E-text prepared by Demian Katz
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from page images generously made available by
Villanova University Digital Library
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Transcriber's Note:

This story was first serialized in the New York Family Story Paper as Jaquelina; or, The Outlaw's Bride during 1882. The text used in this edition comes from a later reprint, part of Street & Smith's Eagle Series no. 192, in which it was printed alongside the author's An Old Man's Darling. The spelling of the title in this e-book is taken from the original 1882 version.

JAQUELINA

BY

MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER

AUTHOR OF
"LITTLE COQUETTE BONNIE," "THE SENATOR'S BRIDE," ETC.

NEW YORK

STREET & SMITH, Publishers

238 William Street

Copyright, 1883,
By NORMAN L. MUNRO

Copyright, 1900,
By STREET & SMITH

[JAQUELINA:]

By MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER.

[CONTENTS]

[CHAPTER I.]
[CHAPTER II.]
[CHAPTER III.]
[CHAPTER IV.]
[CHAPTER V.]
[CHAPTER VI.]
[CHAPTER VII.]
[CHAPTER VIII.]
[CHAPTER IX.]
[CHAPTER IX.]
[CHAPTER X.]
[CHAPTER XI.]
[CHAPTER XII.]
[CHAPTER XIII.]
[CHAPTER XIV.]
[CHAPTER XV.]
[CHAPTER XVI.]
[CHAPTER XVII.]
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
[CHAPTER XIX.]
[CHAPTER XX.]
[CHAPTER XXI.]
[CHAPTER XXII.]
[CHAPTER XXIII.]
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
[CHAPTER XXV.]
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
[CHAPTER XXVII.]
[CHAPTER XXVIII.]
[CHAPTER XXIX.]
[CHAPTER XXX.]
[CHAPTER XXXI.]
[CHAPTER XXXII]
[CHAPTER XXXIII.]
[CHAPTER XXXIV.]
[CHAPTER XXXV.]
[CHAPTER XXXVI.]
[CHAPTER XXXVII.]
[CHAPTER XXXVIII.]
[CHAPTER XXXIX.]
[CHAPTER XL.]
[CHAPTER XLI.]

[CHAPTER I.]

"Jack-we-li-ner!"

A girlish head, "running over with curls," lifted itself from the long orchard grass, and listened—the slender, arched black brows met over the bright, dark eyes in a vexed frown.

The woman who was calling Jaquelina in that loud, shrill, uncultivated voice stood in the doorway of a low, unpainted farm-house, prettily situated on the gentle slope of a green hill at whose foot a silvery little brook ran singing past.

Beyond it was a strip of fertile meadow. Then the ground took a sloping rise again into the orchard now glowing white and red in the flush of its spring-time blossoming.

Under the branches of a wide-spreading apple tree a girl lay at length in the emerald grass and blossoming clover, her curly head bent over a book.

The sunshine sifted down through the fragrant boughs on the soft chestnut locks with a glint of gold in their brownness, and on the arch, pretty face with its soft skin tanned to a clear brune by exposure, and the pouting lips that were tinted with the vivid scarlet of youth and bounding vitality.

"Jack-we-li-ner!" came the loud, elongated scream again.

Jaquelina Meredith sprang up so impatiently that her head struck against a low-bending branch, and a shower of the fragrant apple-blossoms fluttered down into the folds of her faded print dress.

A robin that had been singing in the tree broke off in his warble and stared down at her in round-eyed surprise.

"What now, I wonder?" she said, as she took up her book and her sun-bonnet, and wended her way to the house.

"Hurry up, will you now, Lina?" cried the woman in the doorway, as she crossed the log over the little brook. "You must come in the house and tend the baby while I hasten the dinner a bit. Your uncle wants to go over to the Grange meeting directly."

Jaquelina went into the clean, neat sitting-room and took the cross, heavy child into her slender young arms, and proceeded to walk up and down the floor with it—the only method she knew of to still its clamorous cries, for its mother had gone to the kitchen to hurry the noonday meal for her farmer husband.

Her uncle and the hired man, who had just come in from the field, sat at the window discussing the country news in general.

"The gang of horse-thieves seems to be getting into our neighborhood," said the plowman. "Squire Stanley's fine bay mare was taken from the stable last night."

Farmer Meredith started and looked anxious.

"Is it possible?" he said. "Why, Stanley's isn't more than two miles from here. Who knows but they may come here next? It would be a terrible thing if they took my two horses now, and the plowing not half done."

"Dreadful," said the man, "but it's a desperate gang—little they'd care if the plowing be done or not. But they do say as how the thieves don't meddle with poor men's beasts much. It's the rich farmers as has fine horses and such that they go for. I suppose they don't find a ready market for common plow-horses."

"Likely not," said Mr. Meredith. "Well, I wish the gang could be smoked out of the country, or caught up with in their thieving. It's a terrible scourge to the country—this gang."

"There's a large reward out for the ringleader," said the hired man. "I saw the posters out on Smith's fence as I came along this morning. Two hundred dollars for his apprehension."

Jaquelina, who had been listening, gave a startled cry.

"Two hundred dollars! Oh, my! I wish I could catch the wretch! Two hundred dollars would give me a whole year at a good boarding-school!"

Farmer Meredith looked round in surprise. Something in the girl's unconscious wistfulness struck him oddly.

"Boardin'-school," he said; "what put that foolish idea in your head, Lina? Haven't you larnt enough readin' and writin' at the public school four months in every winter?"

"No, indeed, Uncle Charlie;" and Lina shook her head so decisively that the short, soft rings of hair danced coquettishly with the movement. "It's very little I know, indeed, and if I only knew how to catch that horse-thief I'd spend every cent of the reward in getting myself a good education."

"You've more learning than is good for you now," said Mrs. Meredith, sharply, as she re-entered the room and overheard the words. "Every time I want you there you are out of the way, with your face poked into a book. And me slaving my life away all the time. Is the baby asleep? Put her into the cradle, then. Come, men—dinner's ready."

The sharp-faced, sharp-voiced mistress of the house bustled out.

Jaquelina put the heavy child out of her tired, aching arms into the cradle, and sat down to rock it.

Her full red lips were quivering; her dark eyes were misty with tears that her girlish pride would not suffer to fall.

"How hard and unkind Aunt Meredith is," she said to herself. "Ah! if only papa and mamma had lived, how different my life would have been. I wish I had died, too. Shall I go on forever like this, minding the baby, washing the dishes, bringing the cows, serving as scape-goat for Aunt Meredith's ill tempers, and considered a burden in spite of all I can do to help? I wish when papa died he had left me to the alms-house at once."

"Miss Jack-o'-lantern," said a voice at the window; and she looked around with a start.

It was only a neighbor's cow-boy—a good-natured, ignorant negro lad, who had converted her odd name of Jaquelina into "Jack-o'-lantern."

"Well," she said, "what do you want, Sambo? Why do you come to the window and frighten me so?"

"I'm in a hurry, if you please, Miss Jack," said the lad. "Is your uncle at home?"

"Yes—at dinner," said the girl.

"Master sent me over to see if Mr. Meredith and his man would jine a party to hunt the horse-thieves to-night," said Sambo. "Squire Stanley's headin' it; his stable was robbed last night."

Jaquelina went into the kitchen with her message, and Mr. Meredith came out himself.

"Tell your master I'll be going over to the Grange meeting this afternoon, and I'll stop by and make arrangements to join them in the hunt," he said.

He finished his dinner and started.

The idea of the thief-hunt so inspired the plowman that he begged to be excused from working the balance of the day, and went away full of enthusiasm to join the gallant band of pursuers.

Jaquelina washed the dishes, and while Mrs. Meredith sat by the cradle with her knitting, the girl took her book and sat down on the doorstep to read.

Half an hour went by quietly. The hum of the bees and the warble of the birds were all that broke the silence, save the low whisper of the wind as it sighed among the trees.

Jaquelina enjoyed the silence thoroughly, every moment dreading to hear the fretful wail of her aunt's baby, and to be summoned to tend it again.

But lifting her head at last, as she turned a page, she saw a lady crossing the narrow foot-bridge that spanned the brook.

"Aunt Meredith," she said, turning her head toward the sitting-room, "there's company coming."

Mrs. Meredith whisked off her kitchen apron, slipped a white ruffled one over her dark print dress, and appeared at the door just in time to hear a musical voice saying, kindly:

"Good-afternoon, Lina—ah, good-afternoon, Mrs. Meredith."

[CHAPTER II.]

The new-comer was Violet Earle, a girl scarcely older than Jaquelina, but taller, better dressed, and exquisitely lovely. She was fair as a lily, with soft, languishing blue eyes, and golden curls falling in beautiful luxuriance upon her graceful shoulders.

A cool, tasteful costume of blue and white lawn, with pale-blue ribbons fluttering here and there, lent an artistic grace to her appearance that made Jaquelina shrink into herself upon the doorstep, feeling dowdy, miserable and commonplace by the contrast.

Jaquelina knew no one on earth whom she envied so much as this fair and self-possessed young lady—the petted, only daughter of the wealthiest man in the county.

"Good-afternoon, Miss Earle. Will you walk into the sitting-room?" inquired Mrs. Meredith, a little flustered by the lovely young visitor's appearance.

She led the way to the little sitting-room where the baby slumbered peacefully still, and they sat down, Jaquelina with her slim finger between the pages of her book.

"Lina, I have come to invite you to a party to-morrow night," Violet said, graciously.

Jaquelina's brune face flushed, her scarlet lips trembled with pleasure.

"My brother and one of his classmates are come from college for a visit, and mamma is going to give us a party. Will you come, Lina?"

Jaquelina glanced at Mrs. Meredith.

"Yes, if Aunt Meredith will permit me," she answered, frankly.

"Of course she will," Violet said, looking at the hostess, who frowned slightly as she said, almost bruskly:

"Lina has nothing fit to wear to a party."

Lina's sensitive cheeks turned crimson, but Miss Earle only laughed.

"Everyone says that when invited to a party," she observed lightly. "It was what I said about myself, when mamma first named the party this morning. But you see, after all, this will only be a kind of impromptu party—a lawn party. We will have Chinese lanterns and colored lamps hung in the trees, and refreshments served out of doors, and games, you know."

"Yes," said Lina, and her cheeks glowed, and her eyes beamed. She forgot the embarrassing sense of dowdiness that often overwhelmed her in Miss Earle's elegant presence, and sat up straight, and forgot to draw her shabby little slippers under her chair.

There was a great deal of dainty, untutored grace in the slim figure, and Violet, who was inclined to patronize the shy orphan girl, decided to herself that Lina Meredith would be rather a pretty girl if only she were not so tanned, and if only her uncle and aunt would dress her decently.

"I have invited several people," she went on, looking at Mrs. Meredith, "and they all said they would be sure to come. Mamma said she thought you would be very glad to have Lina come, as she sees so very little pleasure."

Miss Violet's fine little shaft of malice told.

Mrs. Meredith's face turned red in a moment. She could not but be aware that the neighbors gossiped over her treatment of her husband's niece, and said that she kept her a dowdy and a drudge.

"Lina sees as much pleasure as she can afford to see," she retorted, a little shortly. "She wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth, like some people. She has to work for her living the same as I do. As for the party, I'm obliged to your mother, I'm sure, for inviting Jaquelina. I've not a word to say against her going, but she's nothing but calico dresses."

Lina glanced at Miss Earle's pretty blue-and-white lawn, and the deep color flushed into her face again. Even Violet looked disconcerted.

"Haven't you even a white?" she said, after a minute. "Almost any kind of a white would look well at a lawn-party at night, you know. You can wear natural flowers."

Jaquelina looked at her aunt with a sudden gleam in her eyes.

"Aunt Meredith, there's mamma's white dress in the chest up in the garret—her wedding-one, you know," she said.

"Old-fashioned—and yellow as gold!" sniffed Mrs. Meredith contemptuously.

"The very thing," cried Violet Earle. "Yellow-white is the rage, and antique styles are very fashionable. Wear your mother's wedding-dress by all means, Lina. And plenty of flowers, remember."

"It's ill-luck wearing the clothes of them that's dead and gone," said Mrs. Meredith, half-fearfully.

"Oh! Aunt Meredith—could you think mamma would care for me wearing her wedding-dress?" cried Jaquelina, reproachfully.

"Certainly not," said Violet Earle. "Could an angel in Heaven care for an old dress she had left upon earth? What do cast-off garments matter to one wearing the robe of righteousness? Wear it by all means Lina!"

She rose as she spoke and moved toward the door.

"Good-bye, Lina; good-bye, Mrs. Meredith. Lina, don't fail us! We have only invited a certain number of girls and we count on everyone being there."

[CHAPTER III.]

Miss Earle went away. Jaquelina brought the cows from the pasture, and tended the baby while her aunt did the milking. It was a dull and prosaic life enough for a young girl who was pretty, spirited and imaginative.

No wonder her thoughts dwelt eagerly and longingly on the lawn-party to which Violet Earle had invited her. The girl felt as if she were going to have a peep into fairyland.

She thought Violet Earle was the dearest and kindest girl in the world.

She did not know how Violet had said, half-laughingly, half-carelessly, when she went home:

"Mamma, I cannot see why you were so anxious to have that shy, awkward Jaquelina Meredith come to our party. She has not a decent thing to wear—her aunt said so. She will have to come in an old white dress that belonged to her mother."

Violet's brother, the young collegian, laughed.

Gentle Mrs. Earle looked at them both a little reproachfully.

"My dears, I wish you would not laugh at little Lina's poverty," she said. "The Merediths do not treat her right. But aside from her poverty she ranks as high in the social scale as we do. Her father was an artist of no mean ability. He would have made his mark if he had not died young. I feel sorry for little Jaquelina."

"Was her mother a nice person, too, mamma?" Violet asked, interested.

"I did not know her mother very well," said Mrs. Earle. "She was Jaquelina Ardell, a young French girl whom Claude Meredith married while he was abroad. She did not live but a few months after they returned here. When her little girl was born she died."

"And Mr. Meredith soon after," said the student; "I remember it myself. I was a lad of five years at the time."

"Yes, he died of a fever," said Mrs. Earle, with a sigh, quickly suppressed.

