Carpeted with crimson bloom.
Now the chill and scentless air
Sweeps the flower-plots brown and bare!”
CHAPTER II.
LOVE’S YOUNG DREAM.
“Violet, I love you!”
The most romantic girl in the world could not have chosen a fairer scene for such beautiful words.
Violet had wandered down to the river, whose fringe of golden willows gave Judge Camden’s place its name. The pretty stream went singing by the foot of the sloping green lawn, and the girl loved its voice, like a mother’s lullaby.
She threw herself carelessly on the green, mossy bank murmuring, plaintively:
“I wonder if Amber spoke the truth this morning when she claimed Cecil for her lover. If she did, he is a heartless flirt, for all his looks and words and actions have seemed plainly to declare that he preferred me!”
The rosy mouth quivered with grief, and tears dimmed the dazzling, dark-blue eyes, for Amber had been very harsh that day when the two girls were quite alone. She had chided sweet Violet for going about clothed always in simple white.