Transcriber’s Notes:

The Table of Contents was created by the transcriber and placed in the public domain.

[Additional Transcriber’s Notes] are at the end.

CONTENTS

[Chapter I. A Pretty Factory Girl.]

[Chapter II. Love All His Own.]

[Chapter III. A Jealous Rage.]

[Chapter IV. The Bird Flies.]

[Chapter V. The Lover Reappears.]

[Chapter VI. A Happy Excursion.]

[Chapter VII. Acquiring a Stepfather.]

[Chapter VIII. Secret Visits.]

[Chapter IX. The Secret Divulged.]

[Chapter X. A Heartsick Fugitive.]

[Chapter XI. Sheltering Arms.]

[Chapter XII. Beginning Over Again.]

[Chapter XIII. In a Boarding House.]

[Chapter XIV. A Second Marriage.]

[Chapter XV. Startling News.]

[Chapter XVI. The Sad Return.]

[Chapter XVII. A Dramatic Meeting.]

[Chapter XVIII. A False Smile.]

[Chapter XIX. A Poisoned Life.]

[Chapter XX. An Evening of Suspense.]

[Chapter XXI. A Return Call.]

[Chapter XXII. A Beautiful Child.]

[Chapter XXIII. A Daring Move.]

[Chapter XXIV. Old Lovers Face to Face.]

[Chapter XXV. An Old Story.]

[Chapter XXVI. The Enemy at Work.]

[Chapter XXVII. “A Married Flirt.”]

[Chapter XXVIII. The Blackmailer Baffled.]

[Chapter XXIX. Caught in a Trap.]

[Chapter XXX. A Supposed Suicide.]

[Chapter XXXI. An Amazed Husband.]

[Chapter XXXII. The Revelation.]

[Chapter XXXIII. Noble Forgiveness.]

[Chapter XXXIV. Imaginary Deceit.]

[Chapter XXXV. Generous Deeds.]

[Chapter XXXVI. Plans For the Future.]

[Chapter XXXVII. The Storm Breaks.]

[Chapter XXXVIII. Visions of Happiness.]

[Chapter XXXIX. Reaching a Decision.]

[Chapter XL. A Great Sacrifice.]

[Chapter XLI. A False Witness.]

[Chapter XLII. Remarried.]

[Chapter XLIII. A Lovely Widow.]

[Chapter XLIV. A Mother’s Yearning.]

[Chapter XLV. Supreme Joy.]

NEW EAGLE SERIES No. 1164

Love Conquers Pride

BY Mrs. Alex.
McVeigh
Miller

POPULAR COPYRIGHTS

New Eagle Series

PRICE, FIFTEEN CENTS

Carefully Selected Love Stories

Note the Authors!

There is such a profusion of good books in this list, that it is an impossibility to urge you to select any particular title or author’s work. All that we can say is that any line that contains the complete works of Mrs. Georgie Sheldon, Charles Garvice, Mrs. Harriet Lewis, May Agnes Fleming, Wenona Gilman, Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller, and other writers of the same type, is worthy of your attention, especially when the price has been set at 15 cents the volume.

These books range from 256 to 320 pages. They are printed from good type, and are readable from start to finish.

If you are looking for clean-cut, honest value, then we state most emphatically that you will find it in this line.

ALL TITLES ALWAYS IN PRINT

Love Conquers Pride

OR,
WHERE PEACE DWELT

BY
MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER

Author of “The Man She Hated,” “A Married Flirt,” “Loyal
Unto Death,” “Only a Kiss”—published in the New Eagle
Series.

STREET & SMITH CORPORATION
PUBLISHERS
79-89 Seventh Avenue, New York

Copyright, 1888

NORMAN L. MUNRO
Renewal for 28 years, from
November 8, 1916, granted
to Mrs. Alex. McVeigh
Miller

Love Conquers Pride

(Printed in the United States of America)

LOVE CONQUERS PRIDE.

CHAPTER I.
A PRETTY FACTORY GIRL.

Pretty Pansy lay lazily in the hammock at the foot of the lawn, and listened to the south wind rushing through the tree tops overhead, thinking to herself, with a blush, that it seemed to be whispering a name—whispering it over and over:

“Norman Wylde!”

At the top of the green, sloping lawn stood a big white farmhouse, with long porches shaded by rose vines and honeysuckles. Pansy’s uncle and aunt lived there, and she had come on a month’s visit to them. The month was slipping away very fast now, and she must soon return to her work in Richmond, for Pansy Laurens was no pampered favorite of fortune, but an employee of one of the great tobacco factories.

Pansy was only fifteen when her father, a machinist at the Tredegar Works, had died and left his wife and five children penniless, save for what they could earn by the labor of their own hands. Pansy was the eldest, and her mother had to take her from school that the labor of her little white hands might help to earn the family support.

Nothing offered but the tobacco factories, and Pansy went there, while her brother Willie found work as a cash boy in a dry-goods store on Broad Street. The three younger ones, being too small to work, were continued at school, while the mother took in sewing to help eke out the family income.

It was hard on them all, most especially on Pansy, who was so intelligent and refined, and who hated to leave school and toil at repulsive tasks among companions who were mostly uncongenial, for, although some of the girls were sweet and pretty as herself, others were coarse and rude, and sneered at her, calling her proud and ambitious, although they knew at heart that they were only jealous of the lovely face, so round and dimpled, with its big purplish-blue eyes, shaded by such a beautiful fringe of long black curling lashes.

They all envied her that fair face and those silky masses of wavy dark hair that made such a becoming frame for the transparent white skin, with its wild-rose tints and delicate tracery of blue veins.

But, pretty or ugly, it did not matter, the girl said to herself sometimes, with bitter discontent, as she looked at her fair reflection in the mirror. She was nothing but a factory girl, after all, and there were people who looked down on her for that act as if the very sound were the essence of vulgarity. To have been a shopgirl even, or a dressmaker, or milliner, would have been far more genteel, she said to herself.

This was the first time in three years that she had got away from the factory, and she would not have done so then if she had not been given a furlough from work because there was a temporary dullness in trade.

Then Uncle Robbins had come to Richmond from his country home on a little business, and, struck by her pale cheeks and air of languor, invited her to go home with him. Mother urged her to accept the invitation, declaring that she could get along without her, and Pansy went gladly away on her little summer holiday, which was now drawing to an end.

Her heart was full of this as she swung to and fro in the hammock beneath the trees, and listened to the wind rustling the leaves so musically, seeming to murmur over and over that name so dear to her heart:

“Norman Wylde!”

He was a summer boarder at her aunt’s, and he had been kind to her, not cool and supercilious like the others, who looked down upon her because she was a working girl.

Pansy thought him the handsomest man she had ever seen, and she was grateful to him for the courteous way in which he treated her, never seeming to realize any difference in the social position of herself and Miss Ives, the Richmond belle, who was here with her mother because the doctors had tabooed any gayety for the elderly lady this summer on account of a serious heart trouble.

Juliette Ives was as much in love with the handsome young gentleman as Pansy herself, and she sneered at the factory girl in her cheap lawns and ginghams.

“Actually setting herself up as an equal among her aunt’s boarders,” she said disdainfully. “I mean to put her down at once, and let her know that we do not desire her company.”

So she boldly asked Pansy if she could hire her to do the washing for her mother and herself.

“I am not a servant,” Pansy answered, flushing angrily.

“You are a factory girl, aren’t you?” disdainfully.

“Yes, but not a servant.”

“I don’t see much difference,” said the rich girl insolently; and from that moment the two were open enemies.

Juliette Ives knew in her own heart that her spiteful actions had been the outcome of jealousy because Norman Wylde had looked so admiringly at Pansy when he first met her, and Pansy was quick enough to understand the truth.

“She is in love with him, and is jealous of me, in spite of my poverty and my lonely position. Very well, I’ll pay her back for her scorn, if I can,” she resolved, with girlish pique.

And as she possessed beauty equal to, if not greater than, Juliette’s blond charms, and was fairly well educated and intelligent, she had some advantages, at least, with which to enter the lists with the aristocratic belle who scorned her so openly.

And Norman Wylde, who had a noble, chivalrous nature, could not help taking Pansy’s part when he saw how the boarders tried to put her down.

“Poor little thing! It’s a shame, for she is as sweet and pretty as a wild rose, and they ought to be friendly with her and help to brighten her hard lot,” he thought, with indignation.

CHAPTER II.
LOVE ALL HIS OWN.

The boarders had organized a fishing party, and everybody had gone, even Mr. Wylde, so it was very quiet at the farmhouse. Aunt Robbins and her servants were busy making preserves, and Uncle Robbins was in the meadow, hauling and stacking the wheat he had cut a few days before. Pansy had helped to peel apples for the preserves until her back ached and her hands smarted, so at last Aunt Robbins sent her out to rest.

“I shan’t need you any more to-day, so you had better go and take a nap in the hammock before that stuck-up Jule Ives comes to turn you out of it,” said the good woman.

Pansy went out, but she took off her calico dress and gingham apron first, and donned her prettiest dress, an organdie lawn with a white ground sprigged with blue flowers. A pretty bow of blue ribbon fastened the white lace at her throat, and another one tied back the mass of rippling dark hair from the white temples, leaving just a few bewitching love locks to curl over the white brow. Thus attired, she looked exquisitely fair, cool, and charming, and she knew well that when the boarders returned, tired and hot from the day’s amusements, they would envy her sweet, comfortable appearance.

She was not disappointed, for by and by, when they came trooping through the big white gate close by her, every one stopped and stared, and Miss Ives exclaimed, in a loud, sarcastic voice:

“Good gracious, is it Sunday?”

“Why, no, of course not, Juliette,” said Chattie Norwood. “Why, what made you think of such a funny thing?”

“Why, Pansy Laurens has on her Sunday dress, that’s all,” with a loud laugh.

“Oh, pshaw! Her other one is in the washtub,” tittered Miss Norwood, and every word came distinctly to Pansy’s ears. An angry impulse prompted her to make some scathing reply, but an innate delicacy restrained her, and she would not lift her beautiful, drooping lashes from the book she pretended to be reading, although the angry color deepened to crimson on her cheeks.

The tittering party passed on toward the house, but, although Pansy did not look up, she was conscious that one had lingered and stopped. It was Norman Wylde, and he came up to the hammock, and said gently:

“Poor little Pansy!”

Her sweet lips quivered, and she looked up, meeting the tender, sympathetic gaze of his splendid dark eyes.

“You are a brave little girl,” he continued warmly. “I was glad that you proved yourself too much of a lady to reply to their coarse sneers. Your sweet dignity makes me love you all the more.”

Pansy gave a little start of surprise and rapture. Did he indeed love her? The color flamed up brightly on her delicate cheeks, and the lashes drooped bashfully over her eyes.

“Look at me, Pansy,” said the young man, in a tone made up of tender command and fond entreaty. “You are not surprised. You guessed that I loved you, didn’t you?”

“No. I was afraid that—that you loved Miss Ives,” she faltered, and a frown darkened his handsome face.

“Do not speak to me of her,” he said impatiently. “Who could love her after the meanness and injustice of her conduct to you?” He imprisoned both her little hands in his, as he continued ardently: “Pansy, do you love me, my little darling?”

A bashful glance from the sweet blue eyes answered his question, and, stooping down, he was about to press a kiss on her beautiful lips when a stealthy footstep came up behind them, and an angry voice exclaimed:

“Really, Mr. Wylde, when you want to flirt with factory girls you should not choose such a public place, especially when the girl you are engaged to is close at hand.”

He started backward as if shot, and Pansy sprang from the hammock with a shriek:

“It is false!”

Juliette Ives laughed scornfully, and replied:

“Ask him. He will not deny it.”

Pretty Pansy, with a face that had grown white as a lily, turned to Norman Wylde.

“Is it true? Are you engaged to her?” she demanded sharply.

“Yes, but——”

“That is enough!” interrupted Pansy, with flashing eyes. She would not let him finish his sentence, so keen was her resentment at his trifling, as she deemed it; and, looking scornfully at him, she said:

“Never presume to speak to me again, sir!”

Then she walked rapidly from the spot, and Norman Wylde and Juliette Ives stood looking at each other with angry eyes.

“Are you not ashamed of yourself?” she cried indignantly.

“Eavesdropper!” he retorted passionately, forgetting his gentlemanliness in his resentment at her conduct.

“Traitor!” she retorted defiantly, then burst out fiercely: “Call me what names you will, I have borne your trifling until I could bear no more. If you wanted to flirt, why couldn’t you have chosen some one in your own station in life, instead of that miserable tobacco-factory girl?”

He had folded his arms across his chest, and was listening with a sneer to her angry speech. When she paused he answered, in a low yet distinct voice:

“I beg your pardon. It was not flirting, but earnest.”

A sharp remonstrance sprang to her lips, but, without taking any note of it, he continued coldly:

“I had a fancy for you once, Juliette, but it perished when I saw how mean and base you could be to a less fortunate sister woman. I have watched you and your clique, Juliette, and I have been ashamed of you all—ashamed and indignant, and my heart turned away from you to that sweet persecuted girl with a deeper tenderness than it ever felt before. I made up my mind to snap the bonds that held me as your slave, and to win her for my own. But I acted prematurely in declaring my love for her first. You drove me to it with your unwomanly conduct of a little while ago, else I had not been so hasty.”

She stood staring at him with angry incredulity, wondering if he spoke the truth, if he really meant to throw her over for the sake of a girl he had barely known a month.

“What if I refuse to give you your freedom?” she asked harshly.’

“You would not wish to hold an unwilling captive,” he replied, with a touch of scorn, and she saw that it would be impossible to hold him without a sacrifice of her pride. Curbing herself a little, she asked humbly:

“Hadn’t we better take time to think it over, Norman? I admit I was jealous and a little hasty.”

He looked disappointed and uneasy. Was she really going to hold him to that bond of which he was so weary, against which he chafed so fiercely?

She caught that look, and comprehended it with bitter mortification. Anger came to her aid. “Go—you are free as air, and I am well rid of a fickle flirt,” she exclaimed hotly.

“I thank you, Miss Ives,” he replied, in a tone of relief, and, bowing coldly, he walked away toward the house, leaving Juliette stamping on the soft grass in a tempest of fury and disappointment.

