Jaquelina

"It is very beautiful," said Valchester, shutting the book and glancing round quickly, so as to catch the expression on each face, "but I will not read anymore. I see that Walter looks bored, and Miss Earle as if she would rather talk to Miss Meredith about the party last night."

"I am dying to ask her if she enjoyed it all," said Violet, piqued that he had read her indifference to poetry, yet carrying it off with cool self-possession; "did you, Lina?"

Jaquelina looked up with a start, her dark eyes soft and dreamy. In fancy, she was still following the young brave, Hiawatha, as he bore his bride homeward.

"Oh! yes, it was delightful," she said, and a smile chased the momentary dreaminess away. "I enjoyed it all very much, except, perhaps, just at the last."

"I should have thought you would have enjoyed that most of all," cried Walter Earle. "Do you know, Miss Meredith, that you are quite a heroine all over the country this morning. Your presence of mind and daring are on every lip. The farmers breathe freely once more. You have not only earned the reward of two hundred dollars, but you have won the admiration and gratitude of all who have heard of it. By to-morrow morning you will find yourself in all the newspapers."

"'You will wake up and find yourself famous,'" quoted Violet, laughing.

But Jaquelina did not look elated at their words. A shadow seemed to fall over the brightness of the arch, brunette face. She glanced at Ronald Valchester shyly. His face was perfectly non-committal.

"I do not know whether to be ashamed or proud," she said, frankly. "Gerald Huntington seemed to think I had taken an unfair advantage of him. But to tell the truth, I have brooded so much and so ardently over his capture that I was wild with delight at the idea of its possibility. I forgot gratitude and everything else in the moment when I frantically clutched him—forgot everything but the offered reward."

"I did not know you were so mercenary, Lina," said Miss Earle, laughing.

Jaquelina looked abashed for a moment, then she answered, without looking up, and almost pleadingly:

"You see, Violet, I needed two hundred dollars so very, very much."

"For what?" said careless, thoughtless Walter. "To buy a silk dress, or a watch, or a pair of diamond earrings?"

"Neither," she answered, half vexed, half smiling. "I wanted it to buy an education."

Walter and Violet laughed. Valchester looked surprised a moment, then smiled a smile of sweet approval.

"I thought you were—educated," said Walter.

She was about to reply when Mrs. Meredith's shrill, peculiar call was heard from the house:

"Jack-we-li-ner! Jack-we-li-ner!"

Jaquelina's face faded in a frown of shame and annoyance. She rose, with a hurried excuse, and, promising to return, went to the house.

"Aunt Meredith, I have company," she said, a little impatiently, to the red-faced, cross-looking woman in the doorway.

"Where?" asked Mrs. Meredith, looking around, bewildered.

"Out in the orchard—Miss Violet Earle, with her brother and his friend," said Jaquelina. "I should like to go back if you can spare me."

"I can't spare you. I want you to tend Dollie while I run over to Mrs. Brown's on a matter of business," Mrs. Meredith said sharply.

"Can I take Dollie to the orchard with me? It is very warm and sunny there," said Jaquelina, timidly.

"Yes, take her if you choose—I don't care," said her aunt, as she slipped on her sunbonnet and hurried off to a gossiping neighbor's.

CHAPTER IX.

Jaquelina took the heavy child in her arms and went slowly back to the orchard.

"That inevitable Dollie," said Violet, warmly, as she saw her coming. "It's a shame that Mrs. Meredith does not hire a nurse for that great, fat child! I am sure if I were Jaquelina I would not be forced to carry it round."

"It is a shame," echoed Walter. "She is so slender she almost staggers beneath its weight."

But it never occurred to him to go and relieve her of the burden. It would have seemed superlatively ridiculous for him, the gay, handsome young dandy, to have carried chubby little Dollie Meredith up the hill, even to save a pretty girl's arms from aching.

He was surprised and vexed when Ronald Valchester rose and sauntered down the grassy orchard slope to meet Jaquelina.

"What is Valchester up to now?" he said, gnawing the ends of his fair mustache, jealously.

