Queenie had dropped into a chair at the farmer's renunciation of her claims, and, hiding her face in her hands, burst into a passionate fit of weeping. Mrs. Bowers stood by her making a pretended effort at consoling her, but her pretended brother paid no heed to the wretched girl. He looked at Jennie's bright, pretty face, and then turned to her father.
"I think you said your daughter was out of a place, at present," he said, blandly. "Do you wish to secure another one for her?"
"Yes, we do," was the ready answer. "We have to put her out to service, for we cannot afford to keep her at home. She must earn her clothes and a bit more to help us along at home."
"I think my sister needs just such a girl about the house, to help her with the housekeeping," said Leon Vinton; and, turning to Mrs. Bowers, he said: "Do you think Miss Jennie would suit you?"
The woman stared at him in surprise for a moment, but he gave her a significant glance, and she answered with apparent frankness:
"Yes, I think I should like to have her very much."
"Very well, then," and, turning to the farmer he inquired if his sister could have Jennie, naming a liberal, but not too large compensation, for fear of exciting suspicion. He did not ask the girl, herself, for he had already read her consent in her beaming eyes. She was perfectly fascinated by the handsome stranger, and was ready to go anywhere that she might daily see him and hear his voice.
Before the farmer could speak, Queenie sprang to his side, and laid her delicate white hand, all sparkling with jewels, on his coarse sleeve, lifting her blue eyes pleadingly to his face.
"Oh! sir," she said, "you think me mad, but for Heaven's sake be warned by me! Do not suffer your pretty, simple girl to stray into the snare this man and woman are setting for her. If you give your consent you will rue it in dust and ashes, when you see her innocence betrayed and her virtue lost."
Leon Vinton glared at her fiercely as the farmer hesitated.