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.”
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.