CHAPTER VII.
"THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT."
"Your roses are fading in the hot sunshine, dear. Let us get some fresh ones," said Love to Dainty, anxious to draw her out of sight of the others, that he might seal their betrothal with a lover's kiss.
They moved away toward the rose-garden, followed by the angry, envious glances of Olive and Ela, who hated Dainty with jealous hate, now that they saw how little all their arts had availed to change her lover.
But Love and Dainty had forgotten their existence. They were in Arcady.
All around them the flowers bloomed in lavish profusion; the tender-eyed pansies, the golden-hearted lilies, the fragrant roses, shaking out perfume on the warm summer air, while the bees and the butterflies hurried from flower to flower, and overhead the blue sky of June smiled on the happy lovers—so happy, dreaming not of the darkened future.
Where some luxuriant shrubbery formed a convenient screen, Love drew Dainty aside, crying, ardently:
"I am dying to kiss you, my own little darling! May I?"
Without waiting for consent, he clasped her in his arms, and kissed her lips again and again, with the ardor of the honey-bee rifling the flowers of their sweets, till she struggled bashfully from him, crying:
"But the roses!"
"Come, then, we will get them;" and they sauntered on along the graveled path in a sort of silent ecstacy, until suddenly Dainty recoiled with a horrified cry:
"Oh, see that hideous viper!"
Love looked down and saw a large viper crawling across their path, its hideous head upraised in defiance, hissing venomously at their advance.
"See how angry it is! What a wicked glare in its eyes! See how its red forked tongue darts at us in rage! Oh, is it not an evil omen to our love?" half sobbed Dainty, drawing back and regarding the serpent with fearful interest mixed with unwilling fascination.
"Stand aside, darling, and I will make short work of the evil omen!" Love answered, gayly, as with two sharp blows of the racquet he carried in his hand he destroyed the ominous intruder on their peace, and kicked it aside, saying, soothingly: "Take that as an omen, darling, that I will always thrust aside whatever interferes between us and happiness."
"Oh, you are so strong, so brave! I am not afraid of anything while you are with me!" Dainty cried, clinging to the arm of her bold, handsome lover, who smiled on her so lovingly as he gathered the beautiful roses to replace those he had sent her that morning, and that were now withering at her waist.
He took some of the fading flowers, kissed them, and placed them very carefully in his pocket-book, saying:
"I will always keep them in memory of the happiest day of my life!"
Dainty's heart thrilled with joy at the words; then she shuddered at the thought of how angry Olive and Ela would be because he loved her so well.
"Perhaps they will hate me, although I have not done them any wrong. I did not make him love me. It was God put it into his heart. But I can guess how they will sneer and say I was bold and forward, trying to get a rich husband. I wish he were poor—almost as poor as I am—so that I could tell them I love him for himself alone, which is true, though they will pretend never to believe it, in their jealous spite," ran her perturbed thoughts; for she could not get Olive and Ela quite out of her mind.
The dread of their spite and anger trailed its venom through her happiness as the hideous viper had trailed across the sunny path, making her cry out that it was evil-omened. Alas! that spite and jealousy were destined to work her as deadly ill as the serpent's fangs.
It was this subtle dread tugging at Dainty's heart-strings that made her murmur wistfully, as they retraced their steps:
"Let us keep our secret awhile yet, lest Olive and Ela should say I was too easily won."
"What do you care for their opinion!" cried her lover, disdainfully.
"Oh, but you do not know how cruel they would be, what cutting things they would say to me!" she cried.
And he laughed.
"Dainty, I believe you are an arrant coward, after all, as your cousin Olive told me this morning."
"Did she say so?"—angrily, the blue eyes flashing.
"Yes; she said you were the most cowardly girl on earth—afraid of your own shadow—and always in hysterics over something, so that she and Ela were sorry you came, dreading that you would annoy your aunt."
"Oh, it is false!" she cried, indignantly. "She only said it to turn your heart against me. And I—I will show her after this whether I am a coward or not!"
"That is right, my little sweetheart. I adore bravery in women, and I want you to prove Olive's story false," he cried, encouragingly; adding: "Of course, if you wish to keep our engagement secret awhile, I will consent to it; but it seems rather cruel to two of our visitors, who are already palpably jealous of me. But I warn you, Dainty, not to flirt with them, for I am the most jealous of men."
"You need not be afraid of me. I can think of no one but you, dear Love!" she whispered, with the loveliest blush in the world.
They rejoined their companions, and Love forced himself to obey the demands of conventionality by showing some attention to the other guests; but his heart was not in his courtesies. He could think only of the bonny sweetheart he had won by such headlong wooing.
"And it is only yesterday that I saw her first, my darling!" he mused, tenderly. "It was love at first sight with us both, it seems, and I take that for a sure sign that Heaven intended us for each other."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ELLSWORTH HONOR
Since the world began there was never a truer, sweeter love, nor one that promised more fairly, but, alas! none over which threatening clouds of Fate ever hung more darkly.
Two weeks passed away, and the lovers kept the secret of their engagement with difficulty, for Love was passionately anxious to show his happiness to the whole world.
But Dainty's shrinking from her cousins' comments made her hold her lover to the compact of silence, hoping by delay to win from them more kindly thoughts.
And yet every one could see the handsome young pair were in love with each other.
They could no more hide their mutual tenderness than they could help breathing. Their glances turned so often to each other, their smiles were so tender, their voices had so soft a cadence when they called each other's names, that every one could guess the passion of their hearts.
Ellsworth and the surrounding neighborhood had been very gay the past few weeks.
Dances and picnics, moonlight rides and tea parties, all varied the programme, and contributed to the pleasure of Mrs. Ellsworth's beautiful nieces.
Dainty, even in her simple gowns and hats, was the beauty of every gathering, and might have been the belle of everything had she so chosen; but she was shy and cold with all other men, in her loyalty to her noble lover.
There came a day, toward the second week in July, when Mrs. Ellsworth asked her step-son for a private interview in her boudoir.
"I am obliged to speak to you on a very important subject," she said, anxiously.
He bowed inquiringly.
"Can you not guess the subject to which I refer?" she continued. "Have you forgotten the peculiar provisions of your father's will, by which you will be disinherited in my favor unless you marry on or before your twenty-sixth birthday?"