"Love is as bitter as the dregs of sin,
As sweet as clover honey in its cell;
Love is the password whereby souls get in
To heaven—the gate that leads sometimes to hell.
Dear God above
Pity the hearts that know—or know not—Love!"
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
In due time Ethel received a letter from Lord Chester, announcing his safe arrival in England.
But to her surprise and chagrin the young man made no mention of the mysterious matter that had called him away.
"Can it be that Arthur deceived me? That he invented an excuse to get away from me? What if he means to break his troth?" she thought, with instant, angry suspicion.
But when she noticed how pale her sister's young cheek had grown while she read her letter, she smoothed the frown from her brow and cried out gayly:
"Ah, Precious, I wish you had an adoring lover like mine! It would thrill your heart to read some of the tender passages in dear Arthur's letter."
She read aloud, blushingly, some tender words and phrases, but the blush was for her own falsehood, for Arthur's letter held nothing like what she read. It was brief and almost indifferent, and the poor fellow had tried to excuse its coldness by pleading haste.
If Precious was surprised at those ardent words of love to her sister, she was also glad in her tender, unselfish heart that Arthur had returned to his first love. She crushed down her own bitter pangs and answered sweetly:
"I am glad that he loves you so dearly, Ethel!"