F. M. LUPTON, Publisher, 23-37 City Hall Place, New York.

Copyright, 1905 and 1906, by F. M. Lupton.

THE WOOING OF LEOLA.

BY MRS. ALEX. M’VEIGH MILLER.

“ALL THE WHILE HE WAS UNCONSCIOUS OF LEOLA, LYING THERE LIKE A DEAD GIRL ON THE GROUND.”

THE WOOING OF LEOLA.

BY MRS. ALEX. M’VEIGH MILLER.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

[CHAPTER I. SOME PRETTY PICTURES.]
[CHAPTER II. ALL FOR LOVE.]
[CHAPTER III. ARE YOU AN ANGEL?]
[CHAPTER IV. BEWARE OF JEALOUSY.]
[CHAPTER V. A HONEY BEE AND A HONEY FLOWER.]
[CHAPTER VI. LOVE’S ENTANGLEMENTS.]
[CHAPTER VII. BOAST NOT THYSELF OF TO-MORROW.]
[CHAPTER VIII. WINDING A WEB.]
[CHAPTER IX. WHAT THE ROBINS HEARD.]
[CHAPTER X. CHESTER OLYPHANT’S CURSE.]
[CHAPTER XI. A TERRIBLE DEED.]
[CHAPTER XII. A WAYSIDE FLOWER.]
[CHAPTER XIII. IN THE SPIDER’S WEB.]
[CHAPTER XIV. A LITTLE CONSPIRACY.]
[CHAPTER XV. SURPRISES ALL AROUND.]
[CHAPTER XVI. WIDOW GRAY AND THE YOUNG CAVE-HUNTERS.]
[CHAPTER XVII. “TIME DOES NOT STOP FOR TEARS.”]
[CHAPTER XVIII. “IF HATE COULD KILL.”]
[CHAPTER XIX. LIKE A STAR IN THE NIGHT OF HER DESPAIR.]
[CHAPTER XX. “ALL THE WORLD AND WE TWO, AND HEAVEN BE OUR STAY.”]
[Transcriber’s Notes]

CHAPTER I.

SOME PRETTY PICTURES.

“Oh, mamma, I have had a lovely time at Mrs. Van Bibber’s! I would not have missed her reception for the world!”

The blonde beauty threw herself, with a silken frou-frou of rich attire, back into a luxurious chair, clasped her white, jeweled hands, and rolled her large, bluebell eyes heavenward, practising the seraphic expression she found so effective with the men.

She repeated, rapturously:

“I would not have missed it for the world! Everything was on the grandest scale, and went off beautifully. I felt that it was worth all our scheming and planning for my lovely gown;” and she smiled, complacently, at her rich blue silk robe loaded with fine lace trimmings that set off so well her blue eyes and fluffy flaxen hair.

“But, mamma,” she continued, “how sober you look. Is your rheumatism worse, poor dear?”

The faded, elderly woman, with the careworn face and fretful mouth, clasped her thin, white hands nervously over her knee and answered, wearily:

“My rheumatism is bad enough, but what worries me most is that I made such a mistake—pawning my diamonds for that splendid gown when you might have done better remaining at home without it!”

“Mamma, what can you mean?” and Jessie Stirling frowned, impatiently, tearing a white rose to pieces with excited fingers.

“I mean that, after all my sacrifices to get you ready for Mrs. Van Bibber’s reception, hoping you might meet Chester Olyphant there and make up your quarrel, he came here to call on you in your absence.”

“And I missed him like that! Oh, what a shame! But who could have dreamed he would miss the reception? Still, mamma, you should have kept him till I returned. Oh, why did you let him get away?” queried the girl, angrily.

“How could I help it, my dear? You know very well I would have been willing to chain him to his chair to keep him here till you came! I did my best—made talk, and tried to hold him, but after an hour he pleaded an engagement and hurried away.”

“But he will come again. Surely he will! Of course you asked—made him promise?” cried Jessie, wildly.

“Yes, oh yes, but he did not say he would. He only came, he said, to return some negatives you loaned him to make pictures from—the ones you took with your own camera in the mountains last summer.”

“Oh, yes, I remember—Uncle Hermann’s picturesque old stone mansion, and some mountains and river views taken from the bridge at Alderson.”

“Yes, and some pictures, too, of that hoidenish girl, Leola. I wish you had left those out, Jessie.”

“Why, really, mamma, I forgot they were in the negative book, for I didn’t mean to show them to Chester. Not that I could be jealous of a wild thing like Leola Mead, but because I promised her no one should see them. There was that one of her wading in the creek, you know, and another in bloomers sitting astride her white pony Rex, and another in hunting costume, rifle on her shoulder. Really, she wasn’t pretty in any of the negatives, except her white evening gown with the lilies on her shoulder.”

“Yes, he said that was lovely, and the others, too, and he asked no end of questions about her, and where she lived. He pretended to be anxious to see the scenery, but I guess it was Leola more than anything else. Men are so sly!”

“And you, mamma, what did you tell him?” Jessie asked, anxiously.

“Oh, I told him we should be glad to have him visit Wheatlands some time when we were there with my half brother, but I made up my mind he should never go there till you were safely his wife.”

“Good, mamma, though, really, I cannot look upon Leola Mead seriously as a rival. Why, she is only a simple country girl, with no style or good clothes at all.”

“But dangerously pretty, Jessie, don’t forget that!—and as for style, well, she is graceful and dashing as any girl I ever saw, and there’s no telling what might happen if they met. Anyhow, he just plied me with eager questions about the girl, and I could see he was almost fascinated by her pictures. Of course I did not encourage him any. I said she was my half brother’s ward, and presumably of low origin, as he was reticent about her birth, and said she had not a friend in the world but himself. I enlarged on her rude manners and hoidenish ways, and said she was not nearly as pretty as the pictures.”

