"A VILLAGE COQUETTE."
"Laughing eyes, curly hair, dainty robes,
They had crazed his hot, fiery brain, then.
Ah, the silliest maiden can make
A fool of the wisest of men!"
--MAY AGNES FLEMING.
"I am seventeen to-day, and I have thirteen lovers!" cried pretty,
saucy Ladybird, pirouetting on the velvet greensward in front of her
father's house at Rosemont until her short golden-brown locks danced in
fluffy rings all over her round, white, babyish forehead.
"Thirteen is always an unlucky number. Thee ought to jilt thy last
lover," cried Auntie Prue from the porch.
"Ay, but I won't, for I like the thirteenth best of all," laughed the
little beauty.
"You'll rue the day if you marry him," cried Aura Stanley sharply.
She leaned against a rose-wreathed pillar of the porch, a tall girl in
pink, with hard black eyes and thick brown hair in a rich braid. She
lived next door and was the village lawyer's only daughter.
Before the Conways came here to live, five weeks ago, Aura had been
called the prettiest girl in the village, but now the town was divided
into two factions over the rival beauties, and among those who had gone
over to the enemy was one on whom Aura's passionate heart was set.
"You'll rue the day, Ladybird, if you marry him," repeated Aura
angrily, and held up her shapely white hand, on which glittered a
splendid diamond ring; but, to her surprise and horror, the little
dancing madcap laughed and answered teasingly:
"Nonsense! I'll be wearing that ring in a week, Aura."
"Never! I'll throw it in the river first," flashed Aura, and Aunt Prue
caught the glance of jealous hate in the girl's black eyes.
She exclaimed soothingly:
"Aura, the child is only teasing thee. She does not want thy lover,
dear."
Ladybird Conway turned her laughing hazel eyes on the old lady and
protested gayly:
"But, Auntie Prue, he's my lover now. Doesn't he call on me three times
a week, and send me flowers and books and candy? And hasn't he promised
to escort me to the picnic to-morrow?"
"He asked me first, but I refused," cried Aura triumphantly, and added
spitefully: "I wouldn't take what another girl refused."
"Neither would I!" flashed Ladybird, with such sarcastic emphasis
that Aura flushed burning red at the intimation that she had told a
falsehood.
"Girls, girls, don't thee quarrel over nothing!" cried the old
Quakeress anxiously, but Aura was furious.
"Ladybird Conway, I'll never speak to you again," she cried, and flew
down the graveled path, shutting the front gate with a vicious slam.
Aunt Prue cried out reprovingly:
"Thee has lost thy young friend forever, Ladybird, and thee ought to be
ashamed of thyself, taking another girl's lover so audaciously."
"But he isn't hers--so there! I know, because I asked him. I said she
claimed him, and if that was so not to come to see me any more. But he
denied it. He said he had only known her two weeks when we moved here,
and had no idea of being engaged to her. He lent her the ring because
she asked him to, and she's only trying to claim him to vex me," and
the lovely face, with its dancing hazel eyes and lilies and roses,
looked quite earnest for a moment.
"But, child, thee ain't in love with this Earle Winans? Thee ain't
thinking of marrying him, dear?"
Willful Ladybird smiled and blushed, and answered roguishly:
"Why, Auntie Prue, of course I intend to get married some time; I don't
want to be an old maid like you; but I mean to marry the man that loves
me best."
"The one that loves thee best? But, child, how can thee guess that out
of thirteen lovers?"
"Oh, I have a grand plan to test all my lovers--at the picnic
to-morrow!" and the fair face dimpled all over with mischievous
laughter.
"Are they all going--the thirteen? Thee will not have any peace, child,
and the other girls will be jealous."
"I don't care. It's such fun to have so many admirers showing me
attention at the same time," laughed the little incarnation of sunny
beauty and unconscious cruelty.
"But it's cruel to make the young men suffer so!" hazarded the
kind-hearted old lady, and again the girl laughed archly:
"Suffer? Oh, pshaw! they need to have the conceit taken out of them,"
and Ladybird began to run over the category of the faults and foibles
of her admirers, making such sarcastic hits that the old Quakeress
shook with silent laughter and gave up her futile lecture on coquetry.
