here. And you have pushed your wig awry, and the powder is all off your face, my lady," said Elise, demurely; and her mistress groaned:

"Take me back to my room, then, and tell West to come at once—at once, do you hear?"

And when she had regained the privacy of her own room she sunk down exhausted upon her bed to await the housekeeper's arrival.

Leonora had already gone to Mrs. West's room and related her adventure.

"And oh! Aunt West, she was so proud and scornful and overbearing that I was vexed at her; and I'm afraid that I was just a little bit saucy to her. What will she do, do you think? Will she send me away from Lancaster Park?"

"She will have to send me too if she does!" cried Mrs. West.

"Oh, Aunt West, would you really go? Would you give up the home of sixteen years for my sake?" cried the girl.

"Yes, dear, I would go. You have no one but me, and I mean to do the best I can for your happiness. If Lady Lancaster is unreasonable about this matter, I shall leave her," said Mrs. West, decidedly.

"But, oh, aunt, you will be sorry that I came to you—sorry that poor papa left me on your hands," anxiously.

"I shall regret nothing, dear, if I can only do my duty by you," was the reassuring reply that brought a look of relief into Leonora's beautiful face.

Then Elise came with Lady Lancaster's message. She looked curiously at the calm, unruffled face of Leonora.

"Oh, Miss West, you have seriously offended my mistress!" she exclaimed.

"Have I?" Leonora answered, demurely; and Elise knew by the gleam under the girl's long lashes that she did not care. She delivered her message and departed.

"I do not know what to make of that Miss West; but she is decidedly too proud and too pretty for her position," Elise said to herself, when she was going slowly back upstairs to her mistress. "I'm afraid she will cause Mrs. West to lose her place."

Mrs. West went upstairs to the great lady, and Leonora waited in the little sitting-room for her return, which occurred in about fifteen minutes. The housekeeper was somewhat red in the face, and her lips were curved rather sternly.

"Well, aunt, have you promised to send me away?" the young girl asked, demurely.

"She would have liked to have me do so," said Mrs. West, indignantly. "She was very arrogant and presuming. She seems to be quite angry because poor Dick's daughter is as pretty and accomplished as the young ladies in a higher rank of life."

Leonora smiled, and her aunt continued:

"I gave warning that I would leave her in a month. If it were not for Lord Lancaster, I would go to-day; but he has always been so kind that I shall stay a few weeks longer for his sake. Can you endure it that much longer, my child?"

"Oh, yes," said Leonora, "I will try to be very good that long. And, Aunt West, when we leave here we are going back to New York. You need not shake your head so solemnly. I am a willful child, and I mean to have my own way."

CHAPTER XXXI

Lord Lancaster received a message from his aunt that evening. She wished to see him privately for ten minutes.

"I hope she isn't going to tease me about Lady Adela again," he said to himself, and he looked rather sullen when he went to her. He was exceedingly impatient of the rule she tried to exercise over him.

"Clive, why didn't you tell me about that girl?" she began, dashing into the subject without preamble.

He was honestly bewildered by the suddenness of the inquiry. He did not think of connecting Leonora West with it.

"I do not know what you are talking about, Aunt Lydia," he answered.

She gave him a keen glance to see if he was trying to deceive her; but his fair, handsome face expressed only the most honest surprise. "I mean that West girl—the housekeeper's niece," she said. "Why didn't you tell me about her when you came home?"

He reflected a moment, and then answered:

"I did, Aunt Lydia. You asked me if I had brought Leonora West to the housekeeper, and I told you that I had done so. Then you asked me if she were troublesome, and I told you that she was. Do you not remember?"

"Yes; but you should have told me more about her. It is very strange that you kept it all to yourself," she said, regarding him suspiciously, and nowise pleased when she saw the deep flush that reddened his face.

"What was it you wished me to tell you?" he inquired, coldly.

"Why, that she was grown up instead of a child, as I thought, and—and—that she was pretty—rather—and accomplished beyond her station," wrathfully said Lady Lancaster.

"I supposed you would find that out for yourself in due time," he replied with a half smile that nettled her, for she was decidedly uneasy over the discovery she had made. She was by no means blind to the distracting beauty of Leonora, and it had not taken her five minutes to find out that her mind was cultured and her accomplishments of a high order. When she reflected that her nephew had crossed the ocean in this dangerous society, she was frightened for her plans concerning him. What if they should "gang aglee?"

"Did you have any selfish motives in keeping the fact to yourself so long?" she inquired, sneeringly.