“When in reality she is ten times prettier,” laughed Jessie. “So you are right. He must never see Leola Mead until I am his wife. I shall write him a sweet little note pretending he has lost one of the negatives, and ask him to call again.”

“I do not believe he will, for he evaded the question when I urged him to do so. Indeed, I even hinted how sorry you were over the quarrel, and he said, quite amiably, that it was all past now and he hoped you and he might be good friends again.”

“Friends, bah, he shall be my husband yet! I will win him back again; his millions shall not slip through my fingers this time, I promise you, mamma, and woe to any girl that dares try to rival me! But, really, I am not jealous of anybody, for I think I see his little game. He wants to make up, or he would not have come. It was easy enough to return the pictures by mail, now, wasn’t it? But he probably came because he wanted to see me, and that chat about Leola was only to make me uneasy and jealous, don’t you see?”

“I hope so, dear, but really I was quite frightened the way he talked of the lovely pictures he had made from the negatives.”

“Lovely nonsense!” Jessie cried, sharply, with an angry gleam of her blue eyes, and a vicious snap of her white teeth as she added: “I believe I would try to murder Leola if she came between us, for I cannot believe his love for me is dead so soon. If it is, I’ll soon warm over the old coals again. I’ll write him a note right away, saying how sorry I am that I was out this afternoon, and asking him to come this evening or to-morrow.”

“Pray do so,” cried the scheming mother, whose small means were dwindling away so fast in the effort to keep afloat in fashionable society till her daughter’s beauty won a rich husband.

Jessie wrote and dispatched her pleading note before she removed the dainty hat from her fluffy blonde hair, and when evening came she was waiting for him, gowned in dainty white, befitting the warm June weather.

To her amazement and anger there was no reply, and the next morning she read, in the society columns of her favorite daily, that Chester Olyphant had left New York the previous evening on a yachting trip with several other young men, and would be absent two weeks.

“Well, thank Heaven, there are only men in the party, so he will not be exposed to any other girl’s fascinations on the trip, and I’ll be waiting for him when he comes back,” cried Jessie, swallowing her chagrin the best she could.

CHAPTER II.

ALL FOR LOVE.

Leola Mead sprang to the back of her mettlesome pony and almost flew down the mountain road, her great, dark eyes flashing with anger, her cheeks glowing crimson, her wealth of golden locks streaming like a ruddy banner on the breeze. Against the tight bodice of her riding habit her young bosom heaved tumultuously with the angry throbs of her heart, for Leola had just had a bitter quarrel with her guardian, and now gave vent to her excitement by giving free rein to Rex in a breakneck ride.

It was a lovely June morning in the mountains of West Virginia, all Nature at her sweetest and fairest, and Leola had been planning such a happy, happy day; but when she came out from breakfast ready for her morning canter, there stood her saturnine old guardian asking her to step into the library for a moment before she rode away.

Leola obeyed him, pouting, for she hated to lose time indoors this gladsome, golden day.

There was no love lost between her and her grim guardian, anyway, for he was a stern old man, reticent and mysterious, spending most of his time in a horrid laboratory up in the tower chamber of the rough old stone house, where the country folk said he was working either to wrest from Nature the secret of making gold, or the still greater mystery of distilling a magic elixir of life. About the neighborhood he got the sobriquet Wizard Hermann, and looked the character with his lean, stooping form, long black hair floating over his coat collar, strongly marked features and cunning mouth, while his keen, gray eyes, under bushy brows, seemed to pierce one through with their questioning gaze.

His ancestors had been pioneer Indian fighters, and the large house built of rough stone, just as taken from the quarry, dated back to the time when the red man roamed the almost unbroken forest.

In all the years while Leola had lived here with her governess in the lonely old house, she could not remember a caress from the mysterious, self-absorbed old man, who seemed to have no human interests or passions, and to care for no one but the dwarfish servitor who helped him in his laboratory, the only person he ever admitted within its precincts.

It was no wonder, then, that Leola followed Wizard Hermann unwillingly into the musty-smelling library, with its high walnut wainscot, dingy, green-stenciled walls, and side shelves lined with old leather volumes, while the bare oaken floor on which she trod was worn with the footsteps of successive generations who had passed from earth in the fullness of time and been gathered to their fathers.

In the somber room with its closed shutters Leola stood facing her grim guardian with the impatient air of some beautiful young princess giving audience to a vassal.

As he stood hesitating where to begin, with an unwonted diffidence, she said, coldly:

“Speak; tell me your wish at once, sir, for I must hurry. I have an engagement in town with my dressmaker.”

At those words Wizard Hermann’s gloomy brow cleared as if by magic, and quickly striking his lean, scarred hands together, he retorted, maliciously:

“An engagement with your dressmaker, eh, my proud lady? Very well, while you are there you may give the woman an order for your wedding gown.”

“Sir,” she uttered, in amazement, her cheeks reddening.

Wizard Hermann retorted, with a hoarse, sardonic laugh:

“I said give the woman an order for your wedding gown, Leola Mead, for you are to be married soon.”

Leola stared, speechlessly, a moment, wondering if the old man was losing his mind, and, taking advantage of her silence, he continued, with forced bravado:

“You look surprised, my haughty young lady, so I will explain. I have accepted a desirable proposal for your hand, and as you are plenty old enough to marry—nineteen your last birthday—I have named the wedding for a month from to-day.”