"Did he leave no money for his daughter?" inquired Violet.

"No—he spent the few thousands his farmer-father bequeathed him upon his education and his art-studies abroad. So Lina is dependent upon her uncle's charity."

"A cold charity it is too," said Violet, thinking of cold, hard Mrs. Meredith.

"Charlie Meredith is not purposely unkind," Mrs. Earle said, quickly, "but he is thoughtless and careless, and his wife rules him. Still, for the sake of his feelings, I should not like to slight Claude's daughter."

"I do hope she will make a respectable appearance so that no one will be able to laugh at her," said Violet. "It was on my mind to offer to lend her a party-dress, but I decided that she would not have accepted it."

"I am glad you did not," her mother said promptly. "I think Lina is proud in her way. She would have been hurt."

Violet and her brother thought their mamma was very kind and thoughtful over Jaquelina Meredith.

No one had ever told them that Claude Meredith and their mother had been lovers in their boy and girl days, and that an ambitious father had come between them and persuaded the girl into a loveless union with the wealthy Mr. Earle.

Jaquelina herself did not know what an interest the pretty, faded woman took in her fate. As she walked up and down the low sitting-room with her little cousin in her arms she remembered how tenderly Violet had said "Mamma," and a vague yearning stood over her to feel herself enfolded in the sweetness of a mother's love, which she, poor child, was never to know.

At twilight Sambo came over from the neighboring farm with a message for Mrs. Meredith. Her husband had joined the band of men who were going to pursue the horse-thieves, and would not be home until morning.

If she and Jaquelina were afraid they were to take the child and go to a neighbor's to spend the night.

Mrs. Meredith laughed at the idea of fear. So did Jaquelina. Both felt perfectly safe in the quiet, peaceful little farm-house. They sent word that they would remain at home.

At eight o'clock Mrs. Meredith, according to her usual custom, retired to bed with her child. Jaquelina took a lamp and went to her own room, but not to sleep. It was too early. The night hours were golden ones to her.

Then she was free to read or study as she liked. True, her aunt grumbled over the useless waste of a light, but her Uncle Charlie was wont to interfere so decidedly on that point that the orphan girl had her way.

But to-night the book was laid on the shelf of the little garret-chamber, and the girl dragged out a little cedar chest from under the high-posted bed.

She unlocked it and took out the dress she had told Violet she would wear to the lawn-party—her mother's wedding-dress.

Jaquelina shook out the cedar-scented folds of the dress and spread it out on the bed to look at. It was a fine, soft India muslin, trimmed with a good deal of fine, pretty lace and bows of satin ribbon—all of which had turned very yellow in the years while it lay folded in the cedar chest.

It was made in a quaint, pretty style, too; but Jaquelina looked at it doubtfully. She did not know enough of dry goods to know that the garment was made of the finest materials, and was costly as well as pretty.

She thought of Violet's crisp, fresh costumes, and the limp India muslin suffered in her guileless mind by the contrast. She actually brought out her Sunday calico, with its fine pink dots and two frills on the skirt, and laid it beside the India muslin, anxiously comparing them.

"The calico is the fresher-looking, certainly," she said, turning her pretty head sidewise in bird-like fashion, and eyeing the dresses thoughtfully, "but I am quite sure, from the way Violet looked, she would not like for me to wear that. Mamma's dress is very pretty, if only it were not so limp. I should not dare try to starch it, though. I might make it look worse."

Then she took a little box from the chest and opened it. It contained her dead mother's little store of jewelry.

There were two or three simple rings, a thin gold chain with a locket that held her father's and mother's pictures.

She fastened the chain around her neck and slipped one of the rings—the prettiest one—on her finger.

"I will wear these to the lawn-party," she said to herself. "The ring is very nice—it has such a pretty, shining stone!"

It was a pretty ring, as she said, but Jaquelina, brought up so ignorantly in the lonely farm-house, did not know that the shining little stone was a real diamond.

Charlie Meredith and his hard wife did not know it either. They all thought it was a bright, pretty bit of glass.

There was a motto cut deeply inside the ring over which Jaquelina had often puzzled.

Sometimes she thought she would ask Violet Earle, who had been to boarding-school, to translate it for her, then she desisted from shame at her own ignorance.

It was in her mother's native tongue, but no one had taught the artist's orphan child a line of French.

The question of the party-dress being settled, Jaquelina put away the India muslin and the jewelry, and sat down by the window, leaning her curly head on her slim, brown hand, while she gazed out into the moon-lighted night with her dark, dreamy eyes.

Everything was very still and peaceful. The full moon sailed on in calm majesty through the purple sky, the distant hills were clearly outlined in the brightness, and nearer home a faint, white mist curled over the brook, and the perfume of the lilacs and the roses in the garden below were borne sweetly on the wandering breeze.

Yet after all there was something weird and mysterious in the blended brightness and shadows of the moon-lighted landscape, and the sensitive mind of Jaquelina felt it so.

She shuddered, and her thoughts flew to the outlaw band said to be lurking in the neighborhood and riding off with all the finest horses of the farmers.

She thought of the pursuing party. Her mind pictured vividly the conflict that would ensue when the robbers and their pursuers met, and the capture of the daring chief whom rumor represented as brave and handsome as a demi-god.

"Whoever captures the chief will have two hundred dollars for a reward," the girl said to herself, wistfully. "Ah, if I only had two hundred dollars I would go to boarding-school one whole year! I would study so hard all the time that I would learn as much in twelve months as any other girl would in twenty-four! Then I would not stay at the farm any more. I would go away and earn my own living by teaching, or perhaps I might paint pretty little pictures like papa did, and sell them to rich people who have nothing to do but to be happy."

Two crystal drops welled up into the dark eyes and splashed down upon her cheeks.

She brushed them off impatiently.

"Crying, am I, like a great baby?" she said sharply, to herself. "What good will that do? Will crying get me two hundred dollars and send me to school, and deliver me from the jurisdiction of Aunt Meredith and her cross baby? Oh! that I might be a man for a few hours! I would sally forth and capture the robber-chief, and win the reward!"

Her thoughts having turned in this direction, Jaquelina forgot the lawn-party for awhile, and remained lost in thought, wishing over and over that she might capture the outlaw chief and claim the coveted reward that appeared so large in her longing eyes.

At last, wearied by the duties of the day, the tired head drooped upon the window-sill, the long, black lashes lay upon the warm, pink cheeks—Jaquelina slept and dreamed she had captured the dreaded outlaw chief, and bound him securely with a garland of roses.

Laughing at her ludicrous dream, the young girl woke—someone was shaking her roughly by the arm.

"Lina Meredith, for shame," said her aunt, towering above her, angular and slim, in a striped calico night-dress. "Sleeping in the window at midnight, and the lamp a-burnin' bright, too! Willful waste makes woful want! But I'll not scold you this time. I'm glad you're up and dressed; you must fetch the doctor from town."

Jaquelina rose, stretching her cramped limbs and yawning drearily, only half awake. Mrs. Meredith grabbed a wet towel and deliberately mopped her face with it.

"There, now! I've got you awake," she said, triumphantly. "Did you hear what I said, Lina? You'll have to saddle Black Bess and fetch the doctor from town. Baby's got the cramp—dreadful bad, too!"

Jaquelina, broad awake now, stared in dismay at Mrs. Meredith.

"Why, aunt," she cried, "how can I go for the doctor at midnight? The town is at least a mile and a half from here."

"Only a mile through the woods," answered Mrs. Meredith, quickly.

The young girl shivered.

"Come, come, I never knew you afraid of anything," Mrs. Meredith began quickly; "surely you'll do this much for me, Lina—if not for me, for your poor little cousin Dollie, a-wheezin' her life away, and none to bring a doctor."

But Jaquelina hesitated.

"Aunt Meredith," she said, "the road through the woods is very dark and lonely, and, you may see for yourself, the moon is going down, and then those dreadful outlaws may be lurking in the woods. Is Dollie so very bad? Perhaps she would do until daylight."

"Come," said Mrs. Meredith, pulling the girl by the sleeve, "you shall see."

Jaquelina followed her down stairs to the room where the fat baby lay upon the bed wheezing terribly, while now and then a hoarse, whistling cough echoed painfully through the room.

Jaquelina's heart, always tender to pain, was touched by the sight of the infant's suffering.

"Oh, Lina, will you let the darling die?" cried the frightened mother, whose hard heart could soften, at least, to her own child's suffering. "Surely you'll bring the doctor to little Dollie?"

"Can't I go over to Brown's and send Sambo?" asked the girl, still shrinking from the thought of the lonely midnight ride.

"No, no," wailed the mother, clasping the sick child frantically in her arms, "I'll not trust that negro! I'll trust no one but you, Lina, to go and come in a hurry; I can depend on you to do your best. Oh, for God's sake, Lina, do go for the doctor; no one will hurt you—there's not a sign of danger. Your uncle and them other men have captured the outlaws long before this time of night. Oh, Dollie! Dollie! my darling—I do believe she's dying now!"

Jaquelina waited for no more urging. She ran out of the house with the cry of the frightened, helpless mother still ringing in her ears, and made her way to the stable.

Her uncle had ridden one of the horses. Black Bess, the remaining one, stood patiently in the stall.

The mare was gentle, and quite accustomed to Jaquelina. She saddled her with deft, skillful fingers, led her out, and vaulted lightly to her back.

Then in the dim light of the waning moon, the girl rode out of the stable-yard, and set forth at a swift gallop for the town a mile away.

There was something weird and strange in that midnight ride through the lonely wood to Jaquelina.

Her heart beat fast as she guided the mare through the thick woods where the tall pines stood around dark and grim like silent sentinels.

The moon had gone down, and she had only the faint light of the stars to guide her on her perilous way.

Every moment she expected to be confronted by the outlaw band, of whom she had heard such terrible stories.

A foreboding dread lent her fresh impetuosity. Black Bess was panting and covered with perspiration, when her rider at length emerged safely from the woods and found herself on the outskirts of the town.

A few minutes brought her to the physician's neat residence. Her loud halloo soon brought him to the window. He promised to dress and come to the baby's assistance immediately.

"If you will wait a few minutes, Miss Meredith, I will ride back with you. The road at night is lonely and dangerous for a woman," the old doctor said, courteously.

But having come over the road safely, Jaquelina's courage had risen.

"Aunt Meredith will, perhaps, need my assistance with the child," she said, "so I had better ride on at once. I do not think there can be any danger, but if you ride fast enough to overtake me, I shall be very glad of your company."

She turned as she spoke and galloped away. A sudden storm was rising.

A cool wind blew into her face, and for a second the face of the heavens was divided by a keen flash of lightning that glittered steely blue, like a sword point, against the darkness.

Two or three drops of rain swirled down on the uncovered head and face.

"It was fortunate I did not wait," she thought, "I shall barely escape the storm if I do my best."

She urged Black Bess to her highest speed.

The wind increased. It blew Jaquelina's short, soft curls into her face, and across her eyes.

The strong, sweet breath of the pines mixed refreshingly with "the scent of violets hidden in the green."

Jaquelina never forgot that hour. It came back to her in after years—dark years, when memory was a nameless pain.

"The smell of violets hidden in the green,
Poured back into my fainting soul and frame
The times when I remember to have been
Joyful and free from blame."

She had reached the thickest part of the woods in safety when suddenly Black Bess came to such a sudden stop that her rider came near being thrown over her head.

In the next moment a vivid flash of lightning showed Jaquelina a tall, masked outlaw clutching her bridle rein.

[CHAPTER IV.]

Before the lurid flash died away, Jaquelina saw a second masked figure emerge from behind a tree with a bull's-eye lantern. She heard a voice exclaim in profound surprise:

"By Jove, it's a woman!"

"Yes," cried the girl, bravely, "and if you are men you will suffer me to pass. Only cowards would molest a woman!"

The second man flashed the light of the lantern into the pale, yet spirited face.

"By Jove," he said again, "what a pretty girl! Well, miss, we suffer neither man nor woman to pass without taking toll."

Jaquelina's heart sank. Would they take Black Bess, her uncle's favorite?

These were the horse thieves, of course. She could not repress the quiver in her voice as she asked faintly:

"What toll do you demand?"

"We usually take a horse, miss," said the last speaker, coolly, "but seeing that you're such an uncommon pretty girl, we'll take the mare, and you shall give us a kiss apiece, besides."

The man had reckoned without his host. The words were scarcely out of his mouth before a shower of keen and stinging blows rained down upon his head and face from the little riding-whip the girl carried in her clenched hand.

"You infamous coward," she cried, indignantly, "take that, and that, and that! For shame! To insult a helpless woman who is in your power!"

"Yes, you're in my power, and I'll make you pay dearly for those blows," cried the ruffian, plucking her from the saddle like a feather, and in an instant she was struggling on the ground beside him.

But the man who had held the mare's bridle-rein all the while now interfered sternly.

"Come, come, Bowles, you're transgressing orders. The captain's order is to allow no violence. But of course we'll take the mare."

"And the girl, too," said Bowles, shortly and sharply, still smarting under the indignity of the stinging blows the brave girl had rained upon him so furiously.

"We've no call to take the girl," said the other. "Orders are for animals, not persons. Turn her loose, and let her walk home."

"No," said Bowles, with an oath, "I'll give her a scare, anyway. I'll take her to the captain, and he shall say what punishment she merits. I'll not let her go! My head and face are burning with the jade's blows!"

"I will not go with you!" Jaquelina cried out, trying to break from his tight clasp. "You have no right to detain me! Let me go at once!"

But her struggles and cries were silenced effectually by a stout handkerchief the man bound over her mouth.

Then he sprang to the mare's back, and, lifting Jaquelina before him, galloped quickly away through the increasing darkness and the rain, which now began to pour down in large, heavy drops, that speedily wet the girl's thin garments through and through.

Jaquelina was beside herself with terror and fear of the ruffian who held her in that rough, tight clasp.

A thousand conflicting thoughts rushed over her mind.

She thought of her Uncle Charlie, to whom the loss of Black Bess would be so severe at the present time; she thought of the sick child at home, and of the hard, selfish woman who had sent her forth to encounter this terrible peril.

Every moment while she was borne onward in the storm and darkness seemed an eternity of time to her bewildered mind.

