Jaquelina

So, although you have lost your beauty, Lina, the real, undefinable charm that held me, holds me still."

Lina looked at him with dewy eyes. His whole, handsome, eager face was lighted with the tenderness of his heart.

He took her small hands and held them fondly in his own.

"Lina, we were made for each other," he pleaded; "we both love poetry, music, and everything beautiful. Fate has been hard and unkind to us, but she has relented at last. You are going to be my wife."

Lina could not resist his pleading, and the gentle arm that stole around her. She hid her face on his breast and wept the happiest tears that ever rained from a happy woman's eyes. She had loved Ronald so long and so well, and she was going to be his wife at last.

Only one month later they were happily married amid the rejoicings of all the neighborhood. General and Mrs. Valchester were present and seemed very happy in the happiness of their idolized son. Mr. Earle was also present, but Walter and Violet sent regrets. Their father said that they were very busy making arrangements for a long projected tour abroad.

Mrs. Meredith's wedding-gift to her husband's niece was a mysterious box swathed around with silver paper.

Ronald was quite mystified to hear her say, gratefully, when she received it:

"A thousand thanks, Aunt Meredith. I would rather have this box than Crœsus' fortune!"

It has been frequently said that women have all the curiosity in the world and men none at all, but Ronald Valchester was exceedingly curious over his wife's bridal gift. He thought over it several times, and at last he said to her:

"Lina, my darling, what precious gift was that which your uncle's wife gave you on your wedding-day?"

They were in Richmond then, spending the honey-moon very quietly at General Valchester's splendid residence at the West End. Lina was too sensitive over her marred beauty to allow them to persuade her into society and gayety. She took Ronald's white fingers now, and passed them gently over her cheeks.

"Ronald," she said, "do you perceive that my skin is becoming softer and smoother?"

"Yes, and fairer, too," he replied. "The discolorations are disappearing very fast. What does it mean, Lina?"

"It means that Aunt Meredith was wiser than the New York doctors," she laughed. "She has prepared a salve for me from various woodland roots and herbs that is slowly obliterating every scar and discoloration from my face. She declares that in a year I shall be as pretty as I ever was."

"Then I shall bless the kind soul forever!" he cried out joyfully, and Lina knew then for the first time how silently and sadly Ronald had sorrowed for the loss of her wondrous beauty.

It was two years later when the two were traveling, that they met Walter Earle.

He had attended morning service at a pretty English church, and he heard a grand, glorious, triumphant voice, rising, as it were, to Heaven on the wings of the Gloria in Excelsis. He looked around and saw Ronald Valchester sitting by his wife's side.

Jaquelina had grown more beautiful than ever. Every trace of her accident had disappeared. The dark eyes were radiant with youth and health, the long lashes rested on a rose-flushed cheek, the scarlet mouth smiled as she chanted:

"Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, good will to men."

Walter covered his face with his hands, and gave one sigh, deep and bitter, to the memory of what he had lost through his weakness.

When they came out of the church he was strong enough to meet them and speak to them.

They were glad and surprised in a breath. They asked him if he was married yet, and if Violet was with him.

"No, I am not married yet, and my sister is dead," he answered sadly, and then he showed them her grave. It was right in the churchyard there, and just a little way from the path.

The low, green mound was covered with white and blue violets, and there was a broken marble shaft at the head, twined about with passion flowers.

"She has been dead six months," he said, tremulously, and then he saw the husband and wife look at each other with a shade of remorse and pain in their speaking eyes.

"She had quite gotten over her trouble," he said, quickly. "She seemed perfectly well and happy. She talked of you, Ronald, and you, Mrs. Valchester, kindly and often. But she inherited her mother's disease. She died very suddenly and painlessly one evening while sitting in her chair and watching a beautiful sunset."

Jaquelina shed some quiet and sorrowful tears over Violet's early doom. They were the first tears that had dimmed her lovely eyes since she had married Ronald Valchester. He made her very happy.

In the beautiful, calm years of wedded happiness that flowed serenely over their future lives, the few years of passionate sorrow she had known were forgotten wholly, or remembered only as a haunting dream.