EAGLE LIBRARY No. 5 224 Pages 10 Cents
The Senator's Favorite
By Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
[Illustration: From Copyright Photo by Sarony, N. Y.]
STREET & SMITH
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The Senator's Favorite.
By Mrs. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER.
THE SENATOR'S FAVORITE.
By Mrs. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER,
Author of
"_Little Coquette Bonnie_," "_The Senator's Bride_," "_Brunette and
Blonde_," "_Rosamond_," _Etc._, _Etc._
[Illustration]
NEW YORK:
STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS,
29 Rose Street.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1893,
BY STREET & SMITH,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
THE SENATOR'S FAVORITE.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. "A ROSEBUD SET WITH LITTLE WILLFUL THORNS."
CHAPTER II. "LOVE TOOK UP THE GLASS OF TIME."
CHAPTER III. "THEY HAVE CHEATED ME OF THE LOVE THAT SHOULD BE MINE."
CHAPTER IV. "FOR LOVE OF HER FAIR FACE."
CHAPTER V. IN A VILLAIN'S POWER.
CHAPTER VI. THE FORTUNE-TELLER.
CHAPTER VII. "IT IS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF FATE THAT YOU WILL SIN
AND YOU WILL SUFFER."
CHAPTER VIII. "IF I EVER HAVE A LOVER HE MUST BE GRAND AND HANDSOME."
CHAPTER IX. A FAITHFUL FRIEND.
CHAPTER X. "HIS HEART WILL TURN BACK TO ME."
CHAPTER XI. TO FORGET THE LURING BLUE EYES.
CHAPTER XII. "A VILLAGE COQUETTE."
CHAPTER XIII. LADYBIRD'S LOVE-TEST.
CHAPTER XIV. "LIKE DIAN'S KISS."
CHAPTER XV. DID A SHADOW FROM THE FUTURE FALL OVER THAT YOUNG,
DREAMING HEART?
CHAPTER XVI. "OH, THAT WORD 'REGRET!'"
CHAPTER XVII. "HAD I BUT MET YOU FIRST."
CHAPTER XVIII. A MADCAP'S PRANK.
CHAPTER XIX. "THE WOMAN I LOVED AND THE MAN THAT WAS ONCE MY MORTAL
FOE!"
CHAPTER XX. IN ANGER.
CHAPTER XXI. DISCARDED!
CHAPTER XXII. ROSY DREAMS.
CHAPTER XXIII. "SWEETHEART, GOOD-BY!"
CHAPTER XXIV. A PROUD GIRL'S HUMILITY.
CHAPTER XXV. "THE WINDS OF FATE BLOW EVER."
CHAPTER XXVI. "IT IS LOVELY TO LOVE AND BE LOVED."
CHAPTER XXVII. A WAITING-MAID'S ROMANCE.
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE SHADOW OF ORPHANAGE AND SORROW.
CHAPTER XXIX. THE PRICE OF A SECRET.
CHAPTER XXX. "THE FLOWER OF FRIENDSHIP CAN ONLY BLOOM IN IMPERISHABLE
BEAUTY IN THE CONGENIAL SOIL OF A NOBLE NATURE."
CHAPTER XXXI. A STARTLING DISCOVERY.
CHAPTER XXXII. THE NUN AT THE BAL MASQUE.
CHAPTER XXXIII. "AH! YOUR BLUSH BETRAYS YOU!"
CHAPTER XXXIV. "MY BRIDE OR THE BRIDE OF DEATH!"
CHAPTER XXXV. THE CAPTIVE'S BRAVERY.
CHAPTER XXXVI. "ARE YOU GLAD THAT REVENGE LIES IN YOUR HANDS?"
CHAPTER XXXVII. LOVE TRIUMPHANT.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE SHIP THAT NEVER RETURNED.
CHAPTER XXXIX. "FAIR LOT THAT MAIDENS CHOOSE."
CHAPTER XL. ETHEL'S VICTORY.
CHAPTER I.
"A ROSEBUD SET WITH LITTLE WILLFUL THORNS."
"We were two daughters of one race;
She was the fairest in the face;
The wind is sighing in turret and tree.