She had no idea where she was going, or in what direction. The gloom and darkness hid every object from her view, and she was too terrified to reason clearly.

At last they stopped. Jaquelina felt herself lifted down from the mare's back, and borne rapidly in Bowles' arms along what seemed to be a perfectly dark passage-way, long and winding. The wind and rain had ceased to blow in her face, and a damp, earthy smell pervaded the atmosphere.

Jaquelina instantly decided that they were in a cave, of which there were several in the neighborhood of her home.

Presently her captor paused, and gave a low, peculiar whistle, several times repeated.

"Enter!" she heard a deep, musical voice exclaim.

Bowles seemed to push aside a thick and heavy curtain. The next moment a blaze of light shone around him as he entered a large apartment, pushing his frightened captive before him.

Jaquelina was blinded a moment as she came into the brilliant light from the outer rain and darkness; then the mist cleared; she looked up and found herself standing before the stateliest and most superbly handsome man she had ever beheld in her life.

Tall, dark, haughty, the outlaw chief was as kingly in his beauty as Lucifer, "star of the morning," might have looked in the hour of his fall.

His glossy curls of jet-black hair were thrown carelessly back from a brow as white and perfect as sculptured marble, his dark and piercing eyes gleamed star-like beneath the black, over-arching brows.

His nose was perfect in shape and contour; his rather stern and slightly sad lips were half concealed by a long curling mustache, black, like his hair.

Youth, power, and strength spoke in every line of the firm and well-knit figure in its careless yet well-fitting hunting suit of fine, dark-blue flannel.

One might have looked for such a face and form at the head of a gallant army, bravely leading his troops to victory or death, but never here in the den of robbers.

Jaquelina had one full glance into that darkly handsome face—one look that imprinted it forever on her memory—then the chief caught up a mask that lay upon a table near by, and fitted it hurriedly to his features; the low, deep, musical voice that bade them enter now exclaimed with repressed wrath and menace:

"Whom have we here, Bowles? And how have you dared bring a stranger into my presence while I remained unmasked?"

Jaquelina saw that Bowles trembled at the stern anger of his chief.

"Captain, I humbly beg your pardon," he said. "I caught this girl riding a fine black mare through the woods, and attempted a harmless joke upon her, on which she flew at me like a little tigress and belabored me with her riding-whip. I was so enraged at her impudence that I whipped upon the mare's back and brought the little wretch here to you to tell me how to punish her."

A low laugh actually rippled over the stern, sad lips of the robber chief. He looked at Jaquelina where she stood in the center of the apartment, the rain-drops falling from her drenched garments upon the rich crimson carpet in shining little pools, the wet curls clinging to her white brow; her face pale as death, her slight form trembling with cold and terror.

The laugh died suddenly on his lips, his dark eyes flashed through the openings in his mask.

"For shame, Bowles," he said, sharply. "How dared you assault a woman? We make no war upon such."

"Orders were to take every fine animal that passed," Bowles said, half-apologetically, yet sullenly.

"Animals, yes, but not human beings, least of all helpless females. I never counted upon such passing. What were you, a mere slip of a girl, doing on horseback in the woods at the dead hour of night?" he inquired, looking curiously at Jaquelina.

"I went to call the doctor to a sick child," she answered.

"Where were all the men of your family and neighborhood that you were permitted to take such a lonely and perilous midnight ride?" inquired the outlaw chief, again fixing his dark eyes upon her in surprise, not unmixed with suspicion.

Jaquelina flushed hotly beneath that look.

"My uncle and all the neighboring men were absent," she said, returning his gaze with cool scorn.

"Where?" he inquired.

"They have joined together to pursue the horse-thieves whom you have the honor to command," she replied, defiantly.

The chief started, then tossed his handsome head with a reckless laugh.

"Do you think it likely they will overtake us?" he asked, sneeringly.

"I cannot tell, but I hope so. I wish I could capture you," said the girl, frankly.

"Do you? Why do you wish so?" he inquired, nettled.

"I should like to earn the reward of two hundred dollars that has been offered for your apprehension;" she replied, naively.

"What would you do with it?" he asked, rather amused at her frankness.

"That is my business," Jaquelina answered, with demure dignity.

"Bowles, light a fire. I have been so interested in your charming captive that I forgot she was drenched with the rain. Take a seat, Miss—Miss—I don't know what to call you," he said, as he pushed a large arm-chair toward her.

"My name is Meredith—Miss Meredith," Jaquelina said, but she did not take the offered chair. She lifted her dark, clear eyes appealingly to the masked face of the outlaw captain.

"Oh, sir," she cried, clasping her white hands in unconscious pathos, "do let me have Black Bess and go home! They tell me you only rob rich men who can afford to lose their horses. Uncle Charlie is poor. He has only his farm and the mare, and one horse besides. Would you rob him of his little all?"

The handsome chief looked admiringly at the sweet, girlish face with its pleading eyes and wistful lips. In spite of her terror and her drenched, miserable condition there was a strange, luring charm about the lovely young face. The heart of the outlaw chief was strangely stirred by it.

"Miss Meredith," he said, abruptly, "I gather from what you have said that you are an orphan?"

"Yes," Jaquelina said, wonderingly.

"There is one condition," he said, slowly, "on which I will return Black Bess to her owner. There is nothing that would tempt me to part with you. I am a reckless, defiant man, Miss Meredith. I fear nothing; but your beautiful, brave face has won my heart from me at first sight. I love you. Let me make you my wife, sweet girl, and I will take you far away from this life and these scenes, and your life shall be a long, bright dream of love and happiness!"

[CHAPTER V.]

The startling suddenness of the outlaw chief's proposal appeared to take Jaquelina's breath away.

She did not attempt to answer him, but remained silently regarding him in surprise, not unmixed with terror.

"Have I taken you by surprise?" he inquired, after a moment, in a gentler tone. "Forgive me. I am used to rough men, not timid women. But consent to be my bride, Miss Meredith, and you will find me the tenderest lord a fair girl ever dreamed of. Do not answer me this moment. Take time to consider."

"I do not need a moment's time to consider," Jaquelina flashed forth indignantly. "Do you think I would marry a common robber, a horse-thief, an outlaw?"

She saw the dark eyes flash beneath the outlaw's mask.

"Those are harsh words, Miss Meredith," he said, with outward calmness. "They are not becoming under my own humble roof and from the lips of my guest."

"Not your guest, but your captive," the girl said, bitterly.

"A beloved captive," replied the outlaw. "Child, I do not know why my heart has gone out to you so strangely. It is not your beauty that has won me. Women more beautiful than you have smiled on me and my heart was untouched. But the moment I looked into your proud, dark eyes my soul seemed to recognize its true mate."

"You flatter me!" cried the captive, drawing her slight form erect with indignant scorn. "I the true mate of a man as reckless and crime-stained as you? You rate me highly indeed! Were I a man I would make you retract the insult at the sword's point."

"How? A duel?" asked the outlaw, laughing at her passionate vehemence.

"Yes, a duel," she answered, with unmoved gravity.

"You are a brave little girl, Miss Meredith," the outlaw answered, resting his white, well-formed hand on the back of a chair with easy grace, while he regarded her attentively. "You make me admire you more than ever."

"I am sorry for that," said Jaquelina, with spirit.

"Why?" he inquired, seeming to find pleasure in the very sound of her voice, although her words were so scornful. "Is admiration so distasteful to you?"

"From you it is," she said, and although he affected indifference her scornful tone had an arrow in it that secretly pierced his heart.

"What manner of a man might he be whose admiration would be acceptable to you, fair lady?" he inquired, coldly, yet with a certain wistfulness in his tone.

Jaquelina turned her dark eyes on the masked face of the outlaw, and regarded him steadily as she said, firmly:

"A man quite your opposite in everything—an honest, honorable, noble man, brave and without reproach."

"Sans peur et sans reproche—the Ardelle motto," muttered the outlaw beneath his dark mustache. "So, Miss Meredith, you are holding up before me a glass wherein I may see all that I am not?"

"Yes," she said; then after a minute, in which she gazed at the princely form in unwilling admiration, Jaquelina added, half-pityingly: "All that you might have been!"

"Yes, all that I might have been," he said, in a saddened and softened voice. "Are you a student of Whittier, Miss Meredith? Do you believe with him that

"'Of all sad words of tongue or pen
The saddest are these: It might have been'?"

Jaquelina gazed in astonishment at him. A sudden sense of the strangeness of her position rushed over her.

She was here alone in the outlaw's cave, and he was talking sentiment to her.

She clasped her slim hands together, and the dark eyes looked at him pleadingly as she answered:

"I am too young and untutored to discuss these things with you, sir, and my mind is distracted by thoughts of home. Release me, if you please. If you will only show me the outlet of the cave I will find my way home. My friends will be alarmed at my continued absence."

"Do you hear the storm?" he asked. "It is pitchy dark, the rain and wind are fearful, and you are several miles from home."

"It is no matter," said the girl, desperately. "Only release me, and I will find my home if I have to crawl there. I am more afraid of you and your outlaw band than I am of the night and the darkness."

He looked at her thoughtfully.

"Child," he said, abruptly, "you need not fear me. I would not harm a hair on that little head, and yet, if I suffered you to go free, I suppose you would at once discover our hiding-place to our enemies."

Jaquelina remained perfectly silent.

"Is it not true?" he inquired, coldly.

She lifted her eyes and gazed at him defiantly.

"You mean that you would do so?" he said, interpreting her look aright.

"Yes, for it would be my duty to rid my neighborhood of such a scourge," she replied, very low.

Then there was a minute of perfect silence. The long lashes drooped upon her cheeks as the handsome outlaw studied her face.

Bowles came in with a small furnace filled with glowing coals, then silently withdrew.

"Draw near to the fire and dry your wet clothing," said the chief, abruptly.

"There would be no use," Jaquelina answered, coldly, "I shall be drenched through going home."

"You seem quite certain of going," he said, amused at her persistency. "I fear you will be disappointed, Miss Meredith. I regret the fact of Bowles bringing you here very much, and I shall order him to apologize to you for doing so. But I must tell you that my own safety demands that I shall keep you a prisoner in this cave until such time as we shall decide to leave the neighborhood, when, if you shall still persist in refusing my hand, I may, perhaps, release you."

Jaquelina made an impulsive rush toward the heavy curtains that shut in the comfortable apartment from the outer darkness of the cave, but the voice of the outlaw arrested her with her hand upon the thick hanging.

"I should not advise you to attempt leaving without my consent, Miss Meredith. I have sentries stationed through the cave. You would scarcely find them so courteous as myself!"

The white hands fell from the heavy curtains in dismay. Jaquelina remembered the rude, officious Bowles, and accepted the outlaw's statement as true. She looked at him in surprise and disgust.

"Why do you who appear to have the instincts and the training of a gentleman, herd with such ruffians?" she asked.

"Promise to marry me, and I will tell you why," he replied. "I will give up this life and try to become that which you said just now I might have been. Miss Meredith, I am in serious earnest. Become my wife, and I swear to you that you shall not have one wish ungratified. I am wealthy. I will take you away to some fair, bright clime where my history is all unknown. Costly jewels, splendid silks and laces—all that the heart of woman desires—shall be yours, with the adoration of a heart as true as truth."

"I care nothing for these things," Jaquelina answered, crimsoning with anger and disdain; "you have had my answer. Sooner than link my fate with one so wicked and crime-stained as your own, I would die here at your feet!"

"Do I, then, appear so utterly vile in the clear eyes of a pure woman?" inquired the outlaw chief, in a voice strangely tinctured with melancholy.

Jaquelina had drawn near the glowing furnace of coals, unconsciously attracted by the warmth that stole deliciously over her drenched and shivering frame.

She was too young and untouched by real sorrow to understand the vague remorse and pathos that quivered in the man's low voice. Yet when she answered "yes," it was a trifle more gently and kindly.

"I could never teach you to love me, then?" he said, questioningly.

"No," the girl said, decidedly, with her curly head set sidewise, and such an owlish gravity about her that the outlaw chief, who seemed "to be all things by turns, and nothing long," felt his risibilities excited, and laughed outright.

"Why do you laugh?" she inquired, with an air of offended dignity.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Meredith, for my rudeness," he said, "but as you stood there with the steam from your drenched clothing rising over your head, and the furnace blazing at your feet, you reminded me so comically of one of Shakespeare's witches that I was forced to laugh."

Jaquelina was thoroughly angry. To be laughed at by this man whom she scorned, was too much.

She stepped back into the darkest and coldest corner of the room, and stood there in silent, dignified displeasure.

"Pray do not allow my silly jest to drive you away from the fire," he exclaimed, anxiously. "Let me entreat you to return."

But his captive had sunk down upon the floor, and buried her face in her hands.

Folding his arms across his breast, the outlaw chief walked up and down across the soft, echoless carpet, his gloomy eyes fixed immovably upon the little crouching figure with the graceful head bowed on the clasped hands.

Jaquelina looked very childish and forlorn as she crouched there.

Quite suddenly she broke into a perfectly audible sob of grief and self-pity.

"I shall miss Violet Earle's party after all. And I had been so happy over it!"

It was the cry of a child over a broken toy, yet its artless pathos pierced the man's heart. He went quickly and knelt down beside her.

"Little one, what is this that you grieve for?" he asked, almost tenderly; "tell me?"

"It is only—only," sobbed the girl, "that you will cause me to lose the happiest hour of my life."

"Poor child! and life has so few happy hours," said the outlaw chief. "Tell me what it is you lament so much. Perhaps I may relent."

"It was Miss Violet Earle's lawn-party to-morrow night," sobbed Jaquelina. "She had invited me. I—I was never at a party in my life, and I wanted so much to see what it was like."

The listener frowned, then smiled beneath his concealing mask.

"Do not weep for that," he said. "I will tell you what every party is like, little girl. A party is an occasion when somebody else has a prettier dress than yours, and somebody else dances with your favorite beau once more than you did, and when you get home you are mad, and say you wouldn't have gone if you had known it, so there!"

"I don't believe it," wept Jaquelina, obstinately, "at least, not all of it. It may be true about the dress. I know Violet Earle's will be ever so much prettier than mine, but I should never, never wish I had not gone there."