"Miss Meredith," said Valchester, with quiet courtesy, "allow me to carry the child for you. You are not strong enough for such a burden."

"No, thank you," she said, nervously, "I am quite accustomed to it you see, and——"

But all further remonstrance was cut short by Mr. Valchester's decisive action. He took the child gently but firmly from her arms and walked up the slope with it, for "all the world," as Violet rather acidly remarked to her brother, "like a country booby going to meeting with his wife and child."

"Val, I only wish that Millard could get a glimpse of you now!" called out Walter, laughing.

"Who is Millard?" Violet queried.

"Oh! one of our class-mates—an artist of no mean merit either. How delightfully he would caricature Valchester's appearance now."

Valchester did not seem disturbed by the playful hit. He sat Dollie down in the long grass and filled her fat little hands with pink-and-white clover heads. Jaquelina sat down beside her, apprehensive that she would cram the blossoms into her ever-open mouth and choke herself.

"And you will spend the two hundred dollars reward you will receive for the capture of the outlaw chief on your education, Miss Lina?" said Walter, resuming the conversation where it had been interrupted by the curt summons of Dollie's mother.

"Yes," Jaquelina answered, simply.

"And then?" said Walter Earle.

"Then," she answered hopefully, and a little eagerly, "I hope I shall leave the farm and earn my own living somewhere. I am ambitious of becoming a governess."

"A vaulting ambition," said Violet, with a light laugh.

"Not very," said Lina, with a gentle innocence and gravity that checked Violet's delicate sarcasm. "It will be better than the farm, that is all."

"Mr. Valchester, here is a four-leaved clover for you," said Violet. "Take it and keep it. It may bring you good luck."

"Thank you," he said, and took it carelessly and held it between his long, white fingers. A little later, when no one was looking, he shut it inside the leaves of Jaquelina's book.

"You have given the clover to one who could not appreciate good luck if it came to him," laughed Walter. "Valchester has known nothing else all his life. He is fortune's favorite."

"I think you are, too, Mr. Earle—you and Violet," Jaquelina said, gently.

A faint sigh quivered over her lips as she spoke. She looked at these three in their costly apparel and with their bright, happy faces, and it seemed to her as if they belonged to quite a different world from her own. They were fortune's favorites, all of them.

"Thank you," said Walter, smiling, "I hope the fickle goddess will always be kind to me."

Then Violet rose, shaking out the apple blossoms that had fallen into the folds of her dress, and declared it was time to go.

"We came to ask you to go boating with us," said Walter, "but I suppose," with anything but a loving glance at innocent Dollie, "it would be no use."

Jaquelina's eyes brightened, then saddened again almost pathetically.

"No, for Aunt Meredith has gone away," she said. "I could not go to-day."

In her keen disappointment she was quite unconscious how much pathetic emphasis she laid upon "to-day."

"To-morrow, then?" said Walter, instantly. "Could you not slip away from that terrible Dollie to-morrow?"

She looked at him, her eyes shining, her lips trembling with pleasure.

"Yes, if you went at noon," she said; "if later—no."

"Why not later?" asked Violet, curiously.

"Because I must help with the milking then," she answered, simply.

"We will go at noon, then," said Walter at once. "We will call for you punctually, and you must be ready."

"Young ladies are never ready when called for," said Ronald Valchester, with his slight smile.

"I will prove the exception to the rule," Jaquelina answered, brightly, while Violet said to herself in wonder:

"What in the world will she wear? I do wonder why mamma insists upon having us patronize Jaquelina Meredith. She is not in our set, and she hasn't a decent thing to wear! It is strange she doesn't have the good sense to understand it herself and decline our invitations."

Violet said the same to herself the next day when she went upon the river.

Violet had on a lovely boating-suit of blue serge, and a leghorn sailor hat set coquettishly on her golden locks.

Jaquelina wore her simple pink-dotted calico dress, with a white ruffled apron tied about the slim, round waist, "for all the world," as Miss Violet said to herself, pityingly and half-disdainfully, "like a parlor-maid."