Leola, recovering her speech, cried, indignantly:

“Quite a cool proceeding on your part, sir, I must say, but I wish you to understand that I am not ready to marry yet.”

“That makes no difference to me, for you will have to obey me, Leola Mead, understand that,” he replied, with rising anger. “You are my ward, and in pursuance of my duty to you, I have accepted a man for your husband who worships the ground you walk upon and will spend money on you like water.”

Leola’s dark eyes blazed with indignation.

“You must surely be mad,” she cried, passionately. “The man I would choose for my husband must ask me for my hand, not you, sir. This is free America, you must remember, not France, where marriages are arranged by old people who have forgotten love and youth. I refuse the suitor you have chosen for me without even hearing his name!”

The old man muttered, sullenly.

“Marriage is the destiny of all young girls. You would not wish to grow into a sour old maid?”

“No, I do not intend to be an old maid, sir, but,” with a proud toss of her lovely head, “when I marry I shall choose the man myself, and it shall be for love, not money!”

“Money is the only thing worth having—money and long life,” he muttered, but Leola, with a contemptuous laugh, turned to go.

He sprang between her and the door, putting his back against it.

“I have not done telling you all about this matter yet,” he exclaimed, but Leola stamped her little foot in a fury, replying:

“I will not hear another word, I tell you, and you may as well let me go, and give up your foolish plans!”

“By Heaven, miss, you shall marry the man of my choice—I swear it!” cried the wizard, violently, but she answered, coldly:

“Pray let me hear no more such nonsense, Uncle Hermann. Granted you are my guardian, the law does not give you the power of marrying me to anyone against my will. No, not another word, or I shall think you are going insane, if not so already. Get away from that door, and let me out, or I shall scream for assistance or jump out of the window!”

“You would not dare do either!” he said.

Leola ran like a flash to the window, pushing back the creaking shutters, letting in a flood of June sunshine. The next moment she sprang to the high sill, crying, defiantly:

“Now, get away from that door or I will jump out!”

The old man muttered, incredulously: “You would break your neck!”

Leola answered, recklessly:

“I shall risk that unless you let me out of the door. Come, now, I will count ten. If you do not move before then I am gone,” and drawing her dainty little feet up into the window, and dangling them on the outside, she began counting in a clear, high voice:

“One—two—three—four—five—six—seven—eight—nine—ten!”

Wizard Hermann remained standing with his back toward the door, regarding her with an incredulous leer, never dreaming she would make the foolhardy leap, for from the window sill it was twenty feet to the ground.

But Leola was as good as her word.

While she counted she kept her flashing dark eyes full upon his stubborn face, and seeing that he did not move as the last word left her lips, she deliberately turned and sprang out upon the ground.

A cry of alarm shrilled over the old man’s lips, and he stood like one rooted to the spot, listening for the cry of pain that must announce the dread result of the perilous leap. Visions of Leola crippled or dead floated before his mind’s eye, and he muttered, savagely:

“Little vixen, if you have broken your neck it is your own fault! But if you live you shall marry the man of my choice one month from to-day, I swear it!”

The sound of her voice floated to him indistinctly—was it a laugh or a groan?

He hurried to the window, shaking with excitement.

There was Leola standing upright on the greensward, brushing her blue skirt, and humming a little song to herself.

“Are you hurt?” he quavered, anxiously, and she looked up, laughing maliciously:

“Hurt? Oh, no, not a bit!” she called back, gayly. “I just let myself go limply, and I came down like a cat on all fours in the grass and clover. I have fallen higher than that from trees many a time without hurting myself. It’s easy enough when you learn to go limp and not stiffen yourself; ha, ha!”

As he glared in amazement she waved her hand, audaciously, adding:

“You ought to try it yourself some time, Uncle Hermann! Well, good-bye, sir, and mind you don’t let me hear any more of this match-making business, unless you go and get married yourself!” and with that parting shot, the merry girl ran across the grass, a vision of youth and health and beauty, to where her pony was waiting, ready saddled, beneath a tree. Vaulting lightly to his back, without even waiting to fasten the loosened tresses of her ruddy hair, the wild young thing was off and away down the mountain road, her young bosom throbbing tumultuously, half with anger, half with mirth, at the rencontre with her guardian.

“The old silly, to think of marrying me off, without so much as by your leave! The idea!” she exclaimed aloud, adding, more soberly, “Not that I’d mind having a rich husband if he was handsome and winning, too, but how often I have heard it said that good looks and riches seldom go together, so if that’s the case I’d marry for love and let money go!”

Her fit of anger dissolving in the sunshine of sweet good nature, she hummed, as she galloped on, a fragment of a tender little love-song, sweet as it was sad:

“Honey flowers for the honey-comb,

And the honey-bees from home.

“A honey-comb and a honey-flower

And the bee shall have his hour.

“A honeyed heart for the honey-comb.

And the humming bee flies home.

“A heavy heart in the honey-flower.

And the bee has had his hour.”

Suddenly the low song died on her lips, changing to a cry of alarm.

At a curve in the road she came suddenly upon a startling sight.

Rex just swerved aside from a runaway horse that was dragging behind it a shattered little runabout, in which stood upright a white-faced man, straining desperately upon the reins, trying to stop the maddened animal’s wild career.

Even in that terrible moment, with the black horse plunging madly forward to the imminent peril of the driver’s life, Leola saw, as by a flash, that the man was young and very, very handsome, and her heart throbbed with wild pain at his danger, for on one side the road sloped, precipitously, downward to a dangerous stream of water, and a plunge over that steep incline meant death in horrible form.