Ah, Jaquelina, Jaquelina! If those dark eyes, dimmed now with childish tears, could but have pierced the secret of the untried future!

"She is but a simple child," the outlaw said to himself, pityingly. "Only a little wild bird. I have caged it, but it would never sing for me. I must let it fly back to its nest."

He touched the girl's damp, clinging curls lightly.

"Miss Meredith, look up at me," he said.

Jaquelina lifted her wet eyes inquiringly.

"Cannot you leave me in peace?" she asked, shrinking from his light touch impatiently.

He did not appear to notice the pretty, childish petulance.

"Little bird," he said, "I will give you your freedom if you will promise me just one thing—you will not reveal the secret of this cavern retreat to my enemies? It is the only price by which you can purchase freedom."

"Since it is my only chance of release, I must needs keep the secret," Jaquelina said; reluctantly. "What shall I tell them?"

"Only say that you were lost in the woods, and that the outlaw chief guided you to the road again," he replied.

"Very well," she replied; "but I warn you that if ever I see you elsewhere I will attempt to capture you."

He looked at the frank, determined face half-reproachfully a moment, then laughed at the threat.

Ten minutes after he was riding by Jaquelina's side through the stormy woods.

When the first faint beams of daylight glimmered in the cloudy east, he watched her riding safely toward home, mounted on the faithful Black Bess.

"Good-by, Miss Meredith," he had said, as they parted. "When you think of the outlaw whose love you scorned, do not forget that the bravest thing a brave man can do is to voluntarily resign the one fair woman who holds his heart."

But Jaquelina, with a cold and haughty bow, rode silently away.

[CHAPTER VI.]

"All the people we invited are here, mamma," said Violet Earle, "all except Jaquelina Meredith. Do you think she will come?"

Laurel Hill, the beautiful home of the Earles, was in a blaze of light and gayety. The handsome, roomy mansion, with its wide and long piazzas and large bay windows, was lighted "from garret to basement," and thrown open to the guests. The beautiful green lawn, with its sprinkling of laurel trees that gave the place its name, was almost as light as day with the glitter of colored lamps and Chinese lanterns.

A pretty summer-house in the center of the lawn was decorated with garlands of cedar and fluttering silken banners. It was here that Violet was standing when she spoke to her mother.

She looked very sweet and winning as she stood there, the light shining down on the fair, flushed face, and on the golden ringlets looped back with sprays of lilies-of-the-valley nestling among dark green leaves.

She wore a soft, filmy white robe, and a wide sash of pale-blue satin was knotted carelessly around the slender waist. The pretty dimpled neck and arms were quite bare, and golden ornaments, studded with pearls and turquoise, gleamed upon their whiteness.

Mrs. Earle, looking very fair and graceful in silver-gray silk and pale, gleaming pearls, looked admiringly at her lovely daughter.

"No, I am afraid Jaquelina will not come," she said; "one of the neighbors was telling me just now that she was lost in the woods last night and thoroughly drenched by the rain, so it is just possible she may be ill. Had you not heard it, dear?"

"Yes; Mr. Brown told me," answered Violet. "And only think, mamma, she met the captain of the outlaws, and he guided her to the road. Was it not romantic? I should not have expected such courtesy from such a dreadful man."

"It was perfectly shameful for Mrs. Meredith to have sent her for the doctor at midnight," said Mrs. Earle, warmly. "They tell me there was no real necessity for such a thing. The child only had a common attack of croup, which any sensible mother would have known how to subdue with simple domestic remedies. Mr. Brown, their near neighbor, tells me it is playing about the floor, as well as usual, to-day."

"Poor Lina! That terrible man might have killed her," said pretty Violet, with a shudder.

"Look, Violet—who is that coming now?" said Mrs. Earle suddenly.

Violet looked hastily.

"Oh," she said, "it is Mr. Meredith—he is bringing her after all."

The farmer came up the steps, Jaquelina following in his wake, a veil tied about her head, a thin summer shawl wrapped about her shoulders.

"They told me I should find you here. I have brought my niece to the party, Mrs. Earle. She had a cold, but I couldn't persuade her to stay at home," he said. "I will go back, now, as wife and Dollie are alone, but if you'll tell me when the party will be over, I'll bring back the mare for Lina."

"You need not trouble about that," Mrs. Earle replied as he turned away. "I'll see that she gets back safely, Mr. Meredith."

Then she turned to Jaquelina, who stood beside Violet, gazing with timid delight at the illuminated lawn and the moving groups of people.

"You may lay aside your wraps, dear," she said, kindly. "I hope you will enjoy our little party."

"I know I shall," the girl answered, gazing around her with sparkling eyes. "Oh! Mrs. Earle, how beautiful it all is. It seems just like fairyland!"

Mrs. Earle smiled indulgently as she helped her to remove the plain shawl and veil that enveloped her; then she started back with a little cry of surprise that was faintly re-echoed by Violet.

Jaquelina's sensitive lips quivered; her dark eyes filled with quick tears.

"I was afraid the dress would not do," she said, falteringly. "I will put on my wraps and go home again, Mrs. Earle."

She was turning toward the steps, but Violet caught her arm.

"Oh, you little goose!" she said, laughing, "come back. Where did you get such a sweet dress?"

"Is it pretty? Will it do, indeed?" asked Jaquelina, radiant.

"It is lovely," Mrs. Earle said, kindly. "It makes you look extremely pretty, my dear."

"Pretty is faint praise, mother," said her handsome son, as he came up the steps, and overheard the words. "Miss Lina, how do you do? You have blossomed into a beauty since I last saw you."

His college-mate, who had come up the steps with him, peered over his shoulder at the "beauty."

He saw a shy, lovely face with dewy-crimson lips, and large, dark eyes with long, black lashes like fringed curtains—chestnut curls, tinged with gold, clustering about a low, broad brow and proudly-set head—a quaint, pretty dress of yellowish India muslin with lace and satin ribbons fluttering about it.

Nothing more quaintly sweet and pretty than the dress and its wearer could have been imagined.

Jaquelina gave her hand shyly a moment to Walter Earle, then he stepped aside to introduce her to his friend.

"Miss Meredith, allow me to present to you my friend, Ronald Valchester."

Jaquelina bowed to a tall, grave-looking man with dark hair thrown carelessly back from a high, white brow, and twilight-colored eyes—blue-gray in quiet moments, starry-black in moments of excitement.

He touched the girl's slim, brown hand lightly with his firm, white one, then stepped quietly aside a moment later, and allowed Walter Earle to lead her out upon the lawn.

"My friend is not what you would call a lady's-man," Walter said to her. "He is a dreamy student, quite absorbed in his books, and yet the best friend and the bravest that man ever had. He is very intellectual, and leads in everything at college. We are all proud of him there. Miss Meredith, you have read of men who stood head and shoulders above their fellows? Valchester is one of them. I could tell you a hundred delightful things that he has done if you——"

"Walter, I'll never forgive you if you say another word," said Valchester's voice behind them.

Walter turned and saw his friend walking after him with Violet clinging to his arm.

"Listeners never hear good of themselves," he retorted, to cover his embarrassment at being overheard.

"The old adage is falsified in this case," laughed Valchester, "and for fear of not coming up to the ideal you have raised in Miss Meredith's mind, I shall always tread on thorns in her presence."

Walter Earle laughed lightly at the careless metaphor.

"Then the path will be rose-strewn, too," he said, "for where there are thorns there are roses."

"Talking of roses," said Violet, "reminds me to ask you, Lina, where are the flowers I told you to wear? You forgot them."

"No, I did not," said the girl. "I must tell you the truth, Violet; I did not have the time to gather a single flower. I was late as it was; for you see Aunt Meredith needed me so long I could scarcely get away. But I thought perhaps you could spare me a flower."

"As many as you like," said Violet, generously. "What will you have? Here we are at the flower-beds. Make your own selection."

"I am afraid of the gardener," laughed Jaquelina, shrinking back from the trim and well-kept flower-beds. "I will take anything you choose to give me."

"Daisies would suit you," said Walter Earle, looking at the sweet, shy face.

"Scarlet geraniums or roses," said Violet, thinking how beautifully they would contrast with the dark eyes and the white dress.

Ronald Valchester studied the drooping face attentively, as the dark eyes gazed at the brilliant flowers, the dark, curling lashes shading the rose-flushed cheek.

"Passion-flowers, I think," he said, and gathered a cluster of the bright flowers from the trellis and offered them to her. She took them with a slight bow, and fastened them in her belt.

What had Ronald Valchester, the gifted, thoughtful student, read in the lovely, innocent face of the simple girl that had prompted him to offer her passion-flowers for her type?

Walter Earle looked surprised, but he set it down as one of Valchester's odd freaks, and told Jaquelina that the flowers were very becoming.

Violet said that roses would have looked prettier. Then she gathered some dewy violets and pinned them on his coat with pretty, careless coquetry.

"Lina, we are going to have a dance on the lawn," said the latter. "Do you like to dance?"

"No," said Jaquelina, and the fitful color came and went in her cheeks.

"Why not?" Violet said, surprised.

"Because I do not know how to dance," Jaquelina said, so timidly and naively that Walter Earle and Ronald Valchester laughed. Then Walter said, good-naturedly:

"Oh, that is nothing. You must dance with me. I will show you how to do the steps and the figures."

"You are sure I shall not appear awkward?" she asked, her sensitive pride on the alert.

"You could not be awkward if you tried ever so hard," said the gallant young collegiate, captivated by the artless shyness and prettiness of the little girl whom at first he had only meant to patronize.

So they danced together.

Jaquelina fell into it all so naturally and happily that no one felt inclined to laugh at her when now and then she made a misstep, or caused a whole quadrille to blunder.

She was so ashamed and penitent over her little mistakes that it was a pleasure to set her right and forgive her. We pardon so many errors in youth and beauty.

After awhile Ronald Valchester, dancing with Violet, said, carelessly:

"Your friend, Miss Meredith, is exceedingly pretty—is she not, Miss Earle?"

Violet looked across at Jaquelina, who was dancing with someone whom Walter had introduced to her—a handsome, manly young fellow, who seemed to admire his partner very much. She was startled at the radiant beauty that happiness had kindled in Jaquelina's changeful face.

"She is not always so pretty," Violet said, quickly; "it is the effect of the moonlight and lamplight! You should see her at home by daylight. She is tanned and sunburned, and terribly shabby. Would you believe she is wearing her dead mother's wedding-dress to-night?"

"I should not have thought it," he said. "It is a very nice dress, is it not?" and he looked more carefully at the girl who was dancing in her dead mother's wedding-dress with the passion-flowers half falling from the satin girdle that bound the slender waist—the girl who was so pretty and happy in the lamplight and moonlight, and so tanned and shabby by daylight.

"I have heard of 'gas-light beauties,' Miss Earle," he said carelessly. "I suppose Miss Meredith must belong to that class."

Violet felt uncomfortable, she could not have told why, for she had only spoken what she felt to be true.

"Yes," she answered, "I suppose so. I have known Lina Meredith all my life, or nearly, but I never thought her pretty until to-night. To-morrow we will call upon her at her own home. You may see for yourself how different she will appear."

"I shall be pleased to go—thank you," said Ronald Valchester. "Is Miss Meredith the only daughter?"

Violet looked at him surprised.

"Why, of course," she began, then stopped, and said deprecatingly: "I have, perhaps, done Lina an injustice in speaking of her as I have to you, Mr. Valchester. I thought you knew that she is an orphan. It isn't her fault that she must go shabby and neglected. She is poor, and has no one to love her."

Violet looked very pretty in the thoughtful student's eyes just then—much prettier than she had five minutes ago. As he clasped the little hand in the winding figures of the gay dance, he thought that the touch of womanly pity in her voice was very winning.

More than once he looked at the slender figure of Jaquelina, as it whirled past him lightly, with a new interest in his eyes. She had been simply a pretty, interesting girl to him before, in whose radiant face he had vaguely read something that prompted him to give her the passion-flowers.

Now the vibrating chord of sympathy in his nature had been touched by those simple words: "She has no one to love her."

When that dance was over and Violet had been claimed by another partner, he went up to Jaquelina.

"You have not danced with me yet," he said. "Will you give me the next dance, Miss Meredith?"

"You must excuse me, Mr. Valchester," she replied, with a smile, "I have promised the next dance to your friend, Mr. Earle."

[CHAPTER VII.]

Jaquelina saw that the young student looked surprised.

"You have danced with Walter Earle twice already," he said. "Do you not know that it is not considered en regle to dance more than twice with the same partner?"

She looked at him, puzzled, for an instant. Then the long lashes drooped, and the ready color flashed into her cheek as she answered.

"I do not think I understand what en regle means, Mr. Valchester."

"I beg your pardon for using a French phrase," said Ronald Valchester, uncertain whether she was in earnest or meant to rebuke him. "I am aware that the habit is considered an affectation, but one falls into these things so naturally at college, you know, Miss Meredith."

But he did not attempt to explain it to her. It had vaguely occurred to him that she was teasing him, and he relapsed at once into his grave dignity.

But the next instant he saw that he had been mistaken. She raised her clear, dark eyes to his face, and said, gratefully:

"You do not laugh at my ignorance, Mr. Valchester—then I may dare to ask you a favor."

As she spoke she drew a ring from her finger, and held it out to him.

"Will you translate for me the French words in this ring?" she said.

Many times afterward she wondered what had given her such courage to ask Ronald Valchester this question; she had always been too timid to ask anyone before.

The student took the ring and held it up to the light of the lamp that swung in the tree above their heads.

The diamond flashed and sparkled in the antique dead-gold setting. He read out aloud:

"'Sans peur et sans reproche.' It is a French motto, Miss Meredith. It simply means, 'without fear and without reproach.'"

"Oh! what beautiful words," she cried. "Thank you, Mr. Valchester, very much. All my life I have wanted to know what those words in mamma's ring meant."

"Anyone, almost, could have told you," he replied, as he handed it back to her. "Did you never ask anyone?"

"No, I was ashamed to confess such pitiable ignorance," she answered, frankly. "You see, Mr. Valchester, my mother was French, and it seemed so odd that I should be ignorant of her mother-tongue."