She had caught up an old straw hat of her uncle's and fastened it on her head with a strip of velvet ribbon passed over the top and tied beneath her chin. It looked quaint and picturesque, and a more charming face than the one it framed could not have been imagined. The bright, dark eyes, curtained by such inky, sweeping lashes, would in themselves alone have made a plain face beautiful, but Jaquelina had delicate, well-cut features, and lovely scarlet lips, parting over small, regular, white teeth. No amount of shabby dressing could have made her a fright or a dowdy with that radiant face. The brune tint, acquired by the too ardent kisses of the wind and sun, marred it a little, but the soft, rich color in her cheeks almost atoned for the fault.

It was a lovely day and a lovely river. The bending trees overhung the green, flowery banks and threw their long, grateful shadows across the sunny water. It was so clear you could see the pebbles in the bottom and the silvery little fish darting to and fro.

Walter and Valchester took turns in rowing. Sometimes they would suffer the boat to drift at its will while they chattered and laughed in the gay thoughtlessness of youth.

Long afterward, when winter was in the sky and the clouds of sorrow overhung their lives, they looked back upon these two days—this one upon the river and yesterday beneath the blossoming apple-boughs—as golden days that were like beautiful pictures set in their memory.

The next day Walter Earle and his friend went back to the University.

Walter Earle had talked a great deal about Jaquelina Meredith since the night of the lawn-party. He saw that his mother was not displeased at his admiration of the lovely orphan girl.

"I admire Miss Meredith very much," he said, in his frank way. "I think she is very beautiful—do not you, Val?"

"She is—fascinating," said Ronald Valchester.

Violet looked up quickly.

"Fascinating," she said. "What do you mean by that, Mr. Valchester? I do not exactly comprehend. Is it more—or less—than beauty?"

"I think it is more," he replied.

"More?" said Violet. "What could be better than beauty, Mr. Valchester."

"The power to win," said Valchester. "I have seen some very beautiful women whom I did not admire. They lacked that je ne sais quoi, which is so strong in Miss Meredith that I could fancy one might even admire her against his will."

"You mean the charm of the serpent," said Violet, innocently.

"No, I did not mean that in the least," said Valchester.

He bit his lip as if the suggestion did not please him.

"There is nothing serpent-like about Miss Meredith. She seems a gentle, fresh-hearted girl; but I do not believe I could quite define my impressions"—abruptly—"will you excuse me from trying?"

"Certainly," she answered, carelessly, to hide a certain girlish pique, while Walter said, gaily:

"You are too dignified to get down to the level of Violet's understanding, Val. Let me explain. He means, in college parlance, sis, that Miss Meredith has a taking way with her."

"Thank you; I quite understand," said Violet, with dignity.

She went out of the room, and the subject was not resumed.

There had been some talk of their going over to the farm to bid Miss Meredith adieu, but the project was tacitly dropped.

They returned to college that night, but without seeing Jaquelina.

One week afterward a huge box of books was forwarded to the girl, over which she went almost wild with joy.

All the best of the poets, ancient and modern, were there, in fine and elegant bindings, and profusely illustrated. In the first volume she opened was a card.

"The compliments of Ronald Valchester."

Jaquelina studied the beautiful chirography of the student admiringly for awhile; then she laid it away with the withered passion-flowers in the box with her dead mother's jewelry.

After several days of passionate delight over the books, Jaquelina remembered that she had not thanked the sender.

Soon afterward a little white note found its way to the University.

Ronald Valchester read the few lines it contained many times; but he must have forgotten to show it to Walter Earle, for the latter never heard of it.

"Mr. Valchester:—A thousand thanks for the books. You have made me very happy.

"Jaquelina Meredith."

That was all she said, but it pleased Ronald Valchester, though the University students unanimously agreed that he was hard to please and fastidious to a fault.

The note was well-written, in a clear, refined hand. It pleased his whim to put it away carefully.

There was one thing Ronald Valchester did not like. It was to read in the newspapers the glowing accounts of the outlaw's capture by a young girl. The students were all quite wild over it.

Walter Earle had described it to them in the most enthusiastic terms, and they would have liked nothing so well as to meet the dark-eyed young heroine. But Ronald Valchester was exceedingly sorry that the story had gotten into the papers.

