LOTTIE A MYSTERIOUS PROBLEM.
After a brief toilet, Lottie came down to tea looking like an innocent little lamb that any wolf could beguile and devour. She smiled on De Forrest so sweetly that the cloud began to pass from his brow at once.
"Why should I be angry with her?" he thought, "she did not understand what I was aiming at, and probably supposed that I meant to read her asleep, and yet I should have thought that the tones of my voice—Well, well, Lottie has been a little spoiled by too much devotion. She has become accustomed to it, and takes it as a matter of course. When we are married, the devotion must be on the other side of the house."
"I thought Mr. Hemstead would be back this evening?" she said to her aunt.
"No, not till to-morrow evening. You seem to miss Frank very much."
Then Lottie was provoked to find herself blushing like a school-girl, but she said, laughingly, "How penetrating you are, auntie. I do miss him, in a way you cannot understand."
But the others understood the remark as referring to her regret that he had escaped from her wiles as the victim of their proposed jest, and Bel shot a reproachful glance at her. She could not know that Lottie had said this to throw dust into their eyes, and to account for her sudden blush, which she could not account for to herself.
Before supper was over, Harcourt came in with great news, which threw Addie into a state of feverish excitement, and greatly interested all the others.
"Mrs. Byram, her son, and two daughters, have come up for a few days to take a peep at the country in winter, and enjoy some sleigh-riding. I met Hal Byram, and drove in with him. Their large house is open from top to bottom, and full of servants, and to-morrow evening they are going to give a grand party. There are invitations for you all. They expect most of their guests from New York, however."
Even languid Bel brightened at the prospect of so much gayety; and thoughts of Hemstead and qualms of conscience vanished for the time from Lottie's mind. The evening soon passed, with cards and conjectures as to who would be there, and the day following, with the bustle of preparation.