"Who is the young _debutante_, Miss Lyle?"
Sydney Lyle, coming down the long ball-room on the arm of the most
distinguished man in the room, looked up with ill-concealed annoyance at
his words.
She followed his glance, and saw little Queenie standing in the center
of a group of admirers, fluttering her satin fan with the grace of an
embryo coquette. The girl looked lovely as a dream in her thin, white
dress, with its multitudinous puffings and frillings.
It was looped here and there with natural rosebuds, and she wore her set
of pearls clasped round her white throat and wrists, while her golden
hair rippled to her waist in a shower of natural ringlets. Anything more
sweetly fair and happy could scarcely be imagined than Queenie, as she
stood there, warm and flushed from the dance, and enjoying, with all the
keenness of youth and novelty, the honied flatteries of the little court
around her. An irrepressible pang of jealousy gave a touch of sharpness
to Sydney's voice, as she answered:
"That is my sister Queenie, Captain Ernscliffe--a willful child who
ought to be in the school-room this moment, but who has persuaded mamma
to let her come here instead."
"Ah! your sister," said Captain Ernscliffe. "I might have known it by
her beauty. She has lived near the _rose_," and he pointed the
compliment by a meaning glance that made Sydney blush. "You will
introduce me, Miss Lyle?"
"Certainly." Sydney answered, and pausing beside Queenie, she said,
carelessly:
"Captain Ernscliffe, this is my sister, Queenie. If she should shock you
by her _outre_ manners, please remember that she is but a child and
quite unaccustomed to appear in society."
Captain Ernscliffe bowed low over the white-gloved hand of the
enchanting little beauty, and Queenie looked up at him and said, with a
flash of wrath against Sydney:
"You need not believe Sydney, when she tells you I am nothing but a
child, Captain Ernscliffe. I am _seventeen_ years old, and I know how to
behave myself just as well as any young lady of my age, in spite of
Sydney's warning."
The gentleman saw that the young heart was sorely wounded, despite her
quick assumption of dignity, and hastened to say, consolingly:
"I can well believe you, Miss Queenie, for I see there is but one
unanimous opinion among the gentlemen. You are the belle of the ball."
Sydney passed on with the words rankling in her heart, though she knew
that they were true. Among all the beautiful women present, in their
cosily dresses and splendid jewels, little Queenie, with her sunny smile
and her cheap, white tarleton dress, was the most admired and sought
after.
The women who envied her fresh, young loveliness sneered at the simple
dress, but the men--bless their ignorant hearts--did not know whether
the snowy mist that floated about her cost a hundred dollars or five.
They only saw that her face was the fairest, her eyes the brightest, her
voice the sweetest of any in the room. Mrs. Lyle saw the sensation she
created, and straightway began to lay matrimonial plans for her.
"Sydney and Georgina are both handsome and stylish, yet they are very
slow in marrying off well," she said to herself, with a sigh. "Perhaps I
shall have better luck with my willful Queenie. There is that rich
Ernscliffe with her now. He is a splendid catch, but then, Sydney has
had her heart set on him this long while. She would be very angry if
Queenie were to rival her."
In the meantime little Queenie was clapping her tiny hands and saying,
in a voice full of girlish pleasure:
"The belle of the ball, Captain Ernscliffe? Oh, how nice that is! I love
for people to like me, yet Syd and George said that no one would look at
me in this cheap dress, that I bought for five dollars and made with my
own hands."
"It is the prettiest dress in the rooms. I had no idea but that it cost
at least a hundred dollars," said Captain Ernscliffe, regarding the
fairy-like puffs attentively. "And your bouquet, as the ladies say, is
too sweet for anything. Was it a tribute from some admirer?"
She blushed and smiled, and lifted the fragrant triumph of the floral
art to her sweet face.
"You have guessed right," she said. "It was handed in at our door this
evening, with the compliments of an unknown admirer."
"The fellow had fine taste anyway," laughed the captain, "both in the
selection of the flowers and their recipient."
"Thank you," answered Queenie, demurely, looking up with a smile, and
dropping her lashes very quickly a minute after, for something in the
glance of his dark eyes sent a blush to her cheek and made her silly
little heart thrill strangely.
Captain Ernscliffe only smiled like one used to such effects. He was a
bachelor, and thirty years old, and women called him a flirt. Be that as
it may, he was as handsome as a prince, and knew how to make women's
lashes flutter down upon cheeks that blushed crimson under his glance.
"What an innocent little darling she is," he thought, to himself. "How
different from her sisters, and from the girls one meets usually in
society! One might well resign all the liberties of bachelorhood to win
and wear so sweet a flower." "Doubtless you have woven a pretty web of
romance about the unknown giver of your flowers, Miss Lyle," he said,
jestingly.
She had pressed the flowers to her lips unconsciously, and at his words
she started and smiled, and looked up to reply with the brightest face
he had ever looked upon. But suddenly, before a single word left her
lips, her aspect changed strangely and marvelously. Her cheeks and lips
grew white as death, her eyes grew wild with horror, and she swept her
hand across her brow as if to dispel some horrid vision. Her form
trembled like a leaf in a storm, and with a wild, inarticulate cry she
wavered and fell in a lifeless heap at Captain Ernscliffe's feet.
It was all so sudden that Captain Ernscliffe lifted her up and carried
her through the low window out on the balcony before anyone had noticed
her fall. He laid her down on a rustic lounge, turned her white face up
to the air, and went and called her mother very quietly.
"Oh! Captain Ernscliffe, is she dead?" exclaimed Mrs. Lyle, wringing her
hands in terror.
"Oh! no, she has only fainted, I think. The rooms were too warm,
perhaps. See, she is already reviving in the cooler air out here."
The girl's breath came fluttering back in a long, quivering sigh. She
caught Captain Ernscliffe's arm and half-lifted herself without seeming
to notice her mother.
"Oh! Captain Ernscliffe, did you see _it_?" she gasped, rather than
spoke.
"Did I see _what_?" he inquired, rather blankly.
"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 balls, you know."
"And _you_ saw nothing but the _dancers_?" she said to him, shivering as
she spoke, like one in a chill, and passing her hand before her eyes.
"Nothing, I assure 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_!"