After awhile the newspapers chronicled the fact that Gerald Huntington had been tried and convicted, and that his counsel had obtained a new hearing in his case; but it was thought that he could not escape being sent to the penitentiary for a long term of years. It was feared by many that the hot-headed Virginians would mob him.

The months flew swiftly past. At the close of the college session, Walter Earle and Ronald Valchester both graduated with distinguished honors.

After they separated, each to their homes, Walter wrote to his friend that Jaquelina Meredith had received the reward of two hundred dollars for Gerald Huntington's capture, and that she had gone away to enter a boarding-school at Staunton.

"But I have found out several pretty girls in the neighborhood," wrote Walter; "so I am trying to console myself for pretty Lina's absence. By the way, Violet is visiting the Claxtons in your city. Give my love to her if you see her."

CHAPTER X.

There was another lawn party at Laurel Hill. Again the band was playing in the summer-house on the lawn; light feet kept time to the merry dance; lights glimmered in the trees, and the scene was like fairy-land.

More than a year had passed since the last party. The orchards had bloomed again, and dropped their scented red and white blossoms. The boughs hung low with gold and crimson globes of fair white fruit. The timid, tender spring flowers were gone, and summer's glowing beauties reigned instead.

Since Walter Earle had graduated he and Violet had been traveling in the South with a party of friends. They had returned now, and this reception to their young friends had been planned and carried out with a great deal of interest and pleasure. It was a far more pretentious affair than the almost impromptu one of last year. Several persons had come from a distance to attend it. Among the latter was Ronald Valchester.

Jaquelina Meredith, fresh from her school at Staunton, was there also. Violet had feebly opposed an invitation to her at first, but her mother and Walter had promptly overruled her embarrassed objections.

"My dear," Mrs. Earle had said in some surprise, "why do you object to Lina Meredith? Do you not like her?"

Pretty Violet, grown taller and even more stylish than of old, flushed and looked annoyed.

"Lina is not in our set," she said, "and she is too poor to get a party dress; of course she could not come without one."

"She had the prettiest dress at the party last year," said Walter, warmly.

"That is all you know about it," said Violet, laughingly. "It was her mother's wedding-dress. She had not a decent thing of her own."

"She can wear her mother's dress again," said Mrs. Earle and her son simultaneously, and Mrs. Earle added almost pleadingly: "Do let her come, Violet, she is so young and pretty, and would enjoy it so much."

"And she has so few pleasures," said Walter, with commendable forethought for such a giddy young man.

"Oh, she can come—certainly," Violet answered coldly. "Only I thought she would not care to come unless she could appear as others do. Last year she was quite ignorant, she did not know anything about society. But now that she has spent a year at boarding-school, she knows, of course, that a shabby-looking girl is next to nobody. Invite her if you like, I only wished to spare her feelings."

"I think we should spare her feelings better by asking than by leaving her out," replied gentle Mrs. Earle.

So the orphan girl was asked, and Mr. Meredith came again and brought her as before. And Violet was mistaken this time, for Jaquelina had really something to wear.

This time it was a pretty robe of some soft, thin stuff, silver-gray, and shining in the moonlight. The neck was cut square, and edged with some soft, pretty lace. The sleeves were short, and exposed the perfectly molded arms.

Jaquelina had brightened it here and there with a few vivid scarlet roses, and the effect was exquisite.

In the flickering light of the lamps, and the softer gleam of the moonlight, the slight and graceful form seemed to float in a robe of silvery mist. Violet, in pale blue satin and pearls, felt eclipsed and resentful again as she had done at the lawn party a year before.

"Lina, where did you get such a pretty dress?" she asked her, unceremoniously.

"Is it pretty?" asked Jaquelina, pleased. "I bought it at Staunton to wear at one of our school concerts where I had to sing a part."

"Can you sing?" asked Violet, incredulous.

"A little," admitted Jaquelina, modestly.

"And play?" said Violet.

And again Jaquelina answered shyly:

"A little; only the accompaniments to my songs, you know, Violet."