"No one could laugh at you for that," said Ronald Valchester, kindly.

He was leaning against the tree carelessly, and Jaquelina sat on the rustic bench beneath it, the soft, white folds of her dress falling on the velvety green turf. A little beyond them was the square-cut cedar hedge that bounded the trim lawn.

Jaquelina did not know what dark, gleaming eyes watched her beauty, as she sat there with the light falling down on her girlish face and form.

She was looking at her companion, and recalling the words in which Walter Earle had praised him.

"He is handsome, too," she said to herself. "What a beautiful, high, white brow, and clear-cut face. Mr. Earle must be very proud to have him for his friend."

"Mr. Valchester, are you a poet?" she asked, suddenly.

"No one ever accused me of being one," he answered, laughing. "Why do you ask me, Miss Meredith?"

"You look like one," she said.

Ronald Valchester laughed again.

"Did you ever see a poet, Miss Meredith?" he asked.

Then Jaquelina started and blushed.

"No, in truth, I never did," she said. "It was only my fancy. Perhaps I should have expressed my thought better if I had said that you realize my ideal of how a poet should look."

"You flatter me," he said, smiling, yet in his heart Ronald Valchester was pleased at her words, for he saw that she meant them and had no thought of flattering him.

Quite naturally he said to her after a moment of silent thought.

"Are you fond of poetry, Miss Meredith?"

"I love it better than anything in the world!" she replied, with enthusiasm.

"Tell me the name of your favorite poet," he said.

He saw the quick, sensitive flush of shame leap into the soft cheek at the natural question.

"I cannot tell you," she said. "I have had no fair opportunity of making up my mind. I have read bits from them all, but never a whole volume. We have not many books at home."

It seemed only kindness that he should say then:

"Will you permit me to lend you some of my books, Miss Meredith? I have all the poets. I will send you down a box from college."

"Thank you," she said, flushing with pleasure. "I will be very careful with them, Mr. Valchester."

Either Walter Earle had forgotten her, or something had detained him.

Another set was forming, but he did not come to claim her hand.

The dance was made up and she sat still and waited, while the wild, entrancing strains of music filled the night with melody.

Ronald Valchester did not seek another partner. He sat down by Jaquelina's side, and talked to her of books and poetry.

Now and then he repeated pretty bits from his favorite authors, to which she listened eagerly.

It was very pleasant. The night was so bright and warm, the scene was so gay and brilliant, the heavy, odorous perfume of honeysuckles and roses freighted the air.

The moon shone bright and clear, the stars seemed to twinkle with joy. In her mind Jaquelina silently contrasted it with last night.

Could it be possible that only last night she was kneeling, wet and cold and wretched in the outlaw's cavern retreat, pleading for liberty—she who sat here free and happy, and listened to the musical voice of Ronald Valchester murmuring lovely lines and gentle thoughts from the poets she loved?

She shivered as if with cold as the striking contrast presented itself to her mind.

"It is a delightful party," she said to herself. "I would not have missed it for anything. I have enjoyed every minute of it."

Just then Walter Earle came hurrying up to them.

"Miss Meredith, I beg ten thousand pardons," he cried. "Our dance is almost over, but I did not know it was on until this moment. You see I had gone into the house and was talking to my father and some of the older people, and I did not hear the music. Will you excuse me, and give me another dance?"

"You are perfectly excusable, sir," she said, "but——" she stopped and looked at Ronald Valchester.

"I have just been telling her," said Valchester, "that it is neither customary nor fair to give so many dances to one person."

Walter Earle flushed slightly.

"As I am her teacher," he said, "that objection should not apply to me. I have been showing her how to do the steps and figures. No one else volunteered to teach her. You did not, Valchester."

It was Valchester's turn to blush now.

"It was very careless and selfish in me that I did not," he replied. "But I am sufficiently punished for it, as I have not been able to secure her for my partner a single time."

"Well, suppose we adjourn to the house now," said Walter. "Refreshments are served in the dining-room."

"And mamma has sent me to hurry you in," said Violet, appearing on the scene, with a merry party of young people in her wake.

They went into the house, and Jaquelina found herself placed between Walter Earle and Ronald Valchester at table. Violet was on the other side of Valchester.

They formed a merry party. The long table sparkled with silver and cut-glass and flowers, and the dishes were loaded with rare and dainty edibles and delicious fruits.

But Jaquelina was too happy and excited to eat. She drank in pleasure from the sights and sounds about her—the bright, happy faces, the joyous voices.

The hour that was spent at the table passed like a dream of pleasure, but afterward she remembered that she had only trifled with her knife and fork; she had been too excited to eat.

When they left the table the young people all went into the parlor.

Violet had a new piano—a fine instrument that she laughingly said it was a perfect delight to touch.

Several of the young ladies sang and played. Jaquelina sat quietly at the window and listened.

Music was a passion with her. It seemed to stir a thousand slumbering harmonies into life within her heart.

"Do you play?" said Valchester a voice beside her, presently.

"No, I have never been taught," she answered, and he caught the faint tone of regret in the low voice.

"But you love music?" he said.

"Dearly," she answered, with unconscious pathos.

"You have not had a fashionable boarding-school education, Miss Meredith, I suppose," he said, and was sorry for the words a moment after as he saw the sensitive, ever-ready color tinge her cheek.

"Why do you say so?" she asked, toying nervously with the heavy fringe of the curtain. "Do I betray my ignorance so plainly?"

"Excuse me; not in the least," he replied. "I guessed so because you do not play."

"I am an orphan, Mr. Valchester," she said, raising her dark eyes to his face a moment. She seemed to think that all was said in that.

"A song, Mr. Valchester," said Violet Earle, looking round from the piano toward the window. "It is your turn now."

"Valchester! Valchester!" cried a score of voices.

Jaquelina thought he looked annoyed.

"I am not in voice——" he began.

"No excuses," laughed Walter Earle, who was turning over some sheets of music. "Send him away from the window, Miss Meredith."

Valchester looked at her.

"Shall you do so?" he asked.

"I should like to hear you sing," she replied, simply.

"Very well, I will sing for you," he answered, as he crossed the room and sat down on the stool which Violet vacated as he came up.

The long, white hands swept over the pearl keys lightly. A rush of divine melody filled the room.

Jaquelina shivered, it was so weirdly, thrillingly sweet. He sang song after song in a full, rich tenor voice, seeming to lose himself in the strains.

Almost without knowing it, Jaquelina arose and went over to the piano, standing by Violet, who was turning the leaves of the music.

He glanced up at her with a slight smile, and she saw that his blue-gray eyes were sparkling with pleasure or excitement—they were glittering starry black.

"He has the sweetest tenor voice in the country," Violet whispered to her. "Is it not a perfect treat to hear him sing?"

Jaquelina thought so, but she only whispered "Yes," very faintly. She did not wish to lose a note of the perfect strains.

At last he rose abruptly.

"I have made you all twice thankful," he laughed. "That is my worst fault. When I am induced to play I never know when to stop."

No one could be induced to touch the piano after Ronald Valchester had played—his music was too superior to anyone else's. They all went out on the lawn again. Some danced—some wandered under the trees. Among these latter was Jaquelina.

She was walking with Walter Earle again, and Violet with Ronald Valchester.

It was growing far into the night. Some of the lights had burned low; the moon was about to go down. The trees grew thick where they were walking, and some sudden impulse made Jaquelina shiver and lift her eyes half nervously.

As she did so she met the burning gaze of a pair of dark eyes watching her from behind a tree.

A scream of surprise and terror. Jaquelina pulled her hand from Walter Earle's arm and rushed forward. The outlaw chief, for it was no other, was turning to fly; but she caught his arm and held it tightly in both her own.

"The outlaw! the outlaw!" she panted. "Do not let him escape!"

He was surrounded in an instant. He made no attempt to fly, but stood still, gazing around him on the angry faces of the men, and his dark eyes blazed as they rested on the excited face of the fair girl who had betrayed him to his enemies.

[CHAPTER VIII.]

One of the men who was holding the captive looked at Jaquelina and said:

"Miss Meredith, is this really the man you say he is?"

"Yes, he is really the chief of the outlaws," she replied; but her eyes fell as they all looked at her—the swift color came into her cheek.

No one thought of doubting her word.

They had all heard the story of her adventure in the woods last night, that she had lost her way in the terrible storm, and the outlaw chief had guided her to the road.

"Are you quite sure of his identity?"

She looked at the dark, handsome face that was regarding her so intently. Every feature was stamped indelibly on her memory.

"I am perfectly sure," she replied. "He was unmasked when I saw him at first. I remember his face perfectly."

"Are you really Gerald Huntington?" they asked him.

"I am called by that name," he responded, almost mechanically, without looking at them. It seemed as if he could not remove his eyes from Jaquelina Meredith's flushed and defiant face.

"And this is your gratitude, Miss Meredith," he said, slowly. "Last night you were in my power, I had every temptation to hold you a prisoner, but I yielded to pity and let you go free. To-night you reward me by betraying me into the hands of my enemies."

"I warned you I should do so," she answered, spiritedly. "Why did you come here?"

"I had a fancy for seeing you again," he answered, boldly. "Last night, when you wept so bitterly at the thought of missing this merry-making, I wondered if it would really make you as happy as you thought. To-night the fancy seized me to come and see. I did not believe you would betray me even if you saw me."

"Why did you think so? I had warned you I would," she replied.

"I thought that common gratitude would have restrained you. I did not merit this treatment at your hands," was his reply.

"Miss Meredith has acted exactly right," said one of his captors, coarsely. "I look upon her as a real heroine. Everyone will feel pleased and relieved when they hear that she has actually captured the scourge of the country."

"Aye, she has done what two-score men set out to do last night and failed in," said another.

Jaquelina lifted her drooping head a little at their words of praise. At the outlaw's words it had drooped upon her breast.

"She has treated me ungenerously," repeated Gerald Huntington, scornfully, as he looked at the girl's defenders. "When she fell into my power last night I treated her fairly and honorably. I will leave it to any of you whether she has repaid me in like manner."

His dark, flashing eyes ran round the circle of eager, excited faces under the dim, waning light of the flickering lamp.

In a moment he lifted his finger and pointed at Ronald Valchester, who stood apart, silently regarding the curious scene.

"You, sir," said the outlaw, "have a noble face, and clear eyes that no deceit can blind. You can understand what is meant by that much abused term, honor. I will leave it to you. Has Miss Meredith used me fairly?"

It was a striking scene. It was past the midnight hour. The moon was sinking behind the distant hills, the starlight and the flickering lamplight shone weirdly down on the glistening laurel trees, and on the eager, curious crowd about that central figure, the outlaw chief. His splendid form was drawn haughtily erect, his head was raised, and his white hand pointed at the grave, noble face of Ronald Valchester.

Between the two figures was Jaquelina Meredith, lovely, frightened, half-defiant, yet hanging with her whole heart on Ronald Valchester's decision. He did not know how eagerly and fearfully she awaited his words.

Yet Gerald Huntington, as he looked at her, more than half guessed it. He remembered what they had said to each other last night.

"What manner of man might he be whose admiration would be acceptable to you?" he had asked her, and she had answered, promptly:

"A man quite your opposite in everything."

Looking fixedly at Ronald Valchester, the outlaw beheld the man whom Jaquelina's fancy had painted to her heart before she ever beheld him—the one man, "sans peur et sans reproche," whose admiration would be welcome to her.

"I will leave it to you," he repeated. "Has Miss Meredith used me fairly?"

"I decidedly decline to express an opinion on the subject," replied Ronald Valchester, gravely and coldly.

There was a moment's silence.

"Very well," said the outlaw, with a quiet bow; then he looked again at the fair young face that had caused his downfall.

"Miss Meredith," he said, "you have repaid my kindness to you last night with the basest ingratitude. It was love for your beautiful face that led me here to-night. I have lurked in the shadows for hours watching your happiness, and unselfishly rejoicing in your unclouded joy. But your cruelty has awakened the sleeping tiger in my heart. Henceforth beware the name of Gerald Huntington! I swear to you that sooner or later I will take a terrible revenge for this injury!"

"Do not be frightened at the villain's threat, Miss Meredith," said a gentleman, kindly, as they led the captive away. "He will not have the chance to harm you. They will be sure to send him to the penitentiary for life."

Jaquelina looked startled.

"Will the punishment, indeed, be so severe?" she cried. "I did not know that! I only thought——"

"Do not begin to repent of your brave deed, Miss Meredith," cried Walter Earle, gayly, at her side. "Of course he will go into imprisonment for life, or for a very long term of years, certainly—and deserves it, too, the handsome rascal!"

"Then you do not think I acted wrong?" said Jaquelina, almost piteously.

"Wrong! no, indeed!" said Walter Earle. "I think you are a perfect little heroine."

"So do I," "And I," "And I," cried a score of voices; but Ronald Valchester, whose opinion she longed to hear, was gravely silent.

No one could induce the gifted student to utter his opinion on that one subject—whether or not Jaquelina had treated Gerald Huntington unfairly.

When asked about it afterward, as he often was, he distinctly and invariably declined to discuss it.

Walter Earle, his dear friend, could not chaff him into betraying himself.

Violet, though she coaxed and teased bewitchingly, could not charm his thoughts from him. He kept his opinion to himself.

The delightful party broke up in a whirl of excitement. More than half the young men went away with the squad that guarded the prisoner, anxious to see him placed in safe custody.

Others hurried home to carry their friends the welcome news of the dreaded horse-thief's capture.

Walter Earle drove Jaquelina home in his mother's pretty little basket phaeton.

Mr. Meredith was awake, and in answer to his question his niece told him it had been a pleasant party, but she did not tell him what he would have been delighted to hear, namely, that the outlaw chief had been captured.

She went to her room, laid aside her mother's wedding-dress, and put away with the ring and locket the withered passion-flowers that Ronald Valchester had gathered for her.

"I will keep the flowers in remembrance of to-night," she said, artlessly. "It would have been the happiest night of my life," she added, "if only——" a vague sigh followed the broken sentence.

[CHAPTER IX.]

Jaquelina was lying at ease under her favorite apple tree the next afternoon when the murmur of voices roused her.