I hated her with the hate of hell,
Therefore revenge became me well.
Oh, but she was fair to see!"--TENNYSON.
"Mamma, darling, you'll take me to the Inauguration Ball, that's a
love."
"Oh, my baby, what an absurd idea! And you only sixteen!"
"I'm as tall as you, mamma, and I only look small because my dresses
are too short. I wish you would let out the tucks to hide my
ankles--there now!"
"But, Precious, you have the prettiest feet and ankles in the world."
"I don't care; I want my dresses long, and my hair put up. I'm tired
of being only a schoolgirl! Everybody in Washington will be at the
Inauguration Ball. I want to go, too, and shake hands with the new
president."
"Nonsense, dear; the next Inauguration Ball will be time enough for
you."
"Four years! Why, then I shall be twen-ty. Quite an old maid, mamma,
dear, with crows' feet and wrinkles."
Mrs. Winans, the handsome wife of a noted Southern Senator, threw back
her graceful golden head, and laughed softly:
"Oh, what a ridiculous child!"
But her dark-blue eyes lingered tenderly on the lovely upturned face,
for Precious was on an ottoman at her mother's feet.
Mrs. Winans was the mother of three children--a son and two daughters.
Precious was the youngest--"the baby," they called her--and, like
all babies, she was spoiled, and liked to have her own way, always
wheedling her parents until she got whatever she wanted.
"Dear mamma, you will let me go," she cried teasingly.
"Go where?" exclaimed a musical voice, as a tall, dark, regal beauty
entered the library. "Go where?" she repeated. "And what is the baby
teasing for now, mamma?"
Precious Winans lifted her golden head from her mother's knee, and
turning her pansy-blue eyes on her queenly sister replied, with the air
of a little princess:
"Ethel, I've made up my mind to go to the Inauguration Ball."
"The ball, indeed?" and Ethel shook with laughter in which her mother
joined.
Ere the echo of their mirth died away a tall, dark, handsome man
entered the room--their father, from whom the elder girl inherited
her dusky beauty, while the younger was the image of her lovely blond
mother.
"What is the joke about?" he asked genially, and his wife replied:
"Precious has a new notion in her silly little noddle. She wants to
attend the Inauguration Ball."
"The idea!" laughed Ethel, gently sarcastic.
But Precious had fled to her father, and was hanging on his neck. As he
clasped the lissome form to his heart he asked earnestly:
"Why not?"
"Yes, why not?" echoed his pretty pet.
"But, papa, she is too young," cried Ethel, almost angrily.
"Don't listen to her, papa. She doesn't want me to have one bit of fun.
But I will go to the ball, for you will say yes, won't you, my darling
old love?" and she stroked his rippling black whiskers with her dainty
mite of a hand, and gazed into his eyes with innocent confidence.
He hugged the little pleader tight, and looked over the top of her
golden head at his wife.
"What say you, Grace, my dear? Isn't she big enough to go to the ball?"
"I'm as tall as mamma. You needn't laugh, Ethel," cried Precious, and
waited eagerly for her mother's reply.
The gentle lady said sweetly:
"I'm sorry to disappoint my dear little girl, but she is too young to
go into society yet, and she would have to make her _début_ as a young
lady before she went to a grand ball."
"I don't care if I'm not a young lady, mamma; I'm determined to go to
the ball," cried Precious, with hysterical symptoms, and Mrs. Winans
sighed gently.
"Indeed, my darling girl, I'm sorry to refuse you, but--" she began,
and paused in dismay, for a sound of petulant weeping filled the room.
Precious lay in her father's arms transformed into a Niobe.
"Oh, Precious, pray don't be such a baby," implored Ethel impatiently,
but the sobbing only grew louder, and between whiles came the pathetic
plaint:
"Nobody cares for me."
Those tears and sobs melted the father's doting heart. He cried out
pleadingly.
"Poor little love, her heart is almost broken. Do let her go, mamma."
"Papa is the only friend I have in the world!" wailed the diplomatic
little darling, and he pressed her closer to his throbbing heart.