"Then I shall be certain to call on you to sing and play to-night, and you must not refuse," said Violet, smiling to herself at the idea of the singing and playing Jaquelina could have acquired in a year.

She did not look frightened at Violet's words. She simply said that she would do her best. Violet had no idea what that "best" meant.

"Mr. Valchester is here," she said, after a pause, with a keen glance at the other. "He came yesterday on purpose to attend our party. But you have totally forgotten him, I suppose," turning her head a little sidewise.

"Oh, no; I remember him perfectly well," said Jaquelina, unembarrassed.

"Do you? You have a good memory. I believe you only saw him once or twice."

"Three times," Jaquelina answered.

"I do not believe he has remembered you so well," said Violet, arranging her bracelets. "When some one named you this morning at breakfast, he did not speak of you nor ask any questions. He appeared calm and uninterested as if you were a stranger."

"He has probably forgotten me," said Jaquelina, quietly, and Violet could not see any change in the charming face as she spoke the careless words.

She had changed somewhat since she had been away, and acquired a touch more of the grave, pretty dignity that had always seemed so natural to her.

There was a minute's pause while they stood together beneath the arched lattice work of honeysuckle and roses, like a beautiful picture of night and morning; the one with her fair, blonde beauty and pale blue robe; the other in her soft gray draperies, and dusky eyes with that starry gleam in their darkness.

That thought came into the mind of the gentleman who came up to them from a side-path, almost abruptly. It was Ronald Valchester.

"Miss Earle," he said, "I think you promised to give me the first dance."

"I am ready to keep my word," answered Violet, with a brilliant smile.

Then she saw that the blue-gray eyes were gazing intently at her silent companion.

"Oh, Mr. Valchester," she cried, "I see you have forgotten Lina Meredith. She was at our party last summer, and went boating on the river with us one day—don't you remember?"

Some pretty lines somewhere read rushed into his mind. Jaquelina embodied the thought:

He drew a long breath and stepped forward with extended hand.

"Miss Meredith, is it really you?" he said. "You must pardon me that I did not recognize you on the instant. I had not forgotten you, but you have changed."

She gave him her slim hand a moment, and would have spoken, but Violet seemed impatient, and tapped her daintily slippered foot restlessly.

"I hear the first notes of the band," she said. "If we do not hasten they will make up the dance without me."

Valchester bowed and offered her his arm just as Walter Earle came hurrying up.

"Miss Lina, will you give me the first dance?" he said; "you owe it to me, indeed, for I taught you your first steps last year. Do you remember?"

"As though it were yesterday," she replied, with a smile, as she put her slight hand on his arm.

In the whirl of the dance Valchester bent his tall head over her a moment to ask, almost pleadingly:

"Will you give me the next dance, Miss Meredith?"

"Yes," she answered, as their hands met a moment in the giddy turn.

She did not guess how long it seemed to Valchester before the next dance came.

Walter Earle took her to her seat and lingered beside her until his friend availed himself of the first notes of the music to come and lead her away.

"I hoped she had not a partner for this dance," cried Walter, dolorously. "I meant to sit here and talk sentiment to her. I shall regret that I taught her the steps since you fellows continually take her away from me."

"I will sit by you, Walter," said his sister, coming to his side.

There was a smile on her face, but her voice sounded sad or troubled somehow.

"What, not dancing?" he said, surprised.

"Not this time. I am tired and would rather rest," she answered.

She sat down by his side and laid her white, jeweled hand on his arm.

"Walter, are you in love with Lina Meredith?" she asked him, very low.

Walter started and flushed.

"That's a leading question—rather," he said. "Well, Violet, I certainly admire her. I have never seen a more charming little girl in my life."

"Is Ronald Valchester in love with her, too?" pursued Violet, looking away from him that he might not see how much pain the question had brought into her eyes.

Walter laughed at the question.

"Valchester in love?" he said. "The idea is too supremely ridiculous to be entertained. What put such an idea in your head, Vi?"

"I don't know," she said. "Yes, I do, too! Last summer, you know, he said she was so fascinating."

"So he did—and so she is," said her brother. "But in love! Valchester is too devoted to his books and his esthetic fancies to fall in love with anything less ethereal than the muse of poetry."

