The Senator's Favorite

I pass, I clutch, I crush them, see!
The bloom for her, the thorn for me!"

    —Crandall.

Ethel had seen them go. At last, unable to restrain her impatience, she followed them halfway to the river. She met Lord Chester returning alone.

Ethel stood still, looking at Arthur with her whole soul in her dark, passionate eyes.

He struggled with his feelings for a moment, then the pain and imploring in her face won his pity. He took her hand, whispering gently:

"Dear Ethel!"

"Oh, Arthur, you forgive me!" she panted, and leaned her regal head against his shoulder.

The humility of the proud girl won for her more than all her pride could have done—his pitying regard. He put his arm tenderly about her, and held her close for a moment, and he could never tell why she lifted her head so suddenly and drew back in silent pain.

As she leaned against him the odor of crushed violets came to her with sickening sweetness—violets, her sister's favorite flowers. She had seen Precious wearing them awhile ago, and she guessed that now they were hidden on Lord Chester's breast. She would hate them now all her life, those purple-blue globes of elusive sweetness.

But she dared not give voice to her jealous pain. She could only smile up in his face and murmur:

"You forgive me, dear? You will love me again?"

"Everything shall be as it was before," he answered, and kissed her lips—not such kisses as he had given Precious just now, but a light caress, one that she knew was a duty kiss.

A bitter sigh burst from her lips, and she felt for a moment as if she would like to fall down dead at his feet in her shame and humiliation over the poor victory she had won.

But he was speaking again, gravely, quietly:

"Let me take you to the house, Ethel, for I must leave you very soon. I must go back to Washington to-night."

"But why so soon?" she pouted, and he answered:

"I had letters from England to-day, calling me home at once. There is something gravely wrong, but neither the lawyer nor my father, the earl, gave me any particulars, only they said I must come as soon as possible."

He paused, touched by the gasping sob on her lips.

"Do not take it so hard, Ethel, dear. I will write often, and return long before the date of our marriage this winter. Meanwhile I will be making soft my English nest for my beautiful bride. But I am very curious over the matter that has called me home, and I shall be in New York to-morrow, and sail on the first ship."

CHAPTER XXV.

"THE WINDS OF FATE BLOW EVER."

"Of all that life can teach us,
There's naught so true as this:
The winds of Fate blow ever,
But ever blow amiss!"

The days fled fast, and brought the balm of hope to aching hearts.

Contrary to the surgeon's verdict, and in spite of a very dangerous wound, Earle Winans was on the road to recovery.

Youth, health, and a superb constitution had triumphed over the circumstances that threatened the close of his young, promising life.

But it was quite three weeks, and far into the middle of June, before he was able to be removed from the Conway cottage up to Rosemont.

In the meantime something had happened that caused Ladybird's exile from the scene of her mischievous triumphs and coquetries.

The story of her novel lottery the night after the picnic had become public property in the village and shared usual notoriety with the duel.

Nothing was talked of but the rivalry between Aura and Ladybird that had been the primary cause of the duel. It became the sensation of the hour. The gaping of the villagers when either of the rival beauties appeared on the streets was so unendurable that even the bold-eyed Aura shrank with dismay, and was fain to remain indoors, although the giving up of her designs on Earle Winans was succeeded by the vaulting ambition to become Lady Chester.

Arthur did indeed call once on the lawyer's daughter, but she made no impression on the heart that already held a fairer image. But he was curious to know the girl who had been the cause of the duel. When he had satisfied his curiosity and laughed in his sleeve over her wasted airs and graces, he retreated from the field, and none of her efforts could inveigle him inside her doors again.

The story of Ladybird's flirtations was well known to everybody else before it reached her father and the Winans family.

Bruce Conway was one of the proudest of men, and although he had been an accomplished flirt in his own day he could not tolerate it in his daughter. The truth horrified him.

If it had been any other girl than Ladybird, his own lovely daughter, he would have laughed in his idle, graceful way at her novel method of doing justice to her lovers, the "heroes," as she termed them—but this came home too nearly.

He recalled with a groan his pleasant hopes and fancies built on his daughter's preference for Earle Winans. Then he muttered:

"Engaged to a fellow I never saw! A village lawyer's clerk! That Jack Tennant! Won in a lottery—my daughter! Good heavens! how careless and thoughtless I have been, taking my own way and letting Ladybird take hers. Otherwise this never could have happened."

For the most of his life Bruce Conway had taken things easily, and life had gone easy with him, but here was something that shook him up, as it were.

He had a long talk with Miss Prudence Primrose, during which she said so often, "I told thee so, Bruce, I told thee so," that it almost drove him mad.

"But what can I do with her? How restrain her in the future, even if she ever lives down the notoriety of this ridiculous prank?" he groaned.

Miss Prue sighed helplessly, then a bright thought came to her, and she suggested:

"Why not consult my good friend, Mrs. Winans? She has raised up two gentle daughters very properly."

"No, Prue, I cannot consult Mrs. Winans. You forget how shamefully Ladybird has treated her son. If it comes to her ears, as it must, she will resent the indignity to her son, who inherits all his father's pride and nobility. The affection she cherishes for Ladybird now will perhaps change into disgust. I cannot tell what to do with the little madcap, but I can tell you, Aunt Prue, a widower with a coquettish daughter on his hands is an object to be pitied."

Miss Prue did not pity him much. She thought he had neglected his pretty, motherless child all along, and valued his own ease too highly. Now he was reaping the fit reward for his carelessness.

"I will send her to a convent school till she's twenty, that's what I'll do," he declared irritably.

But suddenly Ladybird took the matter into her own hands.

The little beauty had been secretly very unhappy ever since the night when her willful prank had so deeply offended Earle's proud heart and reared that wall of ice between them.

Up at Rosemont every one believed her perfectly happy, and none dreamed of her love and sorrow over Earle, who might die and never forgive her for the wrong she had done him.

Everyone loved and petted her, from the stately senator and his lovely daughters down to the lowest menial on the grand estate. As for gentle Mrs. Winans, she had a deep and silent love, maternal in its strength, for the winsome child of her dear dead friend, bonny Lulu.

Ladybird knew well how they loved her, and her heart thrilled with love for them, but always there was the haunting thought that when Earle should tell them of her coquettish wiles they would despise her ever after.