She lifted her head, and saw Walter and Violet Earle with Mr. Valchester.

"I knew we should find you here," said Violet, with her soft laugh. "I have heard about your pretty retreat under the apple trees."

She did not say that she had come straight there, feeling quite sure of catching Jaquelina at a disadvantage.

Violet would not have owned to herself that she was prompted by a spiteful little feminine instinct. But she gave Ronald Valchester an arch little smile that said plainer than words:

"Did I not tell you the truth? Is not the little beauty of last night brown, awkward and shabby to-day?"

Violet herself looked as fair and pure as a lily in her cool, white dress and white chip hat with its delicate wreath of violets.

She had some violets fastened with the lace at her throat, and they were just the color of her eyes.

She was fully conscious of the pleasant fact that though Jaquelina had rivaled her last night, she had a very decided advantage over her to-day.

But men never do see with woman's eyes. Ronald Valchester only saw that the brune skin was glowing with the rosy tint of health, that the careless, boyish locks of chestnut hair had caught and held some stray gleams of summer sunshine, that the brown hands were slender and delicately formed.

He noticed, too, that the girlish form, guiltless of stays or laces, was very graceful with the willowy lightness and roundness so lovely in youth.

But he never realized at all, until he heard Violet telling her mamma at tea that night, that "poor Lina Meredith had on a faded and darned calico, and worn-out boots with half the buttons gone."

Jaquelina had been reading a book of poetry, and some of the dreaminess still lingered in her eyes as she rose to greet her visitors.

A half wish darted into her mind that they had gone into the house at first, that she might have slipped into the back way and donned her Sunday dress, but no one guessed the thought, not even Walter Earle, who said, with a careless laugh:

"Ah! Miss Cinderella, we have caught you without your ball-dress to-day. Where are your diamond ring and gold locket?"

Jaquelina looked at them a little surprised.

"I have put away the ring and locket," she said. "I do not wear them usually; they belonged to my mother."

Then she added, a little shyly and anxiously:

"Will you come into the house and see Aunt Meredith?"

"Thanks—no," answered Violet, promptly. "It is so pretty out here in the orchard, we would rather stay."

She fluttered down to a seat at the root of the great apple tree, making a pretty picture with the low boughs bending above her head.

Valchester had already taken a seat and possessed himself of Jaquelina's worn poetry volume. He immediately became lost in its pages.

Walter Earle groaned.

"What has the book-worm got hold of now?" he inquired.

Violet moved a little nearer—near enough to look over at the open volume.

"Favorite poems by favorite authors," she replied.

"Is that your daily reading?" asked Walter of Jaquelina.

"Yes," she admitted.

"Are you fond of poetry?" Violet asked her.

"Yes," she said again, demurely.

"You should ask Valchester to show you his volume of manuscript poetry," said Walter, laughing. "He is a very untiring and voluminous poet—I might say a second Byron!"

Valchester looked up, flushed and confused—evidently annoyed. He was about to speak when Jaquelina broke out reproachfully:

"Oh! Mr. Valchester—I asked you—and you denied it!"

"Asked him what?" cried Walter, enjoying the situation immensely.

"If he was a poet," said Jaquelina, breathless, "and he said——"

"That no one ever accused me of it," said Valchester. "I confess to some rhymes, Miss Meredith, but to be a poet—a real poet—means more than that."

"Miss Lina, it is only modesty that makes him talk so," said Walter, laughingly. "He has written some very readable rhymes, I assure you."

"Miss Meredith, I hope you will not give credence to Walter's idle gossip," exclaimed Ronald Valchester, really distressed now. "It is as I told you just now, I have rhymed some—I confess it. Of course my verses sound well to Earle—he has not the slightest taste for poetry. True poetry and real doggerel would be alike to him. But the critics might tell me to——"

"Return to your gallipots, as they told the poet-apothecary," laughed Earle.

"Yes," said Valchester, and returned to his reading.

"Read aloud to us," said Violet. "Should you not like that, Lina?"

"Very much," she replied, and her dark eyes brightened at the thought.

"Then I will read on from where we interrupted you," said Valchester, looking at Jaquelina. "Which poet was it, Miss Meredith?"

"Longfellow—it was Hiawatha's Wooing," she said, and blushed, though she did not know why, at Violet's laugh.

"And you left off—where?" inquired Valchester, holding the open book toward her.

Jaquelina leaned forward a moment, turned a page with her brown forefinger, and showed him the verse.

She did not know why her breath came quicker for an instant as his white hand touched hers quite accidentally, but Violet Earle saw the swift color rise into her cheek.

It was a beautiful scene. The day was so bright and golden, the grass so green, the clover blossoms and the orchard blooms were so sweet, and the quartette under the apple tree were so young and so happy.

Sorrow had never touched them with her gloomy finger. It was one of those "hours we frame in gold—pictures to be remembered."

Valchester read on in his deep, sweet voice that seemed to blend harmoniously with the warble of the birds and the myriad sweet voices of nature:

"Pleasant was the journey homeward!
All the birds sang loud and sweetly
Songs of happiness and heart's ease;
Sang the blue bird, the Owaissa:
'Happy are you, Hiawatha,
Having such a wife to love you!'
Sang the robin, the Opechee:
'Happy are you, Minnehaha,
Having such a noble husband!'

"From the sky the sun benignant
Looked upon them through the branches,
Saying to them: 'Oh, my children,
Love is sunshine, hate is shadow;
Life is checkered shade and sunshine;
Rule by love, oh, Hiawatha!'

"From the sky the moon looked at them,
Filled the lodge with mystic splendors,
Whispered to them: 'Oh, my children,
Day is restless, night is quiet,
Man imperious, woman feeble;
Half is mine, although I follow,
Rule by patience, Laughing Water!'"

"It is very beautiful," said Valchester, shutting the book and glancing round quickly, so as to catch the expression on each face, "but I will not read anymore. I see that Walter looks bored, and Miss Earle as if she would rather talk to Miss Meredith about the party last night."

"I am dying to ask her if she enjoyed it all," said Violet, piqued that he had read her indifference to poetry, yet carrying it off with cool self-possession; "did you, Lina?"

Jaquelina looked up with a start, her dark eyes soft and dreamy. In fancy, she was still following the young brave, Hiawatha, as he bore his bride homeward.

"Through interminable forests,
Over wide and rushing rivers."

"Oh! yes, it was delightful," she said, and a smile chased the momentary dreaminess away. "I enjoyed it all very much, except, perhaps, just at the last."

"I should have thought you would have enjoyed that most of all," cried Walter Earle. "Do you know, Miss Meredith, that you are quite a heroine all over the country this morning. Your presence of mind and daring are on every lip. The farmers breathe freely once more. You have not only earned the reward of two hundred dollars, but you have won the admiration and gratitude of all who have heard of it. By to-morrow morning you will find yourself in all the newspapers."

"'You will wake up and find yourself famous,'" quoted Violet, laughing.

But Jaquelina did not look elated at their words. A shadow seemed to fall over the brightness of the arch, brunette face. She glanced at Ronald Valchester shyly. His face was perfectly non-committal.

"I do not know whether to be ashamed or proud," she said, frankly. "Gerald Huntington seemed to think I had taken an unfair advantage of him. But to tell the truth, I have brooded so much and so ardently over his capture that I was wild with delight at the idea of its possibility. I forgot gratitude and everything else in the moment when I frantically clutched him—forgot everything but the offered reward."

"I did not know you were so mercenary, Lina," said Miss Earle, laughing.

Jaquelina looked abashed for a moment, then she answered, without looking up, and almost pleadingly:

"You see, Violet, I needed two hundred dollars so very, very much."

"For what?" said careless, thoughtless Walter. "To buy a silk dress, or a watch, or a pair of diamond earrings?"

"Neither," she answered, half vexed, half smiling. "I wanted it to buy an education."

Walter and Violet laughed. Valchester looked surprised a moment, then smiled a smile of sweet approval.

"I thought you were—educated," said Walter.

She was about to reply when Mrs. Meredith's shrill, peculiar call was heard from the house:

"Jack-we-li-ner! Jack-we-li-ner!"

Jaquelina's face faded in a frown of shame and annoyance. She rose, with a hurried excuse, and, promising to return, went to the house.

"Aunt Meredith, I have company," she said, a little impatiently, to the red-faced, cross-looking woman in the doorway.

"Where?" asked Mrs. Meredith, looking around, bewildered.

"Out in the orchard—Miss Violet Earle, with her brother and his friend," said Jaquelina. "I should like to go back if you can spare me."

"I can't spare you. I want you to tend Dollie while I run over to Mrs. Brown's on a matter of business," Mrs. Meredith said sharply.

"Can I take Dollie to the orchard with me? It is very warm and sunny there," said Jaquelina, timidly.

"Yes, take her if you choose—I don't care," said her aunt, as she slipped on her sunbonnet and hurried off to a gossiping neighbor's.

[CHAPTER IX.]

Jaquelina took the heavy child in her arms and went slowly back to the orchard.

"That inevitable Dollie," said Violet, warmly, as she saw her coming. "It's a shame that Mrs. Meredith does not hire a nurse for that great, fat child! I am sure if I were Jaquelina I would not be forced to carry it round."

"It is a shame," echoed Walter. "She is so slender she almost staggers beneath its weight."

But it never occurred to him to go and relieve her of the burden. It would have seemed superlatively ridiculous for him, the gay, handsome young dandy, to have carried chubby little Dollie Meredith up the hill, even to save a pretty girl's arms from aching.

He was surprised and vexed when Ronald Valchester rose and sauntered down the grassy orchard slope to meet Jaquelina.

"What is Valchester up to now?" he said, gnawing the ends of his fair mustache, jealously.

"Miss Meredith," said Valchester, with quiet courtesy, "allow me to carry the child for you. You are not strong enough for such a burden."

"No, thank you," she said, nervously, "I am quite accustomed to it you see, and——"

But all further remonstrance was cut short by Mr. Valchester's decisive action. He took the child gently but firmly from her arms and walked up the slope with it, for "all the world," as Violet rather acidly remarked to her brother, "like a country booby going to meeting with his wife and child."

"Val, I only wish that Millard could get a glimpse of you now!" called out Walter, laughing.

"Who is Millard?" Violet queried.

"Oh! one of our class-mates—an artist of no mean merit either. How delightfully he would caricature Valchester's appearance now."

Valchester did not seem disturbed by the playful hit. He sat Dollie down in the long grass and filled her fat little hands with pink-and-white clover heads. Jaquelina sat down beside her, apprehensive that she would cram the blossoms into her ever-open mouth and choke herself.

"And you will spend the two hundred dollars reward you will receive for the capture of the outlaw chief on your education, Miss Lina?" said Walter, resuming the conversation where it had been interrupted by the curt summons of Dollie's mother.

"Yes," Jaquelina answered, simply.

"And then?" said Walter Earle.

"Then," she answered hopefully, and a little eagerly, "I hope I shall leave the farm and earn my own living somewhere. I am ambitious of becoming a governess."

"A vaulting ambition," said Violet, with a light laugh.

"Not very," said Lina, with a gentle innocence and gravity that checked Violet's delicate sarcasm. "It will be better than the farm, that is all."

"Mr. Valchester, here is a four-leaved clover for you," said Violet. "Take it and keep it. It may bring you good luck."

"Thank you," he said, and took it carelessly and held it between his long, white fingers. A little later, when no one was looking, he shut it inside the leaves of Jaquelina's book.

"You have given the clover to one who could not appreciate good luck if it came to him," laughed Walter. "Valchester has known nothing else all his life. He is fortune's favorite."

"I think you are, too, Mr. Earle—you and Violet," Jaquelina said, gently.

A faint sigh quivered over her lips as she spoke. She looked at these three in their costly apparel and with their bright, happy faces, and it seemed to her as if they belonged to quite a different world from her own. They were fortune's favorites, all of them.

"Thank you," said Walter, smiling, "I hope the fickle goddess will always be kind to me."

Then Violet rose, shaking out the apple blossoms that had fallen into the folds of her dress, and declared it was time to go.

"We came to ask you to go boating with us," said Walter, "but I suppose," with anything but a loving glance at innocent Dollie, "it would be no use."

Jaquelina's eyes brightened, then saddened again almost pathetically.

"No, for Aunt Meredith has gone away," she said. "I could not go to-day."

In her keen disappointment she was quite unconscious how much pathetic emphasis she laid upon "to-day."

"To-morrow, then?" said Walter, instantly. "Could you not slip away from that terrible Dollie to-morrow?"

She looked at him, her eyes shining, her lips trembling with pleasure.

"Yes, if you went at noon," she said; "if later—no."

"Why not later?" asked Violet, curiously.

"Because I must help with the milking then," she answered, simply.

"We will go at noon, then," said Walter at once. "We will call for you punctually, and you must be ready."

"Young ladies are never ready when called for," said Ronald Valchester, with his slight smile.

"I will prove the exception to the rule," Jaquelina answered, brightly, while Violet said to herself in wonder:

"What in the world will she wear? I do wonder why mamma insists upon having us patronize Jaquelina Meredith. She is not in our set, and she hasn't a decent thing to wear! It is strange she doesn't have the good sense to understand it herself and decline our invitations."

Violet said the same to herself the next day when she went upon the river.

Violet had on a lovely boating-suit of blue serge, and a leghorn sailor hat set coquettishly on her golden locks.

Jaquelina wore her simple pink-dotted calico dress, with a white ruffled apron tied about the slim, round waist, "for all the world," as Miss Violet said to herself, pityingly and half-disdainfully, "like a parlor-maid."

She had caught up an old straw hat of her uncle's and fastened it on her head with a strip of velvet ribbon passed over the top and tied beneath her chin. It looked quaint and picturesque, and a more charming face than the one it framed could not have been imagined. The bright, dark eyes, curtained by such inky, sweeping lashes, would in themselves alone have made a plain face beautiful, but Jaquelina had delicate, well-cut features, and lovely scarlet lips, parting over small, regular, white teeth. No amount of shabby dressing could have made her a fright or a dowdy with that radiant face. The brune tint, acquired by the too ardent kisses of the wind and sun, marred it a little, but the soft, rich color in her cheeks almost atoned for the fault.

