An Old Man's Darling

by Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller

People went to the places where they heard she would be, just to look at that "faultily faultless" face "star-sweet on a gloom profound."

Artists raved over her form and features. They said she was the fairest woman in the world, and that her beauty had but one fault—it was too cold and pale. One touch of glow and color in that "passionless, pale, cold face," they said, would have made her so lovely that men would have gone mad for her—gone mad or died.

And then she was so young, they said. She had never been presented in society. Colonel Carlyle, the cunning old fox, had married her out of the schoolroom before anyone had a chance to see her. The fops and dandies swore at him behind their waxed mustaches, while better and nobler men said it was a shame that such a fair, charming girl should be wedded to such an old man.

There were some who said that the girl, young as she was, had a hidden heart-history. These were the poets and dreamers. They said that the language of those pale cheeks and drooping eyes was that she had been torn from her handsome lover's side and bartered for an old man's gold.

But these were mere conjectures. No one knew anything about her certainly, until Mrs. Arnold and Felise came down after a week's delay. Then they knew that she was the daughter of General Vere, and the niece of Francis Arnold, the murdered millionaire.

Felise told them of the artist lover who had murdered the millionaire because he would not give him his niece. The excitement only ran higher than before, and people looked at the young creature with even more curiosity and interest than ever.

Bonnibel could not help seeing that she was an object of interest and admiration to everyone about her. She saw that the men sought her side eagerly and often, and that the women were jealous of her. At first she was vexed and angry about it. She could not get a moment to herself. They were always seeking her out, always hovering about her like butterflies round a flower. She wondered why they came round her so, but at length she remembered what she had almost forgotten. Uncle Francis had often told her so; Leslie Dane had told her so; she had heard it from others, too, and even Wild Madge had admitted it.

Ah! Wild Madge! Over her memory rushed the words of the fearful old hag, freighted with a deeper meaning than they had held at first.

"You are beautiful, but your beauty will be your bane." "Years of sorrow lie before you!" "You will be a young man's bride, but an old man's darling!"