"Ah, Gracie, how can you refuse?" he exclaimed, but Ethel cried out
pettishly:
"Papa, you have spoiled Precious until she is a perfect baby, and if
she cried for the moon I believe you'd try to have a ladder built up to
it. You always find it easy enough to refuse me when I ask imprudent
things, and I don't think you ought to take sides against mamma in
this. Let Precious wait a few years before she comes out."
But dismal sobs were the only answer to this plea, and Precious wept,
persuasively:
"Oh, papa, darling papa, do say that I may go, for mamma will do
anything you wish."
The senator's pleading dark eyes met the anxious blue ones of his wife,
and he said eagerly:
"Dearest, she wants to go so very, very much, and it will break her
sweet little heart if you refuse. Besides, this is different from
a regular ball, for thousands and thousands of people attend the
Inauguration Ball just to see the new president. There will be a great
crush as usual, and you will bring the girls home very soon, I know. So
for this one time I think we may humor our baby's curiosity. Now dry
your eyes, my pet."
"Oh, you darling! you darling!" cried Precious ecstatically, and lifted
her face, all lovely and damp like a rain-washed rose. She embraced him
rapturously, then flew to her mother.
"Mamma, you shall never repent this, for I'll be as good as gold
hereafter."
Ethel had turned away and left the room with a frowning brow and darkly
flashing eyes.
"He loves her best," she murmured bitterly. "He would never have
yielded like that to my entreaties for anything against dear mamma's
wish. Ah, why is it so? Am I not beautiful and good, and his elder
daughter? Why should Precious be always first in my noble father's
heart?"
That jealous heart-cry strikes the keynote of our story, dear reader,
for had the senator not loved Precious best, this story of Ethel's
temptation and her sister's suffering would never have been written.
* * * * *
Ethel Winans was bitterly unhappy.
Unhappy? and why?
Externally she had everything to make her blessed.
Young, beautiful, healthy, the fortunate daughter of a rich and
distinguished statesman, this girl had
"But lain in the lilies
And fed on the roses of life."
But Milton has aptly written:
"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."
Ethel Winans' life stream had been poisoned at its very source by a
baleful jealousy.
Those who knew her gifted father best were aware that his early married
life had been embittered by the faults of a passionately jealous nature
intent on supremacy in everything. This elder daughter had inherited
his beauty and his temperament. Every parental influence was working
against her happiness.
She went with a weary, listless step to her own apartments, and fell
heavily upon a silken divan. Her red lips were trembling, and tears
began to rain from her beautiful eyes.
"Why was I ever born?" she cried angrily. "No one cares for poor Ethel!
Mamma, in spite of her denials, loves my brother Earle the best, and
papa worships Precious. If I were dead they would scarcely miss me."
She began to pace up and down the luxurious room, her rich crimson silk
gown trailing soundlessly over the thick velvet carpet, her loosened
tresses pouring in a dusky torrent below her waist, her lovely jeweled
hands writhing together in agony.
"How I love him, my noble, handsome father!" she cried. "But ever since
Precious was born, before I was three years old, she has supplanted
me in everything. I can remember it all although I was so young. She
pushed me from my mother's breast, she crowded me from my father's
heart. I was no longer the petted baby. I must give way to Little Blue
Eyes, as they call her, and from the first I hated my rival. When I
was little I used to strike her, until my mother's gentle teachings
made me ashamed, and then I tried to love my little sister for mamma's
sake. I do love her. God knows I love her, for who could help it, she
is so sweet and lovely? Yet there are times--horrible times--when Satan
seems to possess my soul, and I give way to something that is awful--to
jealous hate and fury--and then, oh, then, I wish that Precious were
dead, or that I had never been born. Once I confessed all to mamma,
and she shuddered and wept at my wickedness. But she clasped me in her
tender arms, and told me that she loved me--oh, very, very much and
that she would pray for me daily! Dear mamma! she is an angel, and I
am a wicked, rebellious girl, and frighten every one with my fits of
temper and imperious ways. And I forget to pray for myself as mamma
bade me do, and when I forget, the Evil One gets possession of my weak
soul."
She fell on her knees, she lifted her streaming dark eyes heavenward.
"Oh, Heaven help me, make me a better girl, keep me from hating my dear
little sister, and save me from my own evil nature!" she prayed, with
desperate fervor.