It was a lovely day and a lovely river. The bending trees overhung the green, flowery banks and threw their long, grateful shadows across the sunny water. It was so clear you could see the pebbles in the bottom and the silvery little fish darting to and fro.

Walter and Valchester took turns in rowing. Sometimes they would suffer the boat to drift at its will while they chattered and laughed in the gay thoughtlessness of youth.

Long afterward, when winter was in the sky and the clouds of sorrow overhung their lives, they looked back upon these two days—this one upon the river and yesterday beneath the blossoming apple-boughs—as golden days that were like beautiful pictures set in their memory.

The next day Walter Earle and his friend went back to the University.

Walter Earle had talked a great deal about Jaquelina Meredith since the night of the lawn-party. He saw that his mother was not displeased at his admiration of the lovely orphan girl.

"I admire Miss Meredith very much," he said, in his frank way. "I think she is very beautiful—do not you, Val?"

"She is—fascinating," said Ronald Valchester.

Violet looked up quickly.

"Fascinating," she said. "What do you mean by that, Mr. Valchester? I do not exactly comprehend. Is it more—or less—than beauty?"

"I think it is more," he replied.

"More?" said Violet. "What could be better than beauty, Mr. Valchester."

"The power to win," said Valchester. "I have seen some very beautiful women whom I did not admire. They lacked that je ne sais quoi, which is so strong in Miss Meredith that I could fancy one might even admire her against his will."

"You mean the charm of the serpent," said Violet, innocently.

"No, I did not mean that in the least," said Valchester.

He bit his lip as if the suggestion did not please him.

"There is nothing serpent-like about Miss Meredith. She seems a gentle, fresh-hearted girl; but I do not believe I could quite define my impressions"—abruptly—"will you excuse me from trying?"

"Certainly," she answered, carelessly, to hide a certain girlish pique, while Walter said, gaily:

"You are too dignified to get down to the level of Violet's understanding, Val. Let me explain. He means, in college parlance, sis, that Miss Meredith has a taking way with her."

"Thank you; I quite understand," said Violet, with dignity.

She went out of the room, and the subject was not resumed.

There had been some talk of their going over to the farm to bid Miss Meredith adieu, but the project was tacitly dropped.

They returned to college that night, but without seeing Jaquelina.

One week afterward a huge box of books was forwarded to the girl, over which she went almost wild with joy.

All the best of the poets, ancient and modern, were there, in fine and elegant bindings, and profusely illustrated. In the first volume she opened was a card.

"The compliments of Ronald Valchester."

Jaquelina studied the beautiful chirography of the student admiringly for awhile; then she laid it away with the withered passion-flowers in the box with her dead mother's jewelry.

After several days of passionate delight over the books, Jaquelina remembered that she had not thanked the sender.

Soon afterward a little white note found its way to the University.

Ronald Valchester read the few lines it contained many times; but he must have forgotten to show it to Walter Earle, for the latter never heard of it.

"Mr. Valchester:—A thousand thanks for the books. You have made me very happy.

"Jaquelina Meredith."

That was all she said, but it pleased Ronald Valchester, though the University students unanimously agreed that he was hard to please and fastidious to a fault.

The note was well-written, in a clear, refined hand. It pleased his whim to put it away carefully.

There was one thing Ronald Valchester did not like. It was to read in the newspapers the glowing accounts of the outlaw's capture by a young girl. The students were all quite wild over it.

Walter Earle had described it to them in the most enthusiastic terms, and they would have liked nothing so well as to meet the dark-eyed young heroine. But Ronald Valchester was exceedingly sorry that the story had gotten into the papers.

After awhile the newspapers chronicled the fact that Gerald Huntington had been tried and convicted, and that his counsel had obtained a new hearing in his case; but it was thought that he could not escape being sent to the penitentiary for a long term of years. It was feared by many that the hot-headed Virginians would mob him.

The months flew swiftly past. At the close of the college session, Walter Earle and Ronald Valchester both graduated with distinguished honors.

After they separated, each to their homes, Walter wrote to his friend that Jaquelina Meredith had received the reward of two hundred dollars for Gerald Huntington's capture, and that she had gone away to enter a boarding-school at Staunton.

"But I have found out several pretty girls in the neighborhood," wrote Walter; "so I am trying to console myself for pretty Lina's absence. By the way, Violet is visiting the Claxtons in your city. Give my love to her if you see her."

[CHAPTER X.]

There was another lawn party at Laurel Hill. Again the band was playing in the summer-house on the lawn; light feet kept time to the merry dance; lights glimmered in the trees, and the scene was like fairy-land.

More than a year had passed since the last party. The orchards had bloomed again, and dropped their scented red and white blossoms. The boughs hung low with gold and crimson globes of fair white fruit. The timid, tender spring flowers were gone, and summer's glowing beauties reigned instead.

Since Walter Earle had graduated he and Violet had been traveling in the South with a party of friends. They had returned now, and this reception to their young friends had been planned and carried out with a great deal of interest and pleasure. It was a far more pretentious affair than the almost impromptu one of last year. Several persons had come from a distance to attend it. Among the latter was Ronald Valchester.

Jaquelina Meredith, fresh from her school at Staunton, was there also. Violet had feebly opposed an invitation to her at first, but her mother and Walter had promptly overruled her embarrassed objections.

"My dear," Mrs. Earle had said in some surprise, "why do you object to Lina Meredith? Do you not like her?"

Pretty Violet, grown taller and even more stylish than of old, flushed and looked annoyed.

"Lina is not in our set," she said, "and she is too poor to get a party dress; of course she could not come without one."

"She had the prettiest dress at the party last year," said Walter, warmly.

"That is all you know about it," said Violet, laughingly. "It was her mother's wedding-dress. She had not a decent thing of her own."

"She can wear her mother's dress again," said Mrs. Earle and her son simultaneously, and Mrs. Earle added almost pleadingly: "Do let her come, Violet, she is so young and pretty, and would enjoy it so much."

"And she has so few pleasures," said Walter, with commendable forethought for such a giddy young man.

"Oh, she can come—certainly," Violet answered coldly. "Only I thought she would not care to come unless she could appear as others do. Last year she was quite ignorant, she did not know anything about society. But now that she has spent a year at boarding-school, she knows, of course, that a shabby-looking girl is next to nobody. Invite her if you like, I only wished to spare her feelings."

"I think we should spare her feelings better by asking than by leaving her out," replied gentle Mrs. Earle.

So the orphan girl was asked, and Mr. Meredith came again and brought her as before. And Violet was mistaken this time, for Jaquelina had really something to wear.

This time it was a pretty robe of some soft, thin stuff, silver-gray, and shining in the moonlight. The neck was cut square, and edged with some soft, pretty lace. The sleeves were short, and exposed the perfectly molded arms.

Jaquelina had brightened it here and there with a few vivid scarlet roses, and the effect was exquisite.

In the flickering light of the lamps, and the softer gleam of the moonlight, the slight and graceful form seemed to float in a robe of silvery mist. Violet, in pale blue satin and pearls, felt eclipsed and resentful again as she had done at the lawn party a year before.

"Lina, where did you get such a pretty dress?" she asked her, unceremoniously.

"Is it pretty?" asked Jaquelina, pleased. "I bought it at Staunton to wear at one of our school concerts where I had to sing a part."

"Can you sing?" asked Violet, incredulous.

"A little," admitted Jaquelina, modestly.

"And play?" said Violet.

And again Jaquelina answered shyly:

"A little; only the accompaniments to my songs, you know, Violet."

"Then I shall be certain to call on you to sing and play to-night, and you must not refuse," said Violet, smiling to herself at the idea of the singing and playing Jaquelina could have acquired in a year.

She did not look frightened at Violet's words. She simply said that she would do her best. Violet had no idea what that "best" meant.

"Mr. Valchester is here," she said, after a pause, with a keen glance at the other. "He came yesterday on purpose to attend our party. But you have totally forgotten him, I suppose," turning her head a little sidewise.

"Oh, no; I remember him perfectly well," said Jaquelina, unembarrassed.

"Do you? You have a good memory. I believe you only saw him once or twice."

"Three times," Jaquelina answered.

"I do not believe he has remembered you so well," said Violet, arranging her bracelets. "When some one named you this morning at breakfast, he did not speak of you nor ask any questions. He appeared calm and uninterested as if you were a stranger."

"He has probably forgotten me," said Jaquelina, quietly, and Violet could not see any change in the charming face as she spoke the careless words.

She had changed somewhat since she had been away, and acquired a touch more of the grave, pretty dignity that had always seemed so natural to her.

There was a minute's pause while they stood together beneath the arched lattice work of honeysuckle and roses, like a beautiful picture of night and morning; the one with her fair, blonde beauty and pale blue robe; the other in her soft gray draperies, and dusky eyes with that starry gleam in their darkness.

That thought came into the mind of the gentleman who came up to them from a side-path, almost abruptly. It was Ronald Valchester.

"Miss Earle," he said, "I think you promised to give me the first dance."

"I am ready to keep my word," answered Violet, with a brilliant smile.

Then she saw that the blue-gray eyes were gazing intently at her silent companion.

"Oh, Mr. Valchester," she cried, "I see you have forgotten Lina Meredith. She was at our party last summer, and went boating on the river with us one day—don't you remember?"

Some pretty lines somewhere read rushed into his mind. Jaquelina embodied the thought:

"Sweet face, swift eyes, and gleaming,
Sun-lifted, mingling hair—
Lips like two rosebuds dreaming
In June's sweet-scented air.
Life, when her spring days meet her,
Hope, when the angels greet her,
Is not more calm, nor sweeter,
And love is not more fair!"

He drew a long breath and stepped forward with extended hand.

"Miss Meredith, is it really you?" he said. "You must pardon me that I did not recognize you on the instant. I had not forgotten you, but you have changed."

She gave him her slim hand a moment, and would have spoken, but Violet seemed impatient, and tapped her daintily slippered foot restlessly.

"I hear the first notes of the band," she said. "If we do not hasten they will make up the dance without me."

Valchester bowed and offered her his arm just as Walter Earle came hurrying up.

"Miss Lina, will you give me the first dance?" he said; "you owe it to me, indeed, for I taught you your first steps last year. Do you remember?"

"As though it were yesterday," she replied, with a smile, as she put her slight hand on his arm.

In the whirl of the dance Valchester bent his tall head over her a moment to ask, almost pleadingly:

"Will you give me the next dance, Miss Meredith?"

"Yes," she answered, as their hands met a moment in the giddy turn.

She did not guess how long it seemed to Valchester before the next dance came.

Walter Earle took her to her seat and lingered beside her until his friend availed himself of the first notes of the music to come and lead her away.

"I hoped she had not a partner for this dance," cried Walter, dolorously. "I meant to sit here and talk sentiment to her. I shall regret that I taught her the steps since you fellows continually take her away from me."

"I will sit by you, Walter," said his sister, coming to his side.

There was a smile on her face, but her voice sounded sad or troubled somehow.

"What, not dancing?" he said, surprised.

"Not this time. I am tired and would rather rest," she answered.

She sat down by his side and laid her white, jeweled hand on his arm.

"Walter, are you in love with Lina Meredith?" she asked him, very low.

Walter started and flushed.

"That's a leading question—rather," he said. "Well, Violet, I certainly admire her. I have never seen a more charming little girl in my life."

"Is Ronald Valchester in love with her, too?" pursued Violet, looking away from him that he might not see how much pain the question had brought into her eyes.

Walter laughed at the question.

"Valchester in love?" he said. "The idea is too supremely ridiculous to be entertained. What put such an idea in your head, Vi?"

"I don't know," she said. "Yes, I do, too! Last summer, you know, he said she was so fascinating."

"So he did—and so she is," said her brother. "But in love! Valchester is too devoted to his books and his esthetic fancies to fall in love with anything less ethereal than the muse of poetry."

"If you are in love with Lina Meredith, why don't you propose to her and have the matter settled?" she asked, petulantly.

"I didn't know you were anxious to have Lina Meredith for a sister," said Walter, staring.

"I should be very pleased," said Violet, desperately, and she spoke the truth.

She knew that Jaquelina was good and pretty. She had nothing against her except her vague jealousy of Ronald Valchester.

"If you mean to propose for her, pray do so at once, and let us have the wedding this fall," said Violet, with feverish impatience.

Meanwhile Jaquelina's partner, with his tall head bent over her, was saying:

"I had not forgotten you, Miss Meredith, though I seemed startled for the moment. Did you think I had?"

The dark eyes looked at him in smiling gratitude.

"I know that you remembered me kindly once, at least," she replied. "It was when you sent me the books. Oh, I could not tell you how much I enjoyed them, Mr. Valchester. You cannot imagine what happiness they gave me. I could never thank you enough for your kindness."

"If you remembered me kindly a few times it was quite sufficient," he said. "Did you—Lina?"

"Did I what?" said the girl, with a keen shiver of some indefinable emotion as the low name passed his lips.

"Think of me?" he answered, looking straight into her dark, uplifted eyes.

"Often and often," she responded, with frank gravity. "You see I had the beautiful books to recall you to my mind every day. Then one day when I was looking through the book you read in the orchard, I found——"

"What?" he asked, as she paused with a pleased smile on her scarlet lips.

"I found on one page a pressed four-leaved clover. I remembered that Violet had given you one that day, and I was so pleased," she said.

"Pleased—why?" asked Ronald Valchester.

"That you had given it to me," she answered.

"You are not superstitious enough to believe that the four-leaved clover brings good luck?" he said, looking at her with a smile in his twilight-colored eyes.

"Oh, no," she answered, with frank innocence; "I was pleased because I thought it seemed a silent message from you to me to say that you wish me well."

[CHAPTER XI.]

Ronald Valchester was a fine musician, and had a beautiful voice. No one would sing or play after him usually.

The contrast was too great. Perhaps it was for that very reason that Violet asked Jaquelina to play directly after Valchester had vacated the piano-stool after singing an exquisite air from a favorite opera.

For a moment Jaquelina seemed tempted to refuse. The warm color rose into her cheek as they all looked at her, her scarlet lips trembled, but Violet said quickly:

"You must not refuse, Lina. We have all played now but you, and it would not be fair for you to decline."

