"We are here at Rosemont—Precious and I; the mater and Ethel are still in the Capitol City. Precious is improving slowly but surely in the fine mountain air, and I—well, I fear I'm losing my heart to a village coquette, the daintiest fairy I ever saw. Rosemont is a very gay little town, with some nice people—old Virginia stock, you know."
Then Lord Chester resolved to go back to Washington and see Ethel again. Perhaps now that Precious was gone his heart might return to its first love.
[CHAPTER XII.]
"A VILLAGE COQUETTE."
"Laughing eyes, curly hair, dainty robes,
They had crazed his hot, fiery brain, then.
Ah, the silliest maiden can make
A fool of the wisest of men!"
—May Agnes Fleming.
"I am seventeen to-day, and I have thirteen lovers!" cried pretty, saucy Ladybird, pirouetting on the velvet greensward in front of her father's house at Rosemont until her short golden-brown locks danced in fluffy rings all over her round, white, babyish forehead.
"Thirteen is always an unlucky number. Thee ought to jilt thy last lover," cried Auntie Prue from the porch.