On the wings of fate

by Effie Adelaide Rowlands

Winifred took her share of the work, but Polly almost wished she had not done so, for all that Winnie did was done with a kind of quiet resentment that made itself felt.

Visitors came occasionally, but few were admitted. Mrs. Pennington’s health was the excuse, so that those who desired to gratify their curiosity about Chrissie’s marriage had to go away unsatisfied.

One guest came, however, who was immediately admitted. He was a favored guest in the Pennington household, and Polly never realized how much comfort and pleasure could be conveyed to her in the person of one human being till the day that Hubert Kestridge reappeared to invite himself to dinner in his usual unconventional manner, and to shed a sort of radiance throughout the house with his bright, happy manner.

It was quite three months now since Kestridge had paid them a visit, and Polly gave a little gasp of surprise when she heard he had come.

He was, in a sort of way, their kinsman, being the stepson of their Aunt Nellie (Mrs. Pennington’s sister), who had married his father many years before, and who was the only mother Hubert had ever known.

Starting in a city office to earn his living during his father’s lifetime, Hubert now found himself a kind of small landowner in Ireland, and he spent the greater part of his life over there, working his property himself, and endeavoring to get something good out of it.

The Pennington girls called him their cousin, but he was, of course, no relation at all. Nevertheless, he brought a rush of warmth to poor Polly’s overtired little heart the moment she heard his voice in the hall below.

“Hubert has come,” she cried to Winifred, rushing up the stairs two at a time in her excitement. “At last something nice has happened! I must run and tell mother. This will cheer her up. What a blessing,” added Polly, thoughtfully, “that we had roast beef for lunch. Hubert loves roast beef, and he must be so hungry. Make haste, Winnie, and go and speak to him.”

But Winnie was particularly careful in her dress arrangements this evening. She put on her prettiest frock, and brushed and plaited her hair to perfection. She looked very sweet, and modest, and charming as she went downstairs. She remembered as she went that she had a very dismal future ahead of her, and she said to herself, in her quiet little way, that it behoved her to alter this future by any and every means in her power.

“Aunt Nellie was full of enthusiasm for the wonders Hubert had done already to his Irish property. I quite believe he will be rich one of these days. Polly does not care whether she is a pauper all her life,” was Winifred’s final thought. It was a thought born of a certain fact known only to Winifred, and it was not altogether free from irritation. For Winnie could see much in her quiet, little way, and she had discovered the last time Hubert Kestridge had come from Ireland, that he had found something new and charming in little Polly Pennington, something that Winifred feared might lead to complications if it were not nipped in the bud, for it was by no means desirable that Hubert should find Polly pretty or charming, since she, Winifred, had resolved to become his wife.