But what could avert the catastrophe, for it seemed as if nothing could restrain the plunging brute or turn aside his maddened course toward the crumbling edge of the yawning precipice that would instantly engulf both in ruin and death!

A cry of agony, “Oh, God, save him!” shrilled over her rosy lips.

Surely the listening angels heard the prayer, for suddenly she saw that there was one chance in a thousand to avert the threatening disaster—one chance, though with deadly peril to herself.

With a high heart of hope, and a courage that defied all the deadly risk, she dared the consequences, spurring Rex forward in front of the black horse with a clarion call on her lips that wrought what seemed like a miracle.

For at her voice, conjoined with a startled whinny from Rex, the terrified animal, plunging and rearing but an instant before, with upraised hoofs nearing the verge of the dangerous precipice, now stopped as if shot, trembling all over, while Leola, throwing out her arms, caught his neck and clung, clung, clung, with the energy of despair.

CHAPTER III.

ARE YOU AN ANGEL?

What subtle influence wrought the miracle, for it could not have been the strength of Leola’s slender hands?

But there stood the satanic black animal, its fury abated, its flight arrested, its huge form trembling, shuddering, while the foamy sweat dropped in streams to the ground. As for the driver, he had been hurled violently backward into the road by the impetus of the sudden stop, and now lay there without sound or motion, like a dead man.

Leola, waiting only a moment to pat the black horse gently on his heaving neck, slipped from her saddle and ran to the young man, leaving, oh, wonder of wonders! the excited creature standing stock still, and rubbing noses with Rex quite as if they had been old friends.

“Oh, heaven, he is dead!” the girl moaned in anguish.

Her heart sank like lead to see him lying there so still, with a little stream of blood trickling from his temple, where it had struck against a jagged rock.

“Oh, if I only had some water,” she sighed, and just then the trickle of a little spring by the side of the road caught her ears. She ran and filled her riding cap with the clear fluid, and dashed it in his face.

Oh, joy! he gasped once or twice, and opened on her anxious face a pair of the bonniest dark blue eyes she had ever met—eyes that seemed to go exactly with the glossy curls of thick brown hair.

When his gaze met hers he smiled, faintly, and sighed:

“I—I—where am I? Oh, I remember now. I was in an accident; my horse ran away, and I was thrown out of the runabout. Was I killed? Is this heaven, and are you an angel?”

Leola laughed a happy, rippling laugh, sweet as music to his ears.

“An angel? No, indeed,” she cried; “and this is not heaven, either, only a rough, rocky road, where you fell when you pitched out of your trap. Oh! are you hurt very bad? Does your poor head pain you very much?”

Their faces were very close together, for she had pillowed his head on her tender arm, and he could feel the quick throbs of her excited heart as she waited for his answer.

“I—I—do not feel very bad,” he began, then suddenly lapsed into unconsciousness again, and this time it seemed to her that he was surely gone forever.

Tears started in her eyes and fell in a burning shower upon his pallid, handsome face, mingling with the crimson rain that ran down his cheek.

Again he revived, and, looking up, met that tender, tearful glance of Leola’s lovely eyes, that made the blood leap through his veins with rapture.

He said faintly:

“Do not say you are not an angel, for I shall always think of you as one, sweet girl! Ah, I remember all, now! My runaway horse was going straight over the declivity when you spurred yours between and caught his neck in your arms. It was a magnificent thing to do, but a perilous one, too, to risk your life for an utter stranger!”

Leola smiled brightly, and answered:

“It certainly looked like taking a terrible risk, and would scarcely have succeeded so well but for one fact quite unknown to you.”

“And that?” he queried, eagerly; and she replied:

“You see, I recognized in your satanic steed a favorite of mine—a spirited creature that I loved dearly when it belonged to my guardian, who sold it to the livery stable in town only a week ago. Black Hawk, as we called him, was an elder brother to my pony Rex, and they were fond of each other; so, you see, it was really our acquaintance with Black Hawk that made him so easy to subdue. Just turn your head now, sir, and you will see the pair biting at each other in the most affectionate manner.”

“It is wonderful,” he murmured; “but, all the same, I owe you my life, for you ran a terrible risk trusting to Black Hawk’s possible obedience to you. What if, in his fury of fear and rage—for he had taken desperate fright at a well-digging machine in a field—he had proved unmanageable? You and I must have gone down to death together, all in one tragic moment.”

“It is true, but let us not think of it, since the danger is past,” said Leola, making light of it, and adding:

“What troubles me now is how to get assistance for you. I don’t like to leave you alone, but—Ah! I hear wheels. Some one is coming!”

Sure enough, an old top buggy, drawn by an old gray mare, came clattering around the curve of the road, and in it sat the one person most welcome of any one in the world just now—the village doctor.

“Oh, Doctor Barnes, how glad I am to see you! You see, there’s been an accident,” Leola cried, eagerly, as he drew rein and began to jump nimbly out.

“Yes, my dear girl; I saw the accident from up on the hill, just as I was coming out from a patient’s house, and I got to you as fast as old Dolly would travel. Really, it was a splendid deed of daring!” cried the middle-aged doctor, patting her bright head in a fatherly way as he stooped over the young man.

“Ah, a stranger!” he continued. “Well, how much is he hurt? Cut on the temple, eh? Needs some stitches. Any bones broken, do you think? Wait till I stanch and bind the wound, and then we will see.”

This accomplished, he tendered the use of his arm, and the young fellow got upon his feet without much difficulty.

