AN AGREEABLE SURPRISE
Gwynette went about in a dream. She and Charles had been for a sunrise
sail (as Lenora had said that she and her brother had so often been on
Lake Tahoe) and they had made their plans. Charles was to return to the
Dakota ranch on scheduled time and work with his father during the
summer, then, in the fall, he would return for his bride.
“Unless you change your mind and wish to marry someone in your _own_
class,” he said, as hand in hand they returned to the big house. The girl
flushed. “Don’t!” she pleaded. Then, “I want to forget how worthless were
my old ideals.”
“And you wouldn’t even marry the younger son of a noble English family,
in preference to me, I mean, if you knew one and he asked you?” Gwyn
thought the query a strange one, but looked up, replying with sweet
sincerity: “No, Charles, I shall marry no one but _you_.” Then she
laughed. “What a queer question that was. A young nobleman is not very
apt to ask _me_ to marry him.”
There was a merry expression on the lad’s handsome, wind and sun tanned
face as he said: “Wrong there, Gwynette, for one _has_ asked you.” Then,
when he thought that he had mysterified her sufficiently, he continued:
“Did you ever hear it rumored that a pupil of the Granger Place Seminary
might, some day, have the right to the title ‘My Lady’?”
Gwyn flushed. Even yet she did _not_ suspect the truth, and she feared
Harold had told of her humiliation in giving a ball at The Palms in honor
of a supposed daughter of nobility whose father proved to be a pigraiser.
Rather coldly she said, “I had heard such a rumor, but we all decided
that it was untrue.”
“But it wasn’t. Were my sister in England she would be called ‘Lady
Lenora.’ Our uncle died last winter and father is now in possession of
the family estates and title.”
The girl flushed and tears rushed to her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me
all this sooner?” she asked, and the lad replied: “I had two reasons. One
was that I wished to be loved just for myself, and the other was that I
do not care to marry a snob.”
Then he had bounded away to breakfast with Harold at the cabin and to don
his overalls, for, not one morning had the boys neglected to appear at
the farm, on time, to help Grandpa Si.
* * * * * * * *
It was the hour for Gwyn to read to her mother, who was already waiting
in the pond-lily garden. The woman, much stronger than she had been, was
amazed to see the joy so plainly depicted on the beautiful face of her
adopted daughter. She held out a hand that was as white as the lilies on
the blue surface of the water.
“Gwynette, dear girl, what _has_ so transformed you?” To the woman’s
surprise, Gwyn dropped down on the low stool and, taking her hand,
pressed it close to her cheek. “Mother dear, I am so happy, so
wonderfully happy! But I don’t deserve it! I have always been so hateful.
How could I have won so priceless a treasure as the love of Charles
Gale?”
There were conflicting emotions in the heart of the listener. She had had
dreams of Gwynette’s coming-out party which they had planned for the next
winter. Mrs. Poindexter-Jones had often thought over the eligibles for
whom she would angle, after the fashion of mothers with beautiful
daughters, and here the matter had all been settled without her knowledge
and Gwyn was to marry a rancher’s son. “Dear,” she said tenderly,
smoothing the girl’s sun-glinted hair, “are you _sure_ that you love him?
With your beauty you could have won wealth and position.”
How glowing was the face that was lifted. “Mother, I _chose_ love, and
have won a far higher social pinnacle than _you_ ever dreamed for me.”
When the story had been told Mrs. Poindexter-Jones, notwithstanding her
changed ideals, was nevertheless pleased. She leaned forward and kissed
her daughter tenderly. “Dear girl,” she said, “I am especially glad that,
first of all, you chose love. I did when I married your father, but the
great mistake I made was continuing to be a snob.”
Gwyn arose. “I shall _not_, Mother, and to prove it, I shall go this
afternoon to call upon the Warners.”