"Allow me," said Walter Earle, gently leading her to the piano.

Was it any wonder if a faint thrill of pleasure and triumph swelled the girl's heart as her white hands fluttered lovingly over the pearl keys?

She remembered last year. How ashamed she had felt that she could not play; how the young girls had looked at her pityingly and, she vaguely fancied, disdainfully, because she knew so little.

They did not know how hard she had practiced since. Everyone was surprised that she should try after Ronald Valchester.

He himself looked at her a little uneasily. Everyone expected a failure.

Walter Earle opened the portfolio of music and held it open before her, but she shook her head.

"No, I will play something from memory," she said.

"Now I know she will make a failure," Violet said to herself, "for my music-teacher always told me never to play without my notes before me."

But Violet made no allowance for genius, which acknowledges no law, and is sufficient unto itself.

Jaquelina touched a key or two softly so that the sound seemed to be the answer to a caress, then her hands began to fly across the keys like white-winged birds.

People looked at each other. The magic power of genius was in those slender fingers—

"Sweeping the swift and silver chords."

In a moment she began to sing. She had chosen the pretty, familiar ballad of Annie Laurie.

Not one in the room but knew that only a powerful and well-trained voice could do justice to the melodious but difficult strain.

But Jaquelina's voice—clear and fresh as a nightingale's—soared upward without the least apparent effort.

The sweet, pathetic ballad was rendered exquisitely. There was a perfect hush throughout the room until it ended. Then they crowded around her.

"Another," and "another," and "another," they pleaded when she would have risen. It was Violet at last who brought it to an end by saying carelessly:

"Let us go back to the dancing now. We can have music every day, but dancing only now and then."

"Thank you," said a low voice over Jaquelina's shoulder as she was passing out of the door. She looked back and saw Ronald Valchester's face looking down at her with bright, shining eyes. "You have given me a great deal of pleasure," he said.

"I am very glad," she replied, and the next moment, she scarcely knew how it happened, he was walking by her side, and her hand was resting on his arm.

They went out upon the lawn and down the laurel walk.

"Instead of dancing will you give me this half-hour?" he had said to her. "I wish to talk to you about this beautiful treasure you have possessed so long unknown to us all."

"What do you mean?" she asked, as they wandered along the path beneath the whispering laurels.

"Your voice," he said. "Do you know, Miss Meredith, that it is really marvelous? I cannot tell you how it has surprised and delighted me."

And again she said, simply as before:

"I am glad."

He looked at the lovely young face and saw that she was pleased, but not at all surprised.

"Someone has told you this before," he said quickly. "I am not the first to lay a laurel at your feet."

In the soft light he saw the color deepen in her cheeks and the long-fringed lashes droop low.

"My teachers have told me that my voice was fine," she said, quietly, "and—and I have sung in school-concerts a few times. The people praised me, then."

"It is no wonder you were not afraid to sing after me," he said. "I was afraid for you at first. You see I have practised for many years and people think me a better performer than the most. But I own that my light has paled before a brighter star."

"You must not say so," she said quickly. "I have only had a few months' training. My voice is not at all cultivated."

"It is naturally superb," he answered; "I have heard voices in opera that were no sweeter than yours. And yet they were prima donnas whom all the world praised. Perhaps you have heard that, too, before."

"My teacher told me I might successfully choose an operatic career," she answered quietly, yet with a sigh whose meaning he did not understand.

"I hope you will not do so," he answered quickly. "I have always so much disliked the idea of a public life for a woman."

"We talked of that at school," she replied, "but our singing master thought quite differently. He declared that a really fine voice actually belonged to the world."

"Shall you return to the school this winter?"

"No," with a quickly suppressed sigh.

"You have wearied of it, perhaps," he said.

"No," she said again; then, with a deepening color, "I have spent all my money, that is the reason. Have you forgotten, Mr. Valchester, that all the money I had was the reward I received for capturing the outlaw chief?"

The soft eyes raised to his face saw a shadow fall over its handsome contour.

"I—I had been trying to forget all about him," he said, constrainedly. "What have they done with the fellow, Miss Meredith?"

"He is still confined in the county jail, I believe," she replied. "His counsel have been using every possible means to defer the new hearing of the case which was asked for and promised. Uncle Meredith says they are waiting for popular indignation to abate in hope of obtaining a more lenient verdict."

"Very likely," said Ronald Valchester, and then there was a constrained silence.

Jaquelina broke it herself in a voice that was slightly tremulous:

"I—am afraid I did not do right that night, Mr. Valchester. I did not think—as I have since done—that it was not a fair return for his kindness to me—for he was kind—kinder than any one knew."

The pretty penitence in her face touched him, but he did not speak.

"I have puzzled over it often and often," she went on, slowly and thoughtfully, "I have asked myself whether my private obligation to him should have outweighed the good of the country at large. I have never been able to satisfy myself. Tell me, Mr. Valchester, did I do right or not?"

"Miss Meredith," he answered, "many persons have asked me the same question, but I have never given my opinion to anyone."

"Then, of course, you will not tell me," she said, disappointed, yet far too shy to insist upon it.

"No, I will not now. I may do so at some future time," evasively.

"Do you think," she said, just a trifle nervously, "it was worth while to attach any meaning to his threat of vengeance? Sometimes I have felt afraid."

"I should not give it a thought," he replied. "It is not probable he will ever have the chance to harm you even if he wished it. No doubt the best part of his life will be passed in a prison cell."

"Oh, I hope not," the girl cried out in irrepressible sorrow; "I cannot bear to think that I have been the cause of depriving anyone of liberty. I did not think of all these things in the fatal moment when I saw him peering at me behind that laurel there. Now I feel as if I had betrayed a human being to endless pain for a paltry two hundred dollars."

Ronald Valchester looked before him silently at the weird, flickering shadows on the graveled path, and made no reply.

"But I wanted the money so very, very much," she added, appealingly.

Valchester looked down at the slim, white hand lying on his black coat sleeve, the taper forefinger sparkling

"With one great gem of globed dew
The moon shot crystal arrows through."

"Did you never think of parting with your diamond ring?" he said, abruptly.

Lifting her wondering gaze to his she saw his eyes fixed on her mother's ring. She drew her hand from his arm and held it up to the light. A hundred shimmering rays flashed on the jewel.

"You do not mean that it is really a diamond?" she cried, with sparkling eyes.

"Did you not know it?" he asked, surprised.

"I thought it was only a pretty, shining bit of glass," she answered. "Is it really and truly a genuine diamond? and worth—how much?"

He took the warm, pretty hand in his on pretense of examining the ring. At that touch a quick, electric thrill ran from heart to heart.

"Oh, girls, here she is," cried Violet Earle's voice at that moment, in a tone of apparent gaiety. "What a pretty tableau! Flirting with Mr. Valchester under the laurels."

[CHAPTER XII.]

Ronald Valchester looked round, slightly annoyed, as Violet Earle and a gay group of girls came up to him.

"One should never contradict a lady," he said, "but really, Miss Earle, your charge against Miss Meredith is misplaced. I was only examining her ring."

"And only think, Violet, Mr. Valchester says the stone is a real diamond. I am so surprised and delighted. I did not dream of such a thing until just now, when he spoke of it. I thought it only a mere, valueless bit of shining glass."

The eager voice and pleased face were too truthful to admit of doubt.

Everyone but Violet gave up the thought of a flirtation at once. The girls crowded round to look at Jaquelina's ring.

"Where did you get it?" "Who gave it you?" were some of the questions they asked her.

"It was my mother's ring," she said, in answer to them all. "I did not know till Mr. Valchester told me that it was a real diamond."

"I suppose it is worth a great deal," one of the girls said to him.

"A hundred dollars, perhaps—or it may be a hundred and fifty," he replied carelessly, while Jaquelina drew a long breath of surprise and delight.

A hundred dollars seemed quite a little fortune in her eyes. She looked at the pretty ring in awe and wonder, to think that she had possessed it so long without dreaming of its value.

"We need you to make up the dance, Lina," said Violet. "The Hamiltons, the Perrys and the Deanes have all gone home, and we have not enough for the Lancers unless you and Mr. Valchester will come to our assistance—will you?"

Both answered yes, and went with the girls to take their places in the dance. Before the party was over he had said to her:

"May I come over and hear you sing to-morrow afternoon—under the apple-trees?"

"Yes," she answered simply.

He came alone. It must have required an amount of finesse and strategy for him to get away from Walter and Violet. But he accomplished it.

Jaquelina was waiting for him under the apple-trees. Her heart thrilled with a strange pleasure as she saw the tall, handsome young man coming toward her. She wore, in anticipation of his coming, a pretty, inexpensive cambric, with a pattern of tiny rose-buds, and a delicate lace frill fastened at her throat with a cluster of roses. He saw that she had grown more delicately lovely since last year. The tanned complexion had acquired a mellow, creamy fairness, the short, soft rings of hair were longer, and clustered on her shoulders in shining luxuriance, the crimson lips had taken a softer, tender curve, the dark eyes had grown dreamy and thoughtful.

"You came alone?" she said, and there was an accent of surprise in her voice.

"Yes, I preferred it. Are you disappointed that Walter and Violet did not accompany me?" he inquired.

Jaquelina answered no with pretty frankness, and an utter lack of self-consciousness that was very charming.

"I dare say they would think me very selfish if they knew I had come over to the farm alone," he said. "I slipped away from them. I am very selfish sometimes. I want you to sing your pretty songs to an audience of one."

"I am quite willing," she replied, happily.

She sang several songs for him, pouring out the exquisite melodies clearly and artlessly as a bird. Ronald said to himself that it was wonderful what a voice the girl had, so strong and sweet and clear that she made him think of Shelley's sky-lark—

"Pouring his full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art."

He remained with her fully two hours. It did not seem to him so long. The time went very fast looking at that fair face and listening to that musical voice. For a wonder Mrs. Meredith did not call her to the house for anything. Dollie had grown large enough to walk and run alone, and did not need so much attention.

"Is it true that you are going to become a governess?" he said to her. "Violet Earle told me so this morning."

"Yes, if I can find a situation," she replied. "Do you think I shall be likely to find one, Mr. Valchester?"

There was a wistful anxiety in the sweet voice. He looked at the fair young face thoughtfully.

A slanting ray of sunlight pierced the green boughs of the tree and penciled her white brow with a finger of light that brought out its child-like innocence more clearly.

"No, I hardly think you will be successful," he replied.

"You do not?" she said, and he saw the red lips quiver. "Why not, Mr. Valchester? I have studied very hard and learned a great deal since I have been away at school."

"You look too young," he replied. "No one would like to engage one who appeared so childish. You look too inexperienced."

"Do you really think that would weigh against me?" she asked, distressed. "I assure you my looks are very deceptive. I am eighteen."

"Quite a venerable age," he laughed. "Yet still very young for an instructor of youth."

"You see I only expect to teach little children," she said, apologetically.

He looked at her gravely and curiously.

"Do you think you will enjoy such a life?" he inquired.

"No," she admitted, frankly, "I do not imagine that it will be a pleasant life, certainly. But it will be better than the farm. I shall earn my support and not have my dependence continually thrust in my face by a vulgar woman."

"Poor child!" he thought to himself, as the sensitive color rushed over her brow and throat.

He left her with a thrill of deep compassion in his heart. She seemed so slight and frail a creature to take arms against the world and win her way alone.

"May I come again to-morrow—with Walter?" he added, fancying that he saw her hesitate.

"Yes," she replied, readily, "and bring Violet with you if she will come."

"Very well," he replied, "I will do so, but I shall come alone the next day to hear you sing. Are you willing?"

"They will think I am selfish if I take you away from them, I fear."

"You will not be taking me away. I belong to no one but myself," he replied. "Then, too, I shall return home in a few days, and I do not know when I shall see you again."

"You may come," she replied, quickly.

The next day he came with Violet and Walter as agreed upon. But the visit was short and unsatisfactory. Violet was fidgety and capricious. She said she had planned a visit to another young lady, and she left very soon, carrying Valchester in her train and telling Walter to remain behind and amuse Jaquelina. Walter remained very willingly. He had been thinking a great deal of what Violet had said to him about marrying Jaquelina. In consequence he had concluded to take her advice.

But it is one thing to resolve and another to execute. Jaquelina, who was exceedingly friendly and sociable with Walter in the company of others was very shy when alone with him. She somehow eluded the efforts he made to give a sentimental tone to the conversation. She sang at his request, but it was a gay and lively air.

If she had known his intention she could not have frustrated it better than she did by her unconscious indifference.

Walter went away with his love unspoken. Two days later he returned alone, having slipped away from his friend and sister, just as Valchester had done once or twice before.

Jaquelina was out under the trees reading. Little Dollie was frisking in the grass beside her. Walter thought he had never seen the girl he loved looking so fair and happy. He pleased himself with thinking how he would take her away from her uncongenial home and lavish upon her all the luxuries and adornments that would suit her beauty so well. The thought gave him courage to speak to Jaquelina. It was not long before she was blushing and trembling at these words from his lips:

"Lina, I love you dearly. Will you be my wife?"

"Oh! Mr. Earle," she cried out, looking lovely as a dream in her dismay and confusion. "I—I am very sorry for you. I did not dream of your loving me. Since yesterday I have been engaged to Mr. Valchester."

[CHAPTER XIII.]

Walter Earle's handsome face grew pale with surprise and emotion at the words of the beautiful girl he loved so dearly. When at last he could speak he cried out hoarsely:

"Engaged to Valchester! Is it possible? I never dreamed of such a thing."

"Why not, Mr. Earle? If you loved me why should not he have loved me also?" asked Jaquelina, with gentle dignity, though her cheeks flushed deeply.

Walter Earle stared at her a moment in silence. He began to realize the effect of her bright and charming beauty as he had never done before. All along it had seemed to him that other men were blind. He had thought to put forth his hand and pluck a rose that none other had sighed for; but another had been there before him.

"I thought Valchester was too selfishly absorbed in his books and poetry to think of love," he responded; then he added with a bitterness he could not repress: "You will allow me to congratulate you, Miss Meredith, on having secured such a desirable parti."

"Thank you. I consider myself a very fortunate girl," Jaquelina answered, with a movement of graceful pride.