"Oh, Ralph, my little partner in distress!" exclaimed Miriam, in her most dramatic way, snatching him up and kissing him in spite of his struggles. "You'll have to have a suit of armor, too. Who would have thought that one so young could be so lazy!"
The laugh was not yet over when Mrs. Burton came in, with her pleasant smile, saying, "Girls, I've a short story to tell you—that is, if you wish to hear it; and there'll just be time before supper."
Of course they were delighted, and, Fannie having coaxed Ralph to her lap, they all gathered around Mrs. Burton, making a pretty group in their unconsciously graceful attitudes, as they listened to the following narrative:
"Constance van Orten was born in New York, a descendant of one of the old Knickerbocker families, but of a branch which had preserved more of the family pride than its estates. Money, however, was not altogether lacking, and to many people their income would have seemed sumptuous; but to them, in comparison with their more wealthy friends and relatives, it seemed the merest pittance that necessity could demand.
"But this comparative lack of money never troubled little Constance, and fortune seemed to smile upon her. One might almost have believed that all the beneficent fairies had presided at her birth, so many graces of face and form and disposition were hers, and so many of the conditions necessary to human happiness seemed fulfilled in her lot.
"She was the youngest child and only daughter, and her four brothers found her so charming a plaything, and later so agreeable a companion, that they took pleasure in making her life a succession of pleasant surprises, and her every wish was gratified almost before expressed. Indeed, had she asked for the moon, it would have been a source of genuine grief to them that they could not get it for her.
"Pain seemed as far removed from her as anxiety or grief, for, although she had an odd faculty of catching all the diseases incident to childhood, they touched her so lightly that it was seldom necessary to call in a physician. If she received a cut or a wound of any kind, so pure was her blood and so perfect her physical condition that it healed as if by magic.
"Her willfulness was extreme, as might have been expected from the almost total lack of restraint under which she grew up; but so winning were her ways, and so ready her repentance for her little misdeeds, that for the most part she escaped punishment and even reproof.
"Almost without the power of application, she seemed to pick up external evidences of education and culture without effort. She talked fluently, sang charmingly, and, having almost marvelous tact, never failed to please.
"Being, as I have said, the only daughter, she entered society earlier than most girls, and, in spite of her comparative lack of means, soon became a reigning belle. During her first season she refused more than one wealthy suitor, and that, too, to the intense satisfaction of her parents and brothers, for she was a veritable sunbeam in the family, and they looked forward with dread to the thought of losing her.