But when the girl paused for breath, all rosy and laughing, Aunt Prue
exclaimed:
"Thee hasn't said a word about thy last lover--about Earle Winans."
"My thirteenth lover. Oh, no, I have no fault to find with him. He
is simply perfect," cried Ladybird, as innocently as if she had not
guessed that Aura Stanley was listening behind her parlor blinds to
every word.
Aura was listening, her eyes wrathful, her cheeks burning.
But she heard no more just then.
After that saucy parting shot Ladybird sat down on the porch steps like
a little child, with her round, dimpled chin in the hollow of her soft
little hand, and fell to watching the rosy sunset as the god of day
sank to rest behind the purple western hills. Her face wore a pensive
cast that made her look positively angelic. And yet she was actually
meditating a deed of girlish _diablerie_ on the morrow, the naughty
little coquette!
The next day was perfect--a May day, clear and golden, and when the
fervid sunbeams began to dry the dew-tears from the eyes of the blue
violets in the grass, the gay picnic party assembled in the Rosemont
orchard by the river, the scene of the day's festivities.
All the prettiest girls of the village were there, and not one of
Ladybird's lovers had stayed away. And how they envied handsome Earle
Winans, who was her special companion for the day, while they had to
be content with other girls--pretty enough, to be sure--but--"not the
rose."
Aura Stanley had come with Clarence Grey, but she knew she was second
choice, that he had asked Ladybird first, and she could hardly control
her bitter resentment.
Ladybird gave her a saucy nod and smile when they met, but Aura averted
her head in jealous anger when she saw how lovely her rival looked in
her white flannel suit with the blue silk blouse showing under the open
white jacket, and the white sailor hat crowning the little head, with
its fluffy rings of golden brown.
"Miss Stanley would not speak to you--why?" Earle Winans asked in
surprise.
"Because I teased her yesterday. I--I--told her I'd be wearing that
ring of yours within a week," and Ladybird gave him a coquettish side
glance from her dazzling eyes that made his heart leap and his cheek
burn.
She was playing with fire, this thoughtless girl, for Earle Winans'
heart knew how to love with burning passion.
His voice trembled with emotion as he said eagerly:
"Would you like to have the ring, Miss Conway?"
"I, Mr. Winans? Why, certainly not. I was only teasing Aura; she seemed
to prize it so highly and declared she would throw it in the river
before I should have it," asserted Ladybird, gayly.
"I will get the ring for you any minute you say you'll wear it,
Ladybird. You know what I mean--as my betrothed," murmured her handsome
young lover eagerly.
Ladybird blushed rosy red, then smiled brightly and whispered back:
"I'll give you my answer to-morrow."
And all his pleading would not induce her to shorten his probation.
"To-morrow--you must wait till to-morrow," she repeated, but her
drooping eyes and rosy blushes made him almost certain what her answer
would be.
Aura Stanley watched the lovers with a jealous pang, for it was a
cruel blow to lose Earle, whom she had hoped to captivate, not only
because she loved him, but because he was the son of a great man and
had a fortune in his own right. She was ambitious and longed to reign a
social queen.
By some clever maneuvering she managed to get a _tête-à-tête_ by the
river bank with Earle that day, and then she said coldly:
"Ah, really, I must return your ring, Mr. Winans."
She held the glittering circlet toward him on the end of her taper
finger, and somehow, just as he was about to accept the ring, it
slipped off Aura's finger, flashed like an evil eye in the sunlight,
then rolled into the river.
"Oh, I am so sorry--but it was an accident," cried Aura quickly.
The young man's eyes flashed with anger, and he cried with stinging
contempt:
"Oh, no, you did it on purpose, because you thought I meant to give it
to Miss Conway. But it does not matter; I will buy her a prettier one
to-morrow."
Aura sprang to her feet, her eyes blazing, her cheeks crimson, and
exclaimed in a loud, angry voice:
"You villain! How dare you insult me like that?"