“Ah, you’re all right—unless there’s some internal hurt. Come, I will put you into my buggy. Your arm on the other side. Leola and I must take you to the nearest house, which happens to be the Widow Gray’s cottage, below here. There I can sew up your wound and leave you in safe hands till we can find out if there’s any internal injuries. All right. Put your head back against the lap-robe. You will come with us, Leola; I may need your help.”

Stranger as the young man was, they could not have taken him to a better place, for Widow Gray was the dearest old woman in the neighborhood. She lived quite alone in a tidy cottage back among a grove of maples, or a “sugar camp,” as the country people called it; for here in the early spring was always produced that toothsome dainty, maple sugar, so dear to the hearts of school children. The widow had a neat spare room that she often let to a summer boarder, and to this white-hung chamber she quickly led Doctor Barnes with his patient, her round face beaming with good-nature as she promised to do all she could for the unfortunate young stranger.

“He will need your best nursing, I fear,” exclaimed Doctor Barnes; for, on getting his patient down upon the bed, he immediately fainted again, and the swoon was so deep that it was difficult to revive him.

“Oh, he is dead!” sobbed Leola; and the thought carried with it such agony that it changed and darkened the whole world to her young heart, so dear had the handsome stranger grown already.

CHAPTER IV.

BEWARE OF JEALOUSY.

How glad she was when he opened his eyes again, and faltered:

“I am quite ashamed of myself, fainting away like a weak woman. I will promise not to do so again, doctor.”

Doctor Barnes quickly made him as easy as possible, and left him to the widow’s care, promising to call again that evening to see how he fared, and also to send word to the livery stable about the horse and trap.

Leola felt she had no further excuse for staying, although, somehow, she could not bear to go.

She went into the room to say farewell, and he entreated her to stay, in a weak voice, reinforced by pleading eyes.

She smiled, and shook her head.

“It is better I should go now, for the doctor says you must have absolute rest and quiet to-day, and I am a sad chatterbox, but I will come to-morrow and bring you some flowers,” she promised.

She pressed his hand in mute farewell, and the contact thrilled her with rapturous emotion, for even with his pallor and his bandaged head he appeared to her a king among men—a veritable Prince Charming.

A great change had come to her heart since she rode out so blithely that morning, and the words of her simple song were coming true:

“A honey-comb and a honey-flower.

And the bee shall have his hour.”

She forgot all about her errand to town, and, remounting Rex, went for a long ride, miles away, to a beautiful Blue Sulphur Spring, where she lingered for hours upon the green lawn, dreaming over and over the startling event of the day, and gazing anon into the sparkling depths of the water, as if she might read in its pellucid depths the secret of her future.

And she recalled, with a sudden thrill, the gypsy who had told her fortune last year, saying:

“You will have a handsome, blue-eyed husband, and you will adore each other; but beware of jealousy, or it will part you forever.”

Leola had laughed at the gypsy then, but now she recalled her prophecy with a prophetic thrill.

“A handsome, blue-eyed husband! He has blue eyes!” she said—which showed that her thoughts already reached forward to the unknown future.

“Our feelings and our thoughts

Tend ever on and rest not in the present.”

When she returned home she had temporarily forgotten all about her little tiff with Wizard Hermann that morning, and as she saw him nowhere about, it did not occur to her mind. She avoided every one, which was not hard to do, the household consisting of only five members—her guardian and self, her former governess, who now combined teaching and housekeeping by way of economy, a fat black cook, and a man of all work, a misshapen, dwarfish creature of tremendous strength.

The day and night seemed interminably long to Leola, who lay awake many hours through pure joy of this blissful something that had come so suddenly into the placid current of her young life. Heaven forefend her from ever knowing the wakefulness of sorrow!

Bright and early the next morning she was out in the old-fashioned garden, gathering roses, dewy sweet and lovely, and it was not difficult to coax black Betsy for a bit of early breakfast before the others appeared.

Then, because she did not want to seem too anxious, Leola walked the two miles to Widow Gray’s cottage.

When Wizard Hermann asked at breakfast after the truant, Betsy, who was bringing in the toast, answered that “young miss” had gone to carry some flowers to a sick friend.

“Humph!” was his careless rejoinder, little dreaming that the sick friend was a charming young man who had already carried Leola’s heart by storm.

Meanwhile the young girl went blithely on her way, glad at heart with a strange, new emotion, yet not realizing why the world seemed so much sweeter than yesterday, the flowers fairer, the skies brighter, and all nature attuned to a diviner melody. Even her own rare beauty had gained another indefinable charm from the vibrations of love, pulsing joyfully through all her frame. She knew that she was drawn by invisible cords to the handsome stranger, but she imputed it to keen interest in one she had saved from death.

Widow Gray welcomed her with beaming smiles.

“Oh, Miss Mead, such a rapid improvement you never saw in your life! Why, after he had rested all day and night, he was like another man, and the doctor let him dress this morning and lie on the lounge in his room. He says he has no internal trouble at all, and need only stay in a few days till his head gets well. Wasn’t he lucky? for the doctor says the tumble might have killed him, and that it was a miracle it didn’t. But, laws, he’s as right as a trivet, and has taken a poached egg and bit of toast this morning. What sweet, sweet flowers! Come right in, do, and see him; he’s expecting you.”

How his blue eyes beamed as she entered with the flowers! Leola would never forget that look to her dying day.

“You are come at last!” he cried, happily. “I have been hoping and watching for you more than an hour! I should have been in a fever of impatience if you had stayed away much longer!”

“And yet it is quite early. See, the dew is not yet dry on the roses I brought you,” smiled Leola, as she drew a chair close to his side.