"If you are in love with Lina Meredith, why don't you propose to her and have the matter settled?" she asked, petulantly.

"I didn't know you were anxious to have Lina Meredith for a sister," said Walter, staring.

"I should be very pleased," said Violet, desperately, and she spoke the truth.

She knew that Jaquelina was good and pretty. She had nothing against her except her vague jealousy of Ronald Valchester.

"If you mean to propose for her, pray do so at once, and let us have the wedding this fall," said Violet, with feverish impatience.

Meanwhile Jaquelina's partner, with his tall head bent over her, was saying:

"I had not forgotten you, Miss Meredith, though I seemed startled for the moment. Did you think I had?"

The dark eyes looked at him in smiling gratitude.

"I know that you remembered me kindly once, at least," she replied. "It was when you sent me the books. Oh, I could not tell you how much I enjoyed them, Mr. Valchester. You cannot imagine what happiness they gave me. I could never thank you enough for your kindness."

"If you remembered me kindly a few times it was quite sufficient," he said. "Did you—Lina?"

"Did I what?" said the girl, with a keen shiver of some indefinable emotion as the low name passed his lips.

"Think of me?" he answered, looking straight into her dark, uplifted eyes.

"Often and often," she responded, with frank gravity. "You see I had the beautiful books to recall you to my mind every day. Then one day when I was looking through the book you read in the orchard, I found——"

"What?" he asked, as she paused with a pleased smile on her scarlet lips.

"I found on one page a pressed four-leaved clover. I remembered that Violet had given you one that day, and I was so pleased," she said.

"Pleased—why?" asked Ronald Valchester.

"That you had given it to me," she answered.

"You are not superstitious enough to believe that the four-leaved clover brings good luck?" he said, looking at her with a smile in his twilight-colored eyes.

"Oh, no," she answered, with frank innocence; "I was pleased because I thought it seemed a silent message from you to me to say that you wish me well."

CHAPTER XI.

Ronald Valchester was a fine musician, and had a beautiful voice. No one would sing or play after him usually.

The contrast was too great. Perhaps it was for that very reason that Violet asked Jaquelina to play directly after Valchester had vacated the piano-stool after singing an exquisite air from a favorite opera.

For a moment Jaquelina seemed tempted to refuse. The warm color rose into her cheek as they all looked at her, her scarlet lips trembled, but Violet said quickly:

"You must not refuse, Lina. We have all played now but you, and it would not be fair for you to decline."

"Allow me," said Walter Earle, gently leading her to the piano.

Was it any wonder if a faint thrill of pleasure and triumph swelled the girl's heart as her white hands fluttered lovingly over the pearl keys?

She remembered last year. How ashamed she had felt that she could not play; how the young girls had looked at her pityingly and, she vaguely fancied, disdainfully, because she knew so little.

They did not know how hard she had practiced since. Everyone was surprised that she should try after Ronald Valchester.

He himself looked at her a little uneasily. Everyone expected a failure.

Walter Earle opened the portfolio of music and held it open before her, but she shook her head.

"No, I will play something from memory," she said.

"Now I know she will make a failure," Violet said to herself, "for my music-teacher always told me never to play without my notes before me."

But Violet made no allowance for genius, which acknowledges no law, and is sufficient unto itself.

Jaquelina touched a key or two softly so that the sound seemed to be the answer to a caress, then her hands began to fly across the keys like white-winged birds.

People looked at each other. The magic power of genius was in those slender fingers—

In a moment she began to sing. She had chosen the pretty, familiar ballad of Annie Laurie.

Not one in the room but knew that only a powerful and well-trained voice could do justice to the melodious but difficult strain.

But Jaquelina's voice—clear and fresh as a nightingale's—soared upward without the least apparent effort.

The sweet, pathetic ballad was rendered exquisitely. There was a perfect hush throughout the room until it ended. Then they crowded around her.

"Another," and "another," and "another," they pleaded when she would have risen. It was Violet at last who brought it to an end by saying carelessly:

"Let us go back to the dancing now. We can have music every day, but dancing only now and then."

