But her dark-blue eyes lingered tenderly on the lovely upturned face, for Precious was on an ottoman at her mother's feet.
Mrs. Winans was the mother of three children—a son and two daughters. Precious was the youngest—"the baby," they called her—and, like all babies, she was spoiled, and liked to have her own way, always wheedling her parents until she got whatever she wanted.
"Dear mamma, you will let me go," she cried teasingly.
"Go where?" exclaimed a musical voice, as a tall, dark, regal beauty entered the library. "Go where?" she repeated. "And what is the baby teasing for now, mamma?"
Precious Winans lifted her golden head from her mother's knee, and turning her pansy-blue eyes on her queenly sister replied, with the air of a little princess:
"Ethel, I've made up my mind to go to the Inauguration Ball."
"The ball, indeed?" and Ethel shook with laughter in which her mother joined.
Ere the echo of their mirth died away a tall, dark, handsome man entered the room—their father, from whom the elder girl inherited her dusky beauty, while the younger was the image of her lovely blond mother.
"What is the joke about?" he asked genially, and his wife replied:
"Precious has a new notion in her silly little noddle. She wants to attend the Inauguration Ball."