Dainty's Cruel Rivals; Or, The Fatal Birthday

"Dear madame, there is plenty of time yet," he replied, with provoking coolness.

"You expect, then, to be married on your birthday?"

"Certainly, madame. You can not suppose that I am going to remain single, and resign my birthright to you or any one?"—sarcastically.

"I scarcely thought you such a fool," she said, tartly; adding: "But I consider your behavior very strange. You are not yet engaged that I know of, and the bride ought to have more than three weeks to prepare her trousseau."

"That is all nonsense about an elaborate trousseau. She will need only a wedding and traveling-gown, and the other finery can be bought while we are on our wedding-tour in Paris," he returned, airily.

She exclaimed, suspiciously:

"Perhaps you are engaged already to some grand foreign lady, and intend to return to Europe in time to marry her on your birthday?"

"You are mistaken, madame. There is no girl in the world for me but one of our lovely Americans. That is why I came home from my wanderings. I wanted to choose one of my own beautiful country women to be my bride."

"I applaud your taste," she smiled. "I have traveled over the whole world, but I found no women as charming as the Americans; and I am glad you will choose one to reign at Ellsworth. But have you made your choice?"

"Ah, madame! that is hard to do among so many lovely girls," he replied, evasively.

She studied him gravely a moment, then exclaimed, boldly:

"I wish you would make your choice between my nieces, Olive and Ela."

"Dainty is your niece, too, I believe?"—coolly.

"Only my half-niece—the daughter of a half-brother I never loved. I simply asked her here through kindness to give her a good time. But with the other two it was different. I own to you I desired you to fall in love with one, and marry her, while I would make the other my heiress, thus settling them both luxuriously in life."

"Ah! And what did you expect to do for pretty little Dainty?"—curiously.

"Nothing. She would return to Richmond, and become a school-teacher"—irritably.

Love said nothing, only regarded her so gravely, that she snapped:

"Well, what do you say? Can you fall in with my plans?"

"Really, I can't say, you have taken me so much by surprise. Besides, the choice is very limited. Put Dainty in the balance with the other two nieces, and I will promise to choose between the three."

"Love, you are surely not thinking seriously of Dainty Chase for a wife? I assure you that she would not make a fitting mistress for Ellsworth. You admire brave, spirited women, I know, and Dainty is a weak, hysterical little coward, taking dreams for realities. Sheila Kelly assures me that every night since she has been sleeping in her room she has had a hysterical spell, declaring that she has either seen or heard the old monk, although nothing at all supernatural has happened to Sheila, showing that it is nothing but bad dreams and hysterics on Dainty's part. If she goes on in this way long, she will either lose her health or her reason; and I am thinking seriously of sending her home to her mother."

"You will do nothing of the kind. Write at once, and invite her mother to come to Ellsworth," he said, so sternly that she started with anger, exclaiming:

"I will not do it! Instead, I will send away this hateful girl who is trying to thwart all my hopes and plans for Olive and Ela!"

She saw by the pallor of his face and the flash of his eyes that she had gone too far, and her heart sank as he said, haughtily:

"Take care that you do not transcend your authority, madame, in thus threatening to send away the future fair mistress of my home! Yes, I will trifle with you no longer. You shall hear the truth, and govern yourself accordingly. Dainty Chase is my promised bride, and we will be married on the first of August, my happy birthday!"

She could have killed him for the pride and joy that rang in his voice, as he towered above her, proclaiming the truth. An insane rage rose within her, as she hissed:

"It is as I feared and suspected. The sly minx has made a fool of you, and you will be insane enough to marry her; but she does not love you. She only angled for you because you are rich! She had a lover in Richmond, poor like herself, whom she threw over as soon as she found she had a chance to win you. Already he has followed her here, and they have had two secret meetings in the grounds at twilight. Even the servants are gossiping about it."

His eyes blazed, his face grew ashen, and his teeth clinched, as he stormed in bitter wrath:

"It is a hellish falsehood!"

"Do you say so? Then here are the proofs—the notes she lost, that were picked up by a servant, and brought to me. Read them, and be convinced!" she cried, in coarse triumph.

His eyes flashed on her like sheet lightning, as he clinched them in his hand.

"Read them!" she repeated, sharply; and she shrank back in bitter humiliation, as he thundered:

"Do you forget I am an Ellsworth—a descendant of that grand old race whose motto is: 'Honor before everything'?"

"Well?" she cried, cringingly.

"Do you think that an Ellsworth—a born Ellsworth, I mean, not one by the accident of marriage, like you—could stoop to the meanness of invading another person's private correspondence? It is the act of a hound, not a gentleman! No; I will not read these papers; but I will restore them to their owner, and she shall explain or not, as she will, the foul aspersion you have cast upon her honor in declaring she has another lover. I trust in her as I do in Heaven!" and he rushed violently from the room in search of Dainty.

CHAPTER IX.

"ALL THAT'S BRIGHT MUST FADE."

"I believe my faith in thee
Strong as my life, so nobly placed to be;
I would as soon expect to see the sun
Fall like a dead king from his height sublime,
His glory stricken from the throne of time,
As thee unworth the worship thou hast won."

Love found Dainty sitting in a large double swing out in the grounds, gently swaying to and fro, and with the fragment of a little song on her rosy lips as she waited for him to join her there.

As the beautiful face turned confidingly to his, Love knew that the sudden love-light in her eyes was reflected from her heart, and that he could not possibly have a rival in her affections.

When Dainty saw the pale, agitated face of her lover, she started in alarm, and the sweet song died on her lips as she exclaimed:

"Oh, Love, what is the matter? Are you ill, that you look so frightfully pale?"

Love took the swinging seat opposite her, and with an effort at calmness, answered:

"Do not be frightened, darling. I am not ill. Only very, very angry."

"With me?" she faltered, in dismay.

"Certainly not, dear little one!" he cried, tenderly; continuing with sudden vehemence: "I am angry with the schemers who are trying to part us from each other, darling."

"You mean Olive and Ela," she cried, quickly, the rose-bloom fading from her dimpled cheeks and her sweet mouth trembling as she sighed: "Oh, I knew that we were too happy for it to last and that something would happen! There was a shadow on my heart. That was why I was singing, as you came up:

"'All that's bright must fade,
The brightest, still the fleetest,