"Thank you," said a low voice over Jaquelina's shoulder as she was passing out of the door. She looked back and saw Ronald Valchester's face looking down at her with bright, shining eyes. "You have given me a great deal of pleasure," he said.

"I am very glad," she replied, and the next moment, she scarcely knew how it happened, he was walking by her side, and her hand was resting on his arm.

They went out upon the lawn and down the laurel walk.

"Instead of dancing will you give me this half-hour?" he had said to her. "I wish to talk to you about this beautiful treasure you have possessed so long unknown to us all."

"What do you mean?" she asked, as they wandered along the path beneath the whispering laurels.

"Your voice," he said. "Do you know, Miss Meredith, that it is really marvelous? I cannot tell you how it has surprised and delighted me."

And again she said, simply as before:

"I am glad."

He looked at the lovely young face and saw that she was pleased, but not at all surprised.

"Someone has told you this before," he said quickly. "I am not the first to lay a laurel at your feet."

In the soft light he saw the color deepen in her cheeks and the long-fringed lashes droop low.

"My teachers have told me that my voice was fine," she said, quietly, "and—and I have sung in school-concerts a few times. The people praised me, then."

"It is no wonder you were not afraid to sing after me," he said. "I was afraid for you at first. You see I have practised for many years and people think me a better performer than the most. But I own that my light has paled before a brighter star."

"You must not say so," she said quickly. "I have only had a few months' training. My voice is not at all cultivated."

"It is naturally superb," he answered; "I have heard voices in opera that were no sweeter than yours. And yet they were prima donnas whom all the world praised. Perhaps you have heard that, too, before."

"My teacher told me I might successfully choose an operatic career," she answered quietly, yet with a sigh whose meaning he did not understand.

"I hope you will not do so," he answered quickly. "I have always so much disliked the idea of a public life for a woman."

"We talked of that at school," she replied, "but our singing master thought quite differently. He declared that a really fine voice actually belonged to the world."

"Shall you return to the school this winter?"

"No," with a quickly suppressed sigh.

"You have wearied of it, perhaps," he said.

"No," she said again; then, with a deepening color, "I have spent all my money, that is the reason. Have you forgotten, Mr. Valchester, that all the money I had was the reward I received for capturing the outlaw chief?"

The soft eyes raised to his face saw a shadow fall over its handsome contour.

"I—I had been trying to forget all about him," he said, constrainedly. "What have they done with the fellow, Miss Meredith?"

"He is still confined in the county jail, I believe," she replied. "His counsel have been using every possible means to defer the new hearing of the case which was asked for and promised. Uncle Meredith says they are waiting for popular indignation to abate in hope of obtaining a more lenient verdict."

"Very likely," said Ronald Valchester, and then there was a constrained silence.

Jaquelina broke it herself in a voice that was slightly tremulous:

"I—am afraid I did not do right that night, Mr. Valchester. I did not think—as I have since done—that it was not a fair return for his kindness to me—for he was kind—kinder than any one knew."

The pretty penitence in her face touched him, but he did not speak.

"I have puzzled over it often and often," she went on, slowly and thoughtfully, "I have asked myself whether my private obligation to him should have outweighed the good of the country at large. I have never been able to satisfy myself. Tell me, Mr. Valchester, did I do right or not?"

"Miss Meredith," he answered, "many persons have asked me the same question, but I have never given my opinion to anyone."

"Then, of course, you will not tell me," she said, disappointed, yet far too shy to insist upon it.

"No, I will not now. I may do so at some future time," evasively.

"Do you think," she said, just a trifle nervously, "it was worth while to attach any meaning to his threat of vengeance? Sometimes I have felt afraid."

"I should not give it a thought," he replied. "It is not probable he will ever have the chance to harm you even if he wished it. No doubt the best part of his life will be passed in a prison cell."

"Oh, I hope not," the girl cried out in irrepressible sorrow; "I cannot bear to think that I have been the cause of depriving anyone of liberty. I did not think of all these things in the fatal moment when I saw him peering at me behind that laurel there. Now I feel as if I had betrayed a human being to endless pain for a paltry two hundred dollars."

