But Precious did not enjoy it as she would have done last winter, when all her artless heart had been set on long dresses and social pleasures.
The beautiful girl was strangely changed from six months ago.
Her pretty childishness had dropped from her like a garment, and in its place was a new, sweet dignity almost womanly. Much of her willfulness had left her, and instead of opposing Ethel as she had done in the old days Precious yielded passively to her sister's wishes, often saying, with a pensive shade on her brow:
"We must let Ethel have her own way about everything, because we are going to lose her so soon."
Ethel was radiant in those days. She did not envy her sister's social triumphs, she rejoiced in her success, and was always watching closely to see if any lover ever touched the girl's heart.
And surely, she thought, there were so many to choose from that Precious must yield her heart to one.
In the list of conquests were numbered a millionaire senator, middle-aged but handsome; a member of the French Legation, a German baron with his breast covered with jeweled orders of honor, two Southern colonels, a noted Northern general, and several score of "gilded" youths. No girl in her senses could reject all these brilliant opportunities.
But Precious had the same cheerful smile, the same kindly word for all, and if twitted in the domestic circle about her adorers she always cried out that she never intended to marry any one. She loved papa and mamma so well that she would never go away and leave them. Earle and Ethel would marry, of course—but as for her, no indeed, never!
And then she would nestle in her father's clasp, and stroke his dark whiskers with her dimpled white hands, and smile up at him with those dazzling dark-blue eyes in fondest affection, while he would answer that he wanted her to stay with him always, always, that it would break his heart if she ever married and went away.
"You needn't be afraid, papa, for I will always love you best," she laughed, but Ethel heard these promises with secret pain. They made her feel sure that Precious still loved Lord Chester with a hopeless passion that would make her go unwedded to her grave.