"The _horrid_ vision that came between me and the flowers and made me faint," she answered, sitting up and looking at him in surprise.

"My dear young lady, there was nothing to see, only the dancers. You were tired and excited, and the heat overcame you. You are unaccustomed to the crush and excitement of b.a.l.l.s, you know."

"And _you_ saw nothing but the _dancers_?" she said to him, shivering as she spoke, like one in a chill, and pa.s.sing her hand before her eyes.

"Nothing, I a.s.sure you," he answered, gravely.

"What did you see, Queenie?" inquired Mrs. Lyle, coming forward.

"Oh! mamma, is that you?" Little Queenie reached out her white arms, twined them about her mother's neck, and sank on her bosom trembling and shivering, and moaning faintly: "Oh! mamma! mamma!"

"My dear, my dear, compose yourself. You are nervous and hysterical,"

remonstrated Mrs. Lyle. "See, you are distressing Captain Ernscliffe very much."

Little Queenie hushed her sobs and looked up at the gentleman, who did indeed look anxious and distressed.

"What was it you saw, Miss Lyle?" he inquired, gently.

"Perhaps you will not credit it," she said, lifting her white, awe-stricken face in the moonlight that flooded the balcony, "but, Captain Ernscliffe, just as I looked up from my flowers to speak to you, the whole scene of the ball faded out into _blackness_, and then I saw a vision come before me in its place."

She paused, shuddered visibly, then resumed:

"I saw a thick, dark wood before me with the rain-drops falling down through the leaves of the trees. I saw a tall man with his back to me, and close by that man was a _grave_--a shallow grave, so shallow that it could not hide the girl that lay within it, for the wind and the rain had beaten away the earth and the dead leaves with which the man had covered her. I saw her awfully white, dead face upturned to the light, and there were cruel black marks around her throat as if someone had choked her--and a purple wound on her brow."

"My darling, it was only your excited imagination," said Mrs. Lyle, soothingly.

"Oh, no, I saw it quite plainly," answered little Queenie, with a sharp wail of anguish; "and, oh, mamma, mamma, _the face of that dead girl was just exactly like mine_!"

CHAPTER IV.

"I always knew you were a little simpleton, Queenie, but I never thought you could be so foolish and ungrateful as this! No girl in her senses would refuse the chance of spending Captain Ernscliffe's money!"

Three months had elapsed since the grand ball at Mrs. Kirk's, and Queenie Lyle was arraigned before the bar of maternal justice. Little Queenie had spent those three months in a perfect whirl of excitement, pleasure and conquest. And now Captain Ernscliffe, the irresistible, the invincible, had surrendered at discretion, and actually proposed to marry her! And little Queenie Lyle had had the audacity to refuse the honor.

"To think," went on Mrs. Lyle, reproachfully, "how we have humored and indulged you the last three months, and all for this! You have been to all the b.a.l.l.s and parties worth going to--you have had nice dresses and laces--and we all thought you would marry off well, and rid your papa of one of his expensive daughters--yet last month you refused that rich old Myddleton! I did not care as much for that, for I saw that Ernscliffe was madly in love, and thought you would be sure to accept him. Yet now you have actually refused him, too, you wicked, ungrateful girl!"

"Mamma, mamma," pleaded Queenie, with a quivering lip, "do not be angry with me. I could not marry Captain Ernscliffe, because I do not love him."

"Then if you do not love _him_ you can never love anyone," exclaimed Mrs. Lyle. "He is handsome, accomplished, wealthy; and there's not a girl I know but would jump at _your_ chance, Sydney not excepted."

"Sydney _loves_ him, mamma--let her marry him."

"She cannot get him--more's the pity. I wish he had fancied her instead of you," said Mrs. Lyle, sharply.

"I wish so too mamma. I am very sorry for Sydney, and for Captain Ernscliffe, too," said Queenie, with a long, quivering sigh.

"You had better be sorry for yourself, foolish girl; you have thrown away the best chance for marrying that you ever will have!" exclaimed Mrs. Lyle, angrily, for she was deeply chagrined at Queenie's willful disregard of her best interests.

To her surprise Queenie threw herself down at her feet and began to sob wildly.

"Mamma, I am sorry for myself," she moaned, faintly, "so sorry that I wish I were dead!"

"For shame, Queenie, to go into such a pa.s.sion because I scolded you!

Get up and stop making a baby of yourself," said her mother severely.

Little Queenie dried her eyes at that sharp reproof and went on with her packing, which Mrs. Lyle's entrance had interrupted, for they were to sail for Europe that week, and the house was "topsy-turvey" with their preparations.

Her mother sat moodily watching her as she folded silks and laces, and packed them away securely in the great Saratoga trunk.

"What have you in that box, Queenie?" she inquired, seeing the girl put a box in the trunk with a half-conscious glance. "You look as if you were smuggling something."

Queenie blushed violently, and Mrs. Lyle saw that she trembled as she answered falteringly:

"Nothing of any importance, I a.s.sure you, mamma."

"Let me see," said Mrs. Lyle, resolutely, and she took the box from the trunk and lifted the lid. "Why, what have we here? Flowers--withered flowers! Queenie, why upon earth are you keeping these dead, ill-smelling things? Throw them out of the window."

"Oh, no, mamma," cried Queenie, blushing very much and trying to take the box from her mother's hand.

But Mrs. Lyle held on to the box and took out three bouquets of withered flowers, and three cards that lay in the bottom of the box. She read aloud:

"From an unknown admirer of Miss Queenie Lyle."

"Oh dear, dear," said Mrs. Lyle, impatiently; "now I begin to understand. These flowers, which were sent by some impudent fellow, have made a fool of you, Queenie. You have been building a romance over him, and that is why you have no eyes for better men. Tell me the truth now, Queenie; do you know who sent you these flowers?"

"How should I know, mamma?" asked the girl, evasively, and turning her crimson face away from her mother's keen scrutiny. "You see he writes himself unknown."

"Well, known or unknown, here is an end to _that_ foolishness," said Mrs. Lyle, crossing the room and tossing the luckless flowers out of the window. "I did not know you were so silly and romantic, Queenie, as to carry a bunch of dead flowers to Europe."

Queenie stamped her little foot on the floor, and her eyes flashed fire.

"Mamma, you had no right to throw my flowers away!" she pa.s.sionately exclaimed. "Papa would never have intermeddled with my affairs like that!"

Mrs. Lyle dropped into a chair and buried her face in her hands.

"To think that I should have a child that would treat me so disrespectfully," she sighed.

"What has mamma been doing to my little pet?" asked Mr. Lyle, entering quietly and unexpectedly, as he always did.

There was an awkward silence for a moment; then Queenie said, with her sweet face turned away:

"Mamma has been scolding me because I would not marry Captain Ernscliffe."

"Your papa would do well to scold you also," flashed Mrs. Lyle. "After all your father's goodness to you, and your pretense of loving him so well, to think that you would throw away your chance of helping him in his old age. I have no patience with such folly!"