Ronald Valchester looked before him silently at the weird, flickering shadows on the graveled path, and made no reply.

"But I wanted the money so very, very much," she added, appealingly.

Valchester looked down at the slim, white hand lying on his black coat sleeve, the taper forefinger sparkling

"Did you never think of parting with your diamond ring?" he said, abruptly.

Lifting her wondering gaze to his she saw his eyes fixed on her mother's ring. She drew her hand from his arm and held it up to the light. A hundred shimmering rays flashed on the jewel.

"You do not mean that it is really a diamond?" she cried, with sparkling eyes.

"Did you not know it?" he asked, surprised.

"I thought it was only a pretty, shining bit of glass," she answered. "Is it really and truly a genuine diamond? and worth—how much?"

He took the warm, pretty hand in his on pretense of examining the ring. At that touch a quick, electric thrill ran from heart to heart.

"Oh, girls, here she is," cried Violet Earle's voice at that moment, in a tone of apparent gaiety. "What a pretty tableau! Flirting with Mr. Valchester under the laurels."

CHAPTER XII.

Ronald Valchester looked round, slightly annoyed, as Violet Earle and a gay group of girls came up to him.

"One should never contradict a lady," he said, "but really, Miss Earle, your charge against Miss Meredith is misplaced. I was only examining her ring."

"And only think, Violet, Mr. Valchester says the stone is a real diamond. I am so surprised and delighted. I did not dream of such a thing until just now, when he spoke of it. I thought it only a mere, valueless bit of shining glass."

The eager voice and pleased face were too truthful to admit of doubt.

Everyone but Violet gave up the thought of a flirtation at once. The girls crowded round to look at Jaquelina's ring.

"Where did you get it?" "Who gave it you?" were some of the questions they asked her.

"It was my mother's ring," she said, in answer to them all. "I did not know till Mr. Valchester told me that it was a real diamond."

"I suppose it is worth a great deal," one of the girls said to him.

"A hundred dollars, perhaps—or it may be a hundred and fifty," he replied carelessly, while Jaquelina drew a long breath of surprise and delight.

A hundred dollars seemed quite a little fortune in her eyes. She looked at the pretty ring in awe and wonder, to think that she had possessed it so long without dreaming of its value.

"We need you to make up the dance, Lina," said Violet. "The Hamiltons, the Perrys and the Deanes have all gone home, and we have not enough for the Lancers unless you and Mr. Valchester will come to our assistance—will you?"

Both answered yes, and went with the girls to take their places in the dance. Before the party was over he had said to her:

"May I come over and hear you sing to-morrow afternoon—under the apple-trees?"

"Yes," she answered simply.

He came alone. It must have required an amount of finesse and strategy for him to get away from Walter and Violet. But he accomplished it.

Jaquelina was waiting for him under the apple-trees. Her heart thrilled with a strange pleasure as she saw the tall, handsome young man coming toward her. She wore, in anticipation of his coming, a pretty, inexpensive cambric, with a pattern of tiny rose-buds, and a delicate lace frill fastened at her throat with a cluster of roses. He saw that she had grown more delicately lovely since last year. The tanned complexion had acquired a mellow, creamy fairness, the short, soft rings of hair were longer, and clustered on her shoulders in shining luxuriance, the crimson lips had taken a softer, tender curve, the dark eyes had grown dreamy and thoughtful.

"You came alone?" she said, and there was an accent of surprise in her voice.

"Yes, I preferred it. Are you disappointed that Walter and Violet did not accompany me?" he inquired.

Jaquelina answered no with pretty frankness, and an utter lack of self-consciousness that was very charming.

"I dare say they would think me very selfish if they knew I had come over to the farm alone," he said. "I slipped away from them. I am very selfish sometimes. I want you to sing your pretty songs to an audience of one."

"I am quite willing," she replied, happily.

She sang several songs for him, pouring out the exquisite melodies clearly and artlessly as a bird. Ronald said to himself that it was wonderful what a voice the girl had, so strong and sweet and clear that she made him think of Shelley's sky-lark—