“Are you not glad I escaped with so slight injury?” he exclaimed, joyously. “And only to think that I owe my life to you! How can I repay you but by devoting it to your service?”

This was very rapid love-making, indeed. Leola, with her very limited experience that way, felt it was so, yet somehow she could not chide him. Her heart beat very fast, her cheeks flamed crimson, and when she tried to look away from him she could not help his gaze from holding hers in a long look into her soul that was trying to hide from him beneath her dark, curling lashes. In that moment of pure rapture Sir Cupid transfixed both their hearts with his cunning arrow. They were no more strangers; they seemed to have known each other in some past incarnation.

Leola thought, thrillingly:

“Surely this is love that makes my heart beat so fast and my cheeks burn under his glance, that holds my own so that I cannot look away! He is my fate!”

The young stranger was saying to himself, quite as romantically:

“Before I saw this exquisite creature I was madly in love with her shadow, and now that we have met, my heart is in her keeping forever. I owe her my very life, and I will be her true knight—and swear eternal fealty to my liege lady!”

He reached out and caught her hand, saying, deeply and tenderly:

“Forgive me if I seem too hasty, but something urges me on to confess my love before some unknown fate comes between us. Leola, am I too hasty, or may I hope to win your heart?”

The lashes fell against her blushing cheeks as she murmured:

“I—I—how strange that you have learned to love me—like that—since only yesterday!”

“I loved you weeks before I ever met you,” was his startling reply; and as she cried out in wonder over that, he continued, fondly:

“A few weeks ago, in New York, a young lady loaned me some negatives to copy. She had made them with her camera while out in the mountains last summer, she said. Among these negatives were such charming views of a young girl, that I fell in love with the pictures as soon as I made them. I did not rest until I found out where the girl lived, her name, and, in short, all there was to learn about her. Then I took the train for West Virginia, and on arriving at Alderson I started out the same morning to find you, Leola; for, of course, you have guessed it was yourself! Directly my horse took fright; and only fancy my feelings when I saw you coming toward me on your white pony, a perfect vision of youth and joy and beauty, and realized that a horrible death might thrust us apart in another fatal moment. You saved my life, and can you wonder I look upon you as my fate—the fairest fate that ever life gave to a man?”

He paused, pressed the hand he held again ardently, and added, musingly:

“How strangely everything has come about! I thought I should have to get acquainted with you in a very proper way, and go through a ceremonious courtship before I proposed, but fate took it all out of my hands. Now, what have you to say to this, my dear girl? Will you let me hope to win your love?”

“It is yours already,” Leola confessed, with exquisite frankness; then, as he rapturously kissed her trembling hand, she exclaimed, in wonder at herself:

“Oh, perhaps you think I am too lightly won when I do not even know your name!”

“That can be remedied very soon. Call me Ray Chester, an artist, who wishes he were richer for your sweet sake.”

“Then you are poor?” Leola questioned, gravely.

“Do you regret it?” he asked, sadly.

“I—I—don’t know. Cousin Jessie always advised me never to marry poor. It is Jessie Stirling, I mean. She loaned you the negatives, did she not?”

“Yes; but I am sorry she put such notions in your pretty head. Perhaps you will take back your promise, learning I am poor.”

“Oh, no, no, no! Never! I could not marry any one without love, but Jessie says she would take a fright if he had a million dollars. However, she has ‘hooked,’ so she says, a big fish, rich, and young, and handsome, too, and she wants, when she is married, for me to visit her so she can make a grand match for me.”

“I will save her the trouble,” said Ray Chester. “Love in a cottage will be our portion, my darling, but you are so lovely that I shall paint a picture of you that will perhaps make my fortune!”

Suddenly a shadow clouded her lovely eyes. She had remembered for the first time her guardian’s threat of yesterday.

“You look sad, Leola. Are you repenting your promise already?” her lover cried, anxiously.

“I shall never repent. I believe you are my fate!” the girl exclaimed, earnestly, and to herself she thought:

“I will not tell him of my guardian’s foolish plans for wedding me to a rich man yet, for perhaps he will give it up after my frank refusal to obey him. No; I will not even think of it again; he cannot coerce me, for I will tell him I have already chosen my husband.”

CHAPTER V.

A HONEY BEE AND A HONEY FLOWER.

The Widow Gray had a very romantic turn of mind, and she had not forgotten her young days yet, so it was easy enough for her to find out that the two young folks were already deeply in love.

“And no wonder, either,” she said to herself, sagely, “for the two beautiful young things seem to be made for each other.”

Accordingly, she helped out the romance all she could by insisting on the girl’s coming every day to help while away the invalid’s lonely hours, saying, cheerfully:

“For you know that just as soon as Mr. Chester gets well enough to be going about he will be right up at Wheatlands, paying back your visits two to one.”

Thus encouraged, Leola came and went daily, making long visits without exciting any suspicion at home, for she was used to having her own way, and no one interfered with her liberty.

It was quite a week that Ray Chester was detained at the cottage, for although he made light of his injuries, he was very much bruised, and felt stiff and sore, and the little gash on his temple was deep enough to take some time in healing, and even then it would leave a scar under his thick, brown curls that would always remain to remind him of lovely Leola’s bravery in saving his life at the risk of her own.

But that week went away so quickly, so happily, in that golden June weather, that when it was over they could not realize the lapse of days.

“It seemed like one exquisite day,” they said to each other.

The programme of their days had been something like this:

Leola called every morning on Rex, and remained until the midday meal at Wheatlands. After appearing at this hour she slipped away again, returning to the cottage and staying till she had to go home to supper. Her regularity at these meals warded off any suspicion that she spent the intervening hours in the company of a very charming young man, who would render all Wizard Hermann’s schemes to marry her off to her unknown suitor quite null and void.

After supper, then, came the lonely time, for Leola had to remain at home and play to the governess on the piano in the dingy parlor, whose faded hangings had not been renovated for years. As this had been a yearly practice, she could not omit it without exciting wonder on the part of the spinster lady who had acted as her governess and companion since early childhood, and, now that school days were over, looked after the housekeeping, staying on indefinitely, not seeming to have either friends or suitors.

Yet, although she was over forty now, Miss Tuttle had not given over a scarcely-concealed hope of marrying.

As she was very thin and tall, her secret choice had fallen on her exact opposite, a neighboring widower about fifty, who was rather short and very stout, and had recently come into a fortune by selling some valuable coal-lands in Greenbrier county.

Miss Tuttle having been in love with neighbor Bennett when he was in moderate circumstances, only loved him the harder when he became so rich that he did not know how to spend his money.

Some neighborly kindnesses he had certainly shown her, but not as many as she wished, and no amount of scheming had sufficed to bring him to the point of proposing.

Thus absorbed in her own love-affair, it was no wonder that Miss Tuttle paid small attention to Leola’s comings and goings, regarding her still as a pretty child who had heretofore laughed at love and lovers.

So there were none to molest the lovers and make them afraid, for Wizard Hermann, though he did not give over his scheme, held his peace and went his way in cunning silence, giving Leola time to get over her fright.

Even Doctor Barnes, who had not found it necessary to pay but three visits to his patient, did not know of the romance going on at the cottage, and being very busy with the measles, just then epidemic in Alderson and the country round about, he had no time to gossip about the stranger whose life Leola Mead had saved. As there were none who knew Ray Chester, so there were none to worry over him; and beneath the matronly chaperonage of kind Widow Gray their secret love bloomed into a splendid flower whose strong roots only death could tear away.

“I love you, sweet: how can you ever learn

How much I love you?” “You I love even so,

And so I learn it.” “Sweet, you cannot know

How fair you are.” “If fair enough to earn

Your love, so much is all my hour’s concern.”

“My love grows hourly, sweet!” “Mine, too, doth grow,

Yet love seemed full so many hours ago.”

The lovers speak till kisses claim their turn.

“It cannot surely be a whole week; was it not only yesterday?” cried the doting lover.

But Leola counted off the days to him on her rosy fingers.

“It was Tuesday when first we met—Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and now it is Tuesday again! And I have been to see you twice every day, Ray! But to-morrow I cannot come at all, for there is a horrid picnic to which Miss Tuttle insists on taking me, and I cannot refuse lest she find me out.”

“Why, then, I shall go to the picnic, too. I adore picnics!” cried Ray Chester.

“But you are not invited. It’s a Sunday school picnic, you see, Ray, and you are not acquainted with anybody.”

“I’ll invite myself, and get acquainted with everybody there in less than an hour,” he answered, gayly; and calling to Mrs. Gray, who was watering her geraniums in the yard, he said:

“Aren’t you going to the picnic to-morrow?”

“Perhaps so—only I shall have to leave you a cold dinner,” she said, hesitatingly, coming up to the vine-wreathed porch in whose shadow the lovers were sitting.

“I’ll go with you if you let me!” cried Ray; “and you will introduce me to everybody there as your new boarder.”

“And to Miss Tuttle in particular; and mind you show her much attention, Ray, for then she will ask you to Wheatlands,” laughed Leola, falling into the spirit of the thing, for it came to her suddenly that by this means she and Ray could go on courting under her guardian’s very nose without being suspected.

“Miss Tuttle is so vain she will easily think Ray is in love with her,” she thought, merrily, and so they all laid their plans for to-morrow.

The picnic came off in a beautiful grove, and Widow Gray’s new boarder kept his word, and got acquainted with everybody there inside of an hour.

He was specially gracious to the smiling Miss Tuttle, who herself presented him to Leola, saying:

“Miss Mead, the little girl to whom I have been governess over ten years.”

The little girl bowed demurely, and said she was glad to meet Miss Tuttle’s friend, and then she turned carelessly away, and was particular not to interrupt his chat with the spinster until by his assiduity he got the coveted invitation to call.

CHAPTER VI.

LOVE’S ENTANGLEMENTS.

“Isn’t he perfectly charming, Leola? As handsome as a picture, and the prettiest manners I ever saw—so courteous, so kind, altogether different from some of the country bumpkins about here, who don’t seem to appreciate ladies as they ought. But really, for the life of me, I cannot tell which one of us he is courting, for he is so nice to us both. Sometimes I think it’s you, and then, again, I may be the object of his affection. I cannot deny there may be a little disparity in our years, but I do not believe he would mind that, do you, dear?”

This was two weeks later than the picnic, from which it may be inferred that Ray Chester’s courtship was progressing finely, without let or hindrance from Wizard Hermann.

Fortune had favored our daring hero, for Leola’s guardian had been absent from home nearly two weeks, and on returning he had resumed his laboratory work with such zeal that he remained quite in ignorance of the fact that a handsome young man, a stranger from the city, was a daily and welcome caller on the ladies of his family.

His first news of the fact came from Mr. Bennett, his rich and rotund neighbor, who, perhaps growing jealous over Miss Tuttle, desired to know if Mr. Hermann had any knowledge of the stranger’s intentions.

“In a word, sir, is the fellow sparking Miss Tuttle or Leola?” he said, brusquely.

Mr. Hermann, startled, denied any knowledge of the young man.

“I’ve been up to New York for some precious chemicals I required, and I was nearly ten days absent. Since I returned I’ve been almost too busy to take time to eat or sleep, and I have not seen or heard of any young man,” he declared.

The sleek Bennett soon made him acquainted with the facts as he knew them himself.

“The fellow’s from the city, somewhere away off, good-looking and dandyfied, an artist, he claims to be. He’s boarding down to Widow Gray’s, and showed himself first at a picnic, where he came with her and got introduced to the whole country-side. I’m not saying he isn’t as pleasant a young chap as I ever met, but I don’t like it, seeing him in and out at Wheatlands all the time without knowing for sure who he’s after, Hermann,” he concluded, uneasily.

“I’ll look into the matter this very day and find out what’s in the wind,” was the reassuring reply.

Bennett’s little ferret eyes looked sharply at him, and he muttered:

“I won’t have any fooling over this here bargain. The mortgage falls due pretty soon now, and if you fail to keep your word, I’ll foreclose at once, I swear.”

“I’ll keep it to the letter: don’t you be uneasy,” soothed Wizard Hermann, adding:

“Have you done anything to help along your own cause, eh?”

“I’ve called several times and fetched the geerls presents of fruit and candy, and took ’em riding in my fine new turnout, but that dad-blame dandy was always along, and I couldn’t hardly get in a word edgeways to the geerl, and Miss Tuttle, she done all the talking to me, so’s I hadn’t any show at all with Leola,” Bennett muttered, morosely.

“Let’s see; suppose you write a letter and propose formally for her hand. Tell her how rich you are, and that you’ll give her anything her heart craves. If she refuses, then I shall have to use my influence,” Wizard Hermann said, consolingly, wishing he were well out of all this bother and back in his laboratory at work with his beloved chemicals.

His house and lands were all mortgaged to his rich neighbor, and he had not a dollar to pay him to prevent foreclosure. It seemed like a providence when the rich widower cast his covetous eyes on lovely Leola, and offered, if Hermann could get her to marry him, to release the debt.

It was fifteen thousand dollars, but Wheatlands, with its wide-spreading acres, was worth twice as much, and it was terrible to thus sacrifice the home of his forefathers; so Hermann, who had burned up all that money in his foolish and mysterious experiments, decided that Leola must be sacrificed to pay the debt, since there was no other way.

But how to obtain her consent he did not know, and, since the morning when she had so angrily repulsed him, the subject had tacitly dropped between them, Hermann realizing that his end could only be gained by force and cunning.

Bennett’s story about a possible rival put a new element of trouble into the affair, so he set himself to investigate matters by calling the governess to account.

When he summoned her to the library she thought he only wanted to go over some housekeeping accounts with her, or possibly to pay some arrears of her salary long overdue.

Visions of a new gown and bonnet floated joyfully before her mind’s eye, but she was soon undeceived.

“Who and what of this young dandy who is making so free of my house these two weeks?” he demanded.

Miss Tuttle bridled, and tried to blush like an eighteen-year-old girl.

“Oh, Mr. Hermann, the most charming young man—he’s a boarder at Widow Gray’s, and is most attentive,” she simpered.

“So I have heard, but who is he after—Leola?” he demanded.

“Oh, sir, no, indeed—that is, I cannot really be sure of his intentions toward either; he’s so very charming to both of us we cannot decide between us which he prefers yet—but he does not seem like a flirt!”

“Amanda Tuttle, don’t be an old fool! How do you suppose any young man could hesitate between an old woman like you and pretty Leola?” he replied, brusquely.

“Sir!” Miss Tuttle bridled, and tears came into her eyes.

“Well, well, I spoke roughly, but you should not be so silly,” returned her employer. “Remember you were not very pretty when you first came here, and fifteen years has changed you into a faded old maid.”

“I—I—hate you!” she sobbed, pitifully.

“Hard words break no bones,” he said, carelessly.

“If you will pay me my salary I’ll leave Wheatlands forever!” she sobbed, bitterly, in her humiliation; but he went on, coolly:

“No, I don’t want you to leave; I really need your services, Miss Tuttle. But as to whether you ever get that money I owe you depends on your own exertions. I’ve lost everything, and unless Leola makes a rich marriage I’ve planned for her, I will not have a roof over my head this day month.”

Miss Tuttle mopped her wet eyes with a little lace-edged handkerchief, and straightened up, full of breathless curiosity.

“Oh, who is he?” she exclaimed; and thereupon he suddenly confided his difficulties freely to her, hopeful of her ready co-operation, but, being totally unversed in the intricacies of a woman’s heart, he made the mistake of his life.

On learning that the rotund widower, Bennett, whom she secretly loved, was a suitor for Leola’s hand, the spinster promptly went into hysterics that she could not have helped to save her life.

She shrieked furiously:

“Oh, the fat villain, the vile deceiver! After all his attentions to me since his poor wife died, to turn around and fall in love with a chit of a girl like Leola! Oh, I could tear him limb from limb, the wretch! And as to marrying him, she shall not—never, never!”

“Oh, really, really!” soothed her employer, but all to no purpose, for, her heart being touched, she could not restrain her excitable feelings, but raved on angrily and tearfully for some time, until her emotion spent itself, the old man having bided his time to this end.

He now observed, sarcastically:

“If you have done making a fool of yourself now, Amanda Tuttle, perhaps you will tell me what you are going to do about it. You cannot marry Bennett if he will not have you.”

“No,” she moaned, tearfully; and he continued, coolly:

“Perhaps you will bring suit for breach of promise.”

Miss Tuttle fairly tore her hair in her humiliation.

“Will you, now?” he repeated.