Love took the swinging seat opposite her, and with an effort at calmness, answered:
"Do not be frightened, darling. I am not ill. Only very, very angry."
"With me?" she faltered, in dismay.
"Certainly not, dear little one!" he cried, tenderly; continuing with sudden vehemence: "I am angry with the schemers who are trying to part us from each other, darling."
"You mean Olive and Ela," she cried, quickly, the rose-bloom fading from her dimpled cheeks and her sweet mouth trembling as she sighed: "Oh, I knew that we were too happy for it to last and that something would happen! There was a shadow on my heart. That was why I was singing, as you came up:
"'All that's bright must fade,
The brightest, still the fleetest,
All that's sweet was made
To be lost when sweetest;
Flowers that bloom and fall,
Buds that blight in springing,
These, alas! are types of all
To which our hearts are clinging.'"
"What a little pessimist you are, Dainty! Always turning your face to the darker side of life!" cried her lover, somewhat impatiently; adding: "Nothing shall happen to part us, my own little love; though if your aunt and cousins had their way, we would never see each other's face again. Listen, Dainty. They have told me falsehoods about you—that you had left a lover in Richmond; that he has followed you here, and has been sending you notes to meet him in the grounds."
"Shameful!" she cried, indignantly. "How could they be so wicked!"
"And," continued her lover, crumpling the letters into a ball and throwing them into her lap, "they gave me these notes to read, saying you had dropped them, and a servant had brought them to your aunt."