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

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

"'All that's bright must fade, The brightest, still the fleetest, All that's sweet was made To be lost when sweetest; Flowers that bloom and fall, Buds that blight in springing, These, alas! are types of all To which our hearts are clinging.'"

"What a little pessimist you are, Dainty! Always turning your face to the darker side of life!" cried her lover, somewhat impatiently; adding: "Nothing shall happen to part us, my own little love; though if your aunt and cousins had their way, we would never see each other's face again. Listen, Dainty. They have told me falsehoods about you--that you had left a lover in Richmond; that he has followed you here, and has been sending you notes to meet him in the grounds."

"Shameful!" she cried, indignantly. "How could they be so wicked!"

"And," continued her lover, crumpling the letters into a ball and throwing them into her lap, "they gave me these notes to read, saying you had dropped them, and a servant had brought them to your aunt."

Dainty smoothed out the sheets and glanced at them calmly.

"Oh!" she cried comprehensively. "And did you read them, dear?"

"Certainly not! I could not stoop so low. Besides, I had perfect confidence in you, my dearest," he cried tenderly.

"Oh, Love, how n.o.ble you are to me! But your trust is not misplaced. I can explain all about these notes; so please read them now," said the young girl, earnestly, smoothing them out and holding them open before his eyes.

He read, with much amazement, the following notes in a neat, masculine chirography:

"DEAR LITTLE DAINTY,--Will you meet me down at the gate about sunset? I have something very particular to say to you. I know your good heart will make you grant me this small favor. Do not fail me.

"Yours, wretchedly, VERNON."

"MY CRUEL DARLING,--Is it possible you can refuse my earnest prayer for one short interview? Oh, how you have changed since you left Richmond! Yet such a little while ago you swore you loved me as dearly as I loved you, and promised to marry me in December. I see how it is--that rich Ellsworth is winning you away from me.

Oh, my love, I can not bear to lose you! Life would be worthless, even unbearable, if you forsook me now! Oh, let me see you once, just once, and you can not resist my pleadings! I curse the hour that your rich aunt tempted you from love and duty! Oh, return to your better self--come to me, dear! I will be waiting at the gate just at twilight. When you see me, you will repent that cold letter breaking our engagement. Come, oh, come, my love; my heart is breaking for you!

"Despairingly, VERNON."

Love finished the reading, and looked up in amazement at Dainty's calm face.

She gave him a sweet, rea.s.suring smile as she said:

"The case certainly looks dark against me, does it not, Love?"

"Yes," he replied, somewhat uneasily, in spite of his faith.

"And yet I can explain it all," she returned, happily; adding: "This Vernon Ashley was Ela Craye's lover. They were engaged; but Vernon is only a poor man, a stenographer in a bank, and when Aunt Judith invited her here, she heartlessly threw him over, hoping to catch a richer husband. He followed her to Ellsworth, and sent the first little note to me, begging me to ask Ela to grant him an interview. I asked her, but she refused in scorn; and when I carried him her refusal, he sent her this note of love and reproach. He also told me he would stay in the neighborhood several days, hoping she would relent. That is the true story, and if you wish to verify it, Love, you can easily find Mr.

Ashley at Caldwell Station, and he will settle all your doubts."

"I have never had a doubt of you, my darling," he answered, bending forward to kiss her tenderly, as he continued: "But what shameful duplicity to deceive my step-mother with this false story, for I am sure she believed every word she was telling me! But never mind; I will get even with Miss Craye, be sure of that, Dainty. And now I have to tell you of another story. It is said that you have hysterical spells every night, declaring that you are haunted by the mythical old monk, with the consumption. Is this true?"

Instantly the fair, rosy face became pale and downcast, and Dainty shuddered as if an icy blast had swept over her lissom form.

"Oh, who has told you this?" she cried, regretfully.

"The story was told Mrs. Ellsworth by Sheila Kelly. Is it true?" he demanded, earnestly; and the girl bowed her golden head sorrowfully, faltering:

"Oh, do not be angry with me, Love, but it is true!"

"True? Then why have you kept it from me?" he cried.

"Oh, Love, they told me you always grew angry when you heard anything about the Ellsworth ghost. They warned me that you would never forgive the mention of it. But I can not tell you an untruth. Since you ask me, I must own everything, and take the bitter consequences."

She bowed her fair face in her little white hands, and her form shook as with ague, in spite of the heat of the July weather.

"Since I came to Ellsworth," she cried, "there has never been a night but I have been tortured by the sight or sound of that old sick man. In the dead of night I have felt his cold, clammy hand on my brow, and wakened, sobbing with fright, sometimes to see his dark form fading from sight, and the echo of his hollow cough ringing in my horrified ears.

Yet that Sheila Kelly, on her cot across the room, slept heavily on and heard nothing. What secret agonies I have nightly endured only the angels can ever know, Love; but I bore it all rather than incur the risk of your anger and contempt. They had told you I was a coward, and I was trying to be brave, and not to tell you--to tell you--"

Her voice broke in a storm of choking sobs, and her lover caught her to his breast in a pa.s.sion of sympathy.

"My own brave darling! How much you have endured, like a patient little martyr, without complaint! Yet I feel sure it is nothing but your too vivid imagination. You have heard the silly stories from the servants, and you dreamed the rest while stolid Sheila Kelly slept on unconscious.

But this must not go on. I shall write to your mother to come to Ellsworth to stay with you until our wedding; and then, please G.o.d, you will forget, in the shelter of my love, all these nervous fancies."

"Our wedding!" she sobbed, bashfully, against his breast.

"Yes, darling, our wedding; for it must be very soon. I have never told you yet, love, that by the terms of my father's will I must marry on or before my twenty-sixth birthday, or forfeit my fortune to my step-mother."

"What a strange will!" she cried, forgetting her terrors in simple wonderment.

"Yes; my father had some peculiar notions. One of them was a rooted belief in the necessity, or expediency, of early marriages; and to insure my obedience to his wish, he framed his will in the fashion he did. But he was a good man, and I am not quarreling with his plans; for I would gladly get married to-day if you were willing, my precious girl," declared Love, kissing her as a fitting period to his sentence.

Dainty made no answer. She was fluttering with girlish timidity at thought of the early marriage he was threatening. She said to herself:

"I love him dearly, but I am afraid I shall not like to be married soon. I have not enough dignity to look like a married lady."

Unconscious of her girlish fears, Love continued, fondly:

"The first day of August is my twenty-sixth birthday, and we must be married on that day, my darling."

"Oh, I--" she began; but he stopped the objection with a kiss.

"You are going to say you can not get ready so soon; but you need not make many preparations, love. I want you to wear my mother's wedding-dress; it is so beautiful--a white brocade, veiled in costly lace. And we will be married at Ellsworth. That will be better than going back to the hot city for a wedding--do you not think so? Oh, I intend to have everything my own way, sweet; and so I shall write to your mother to-day to come at once to Ellsworth."

"But Aunt Judith--and the girls? They will be fearfully angry," she whispered, tearfully.

"Yes, they will be very angry, I grant you. But Ellsworth belongs to me, so they will have to behave or leave; and I fancy they will choose the former part. Now come with me to your aunt and cousins, and see how cleverly I shall pay them out for their meanness. Don't tremble so, my timid little love."

And taking her hand, he led her back to the house, to a long, vine-wreathed veranda, where the three ladies were sitting together.

Mrs. Ellsworth had just told them of Love's betrothal to Dainty, and they frowned when the happy lovers came among them hand in hand.

Love placed Dainty in a chair, then turned to his step-mother.

"Madame, Dainty has explained to my satisfaction the story you told me just now. One of these notes was written to her, the second one to Miss Craye, who will not deny that Vernon Ashley is her lover, and that Dainty only acted the part of a friend in trying to reconcile the estranged lovers."