And beautiful, passionate Ethel, with her flashing eyes and her proud smile?
Since we first met her several weeks ago a change has come over this reckless spirit.
The passion of love has thrown its golden glamour over her heart.
At a brilliant entertainment ten days ago she had met a stranger, an Englishman of rank and wealth, who was just now being lionized by American society.
Lord Chester was young, handsome, fascinating, and caused many a flutter in feminine hearts, but he soon singled out the brilliant belle, Miss Winans, as the bright particular star of his worship, and it was soon suspected that the girl, whose conquests had been legion in her two successful seasons, had been touched at last by Cupid's arrows. Society began to prophesy a match.
Ethel was radiant in the bliss of this dawning passion.
She foresaw, in a worshiping love and a brilliant marriage, an escape from the life that her jealous nature made at times unendurable.
"As Lady Chester I should leave my father's house, where Precious has supplanted me in all my rights. In my grand English home I should reign queen of my husband's heart, and in time the wounds of slighted love in my father's home might heal and be forgotten," she thought gladly, and there was triumph in the anticipation of this brilliant match, for she did not believe Precious could ever win a title, in spite of her charms.
"She is lovely, but she is not queenly, as I am. She would not grace a title," she thought proudly.