She did not feel equal to either the weariness or the excitement of the journey; but she thought that it would be a good opportunity for Virgie to visit the far West, and she gladly confided her to the care of her friends for the two months that the trip would occupy, and thus we find her in company with Mr. and Mrs. Knight, bound for the State where her mother had been born, and as fate had strangely ordered it, with the very party which Sir William Heath’s ward, Rupert Hamilton, had joined.
CHAPTER X.
MR. AND MISS KNIGHT VERSUS CUPID.
The ice once broken between Mr. Knight’s party and the two young men, the acquaintance progressed rapidly, and it soon became evident that Rupert and Virgie found each other especially congenial.
The young Englishman managed to constitute himself the beautiful girl’s escort upon almost every occasion when they were sight-seeing, until Mr. Webster began to realize that he was de trop, or as he humorously expressed it, but the “fifth wheel to the coach,” and he was forced to look about him for other society to soothe his wounded pride.
He soon found it in the companionship of two sisters, who were traveling with an aunt, and the dark eyes and sparkling beauty of the elder ere long bade fair to make as much a captive of him as Virgie had already made of Rupert Hamilton.
She was the loveliest girl that he had ever seen. Lillian Linton, and the startling discovery which Rupert had made regarding her feelings toward himself just before leaving Heathdale, were forgotten, and he surrendered himself to the charm of her society, never questioning to what it might lead, or what his feelings might be when the trip was ended, and they should go their different ways.
But others began to consider these things if the youthful couple did not.
Older and more experienced eyes could see that he was fast learning to love the charming girl, and that she was also yielding her young heart, with its first strong passion, to the handsome Englishman.
Mr. and Miss Knight could not fail to perceive the danger that lurked in the pleasant companionship, and, while they liked the frank, manly fellow uncommonly well, they were troubled at the thought of anything serious growing out of it, while Virgie was in their care.
“Robert, I am afraid there is mischief brewing, and I feel very uneasy about it,” Miss Knight remarked to her brother one day, as Rupert and Virgie stole away together to a corner of the parlor in the hotel where they were stopping to look over a collection of views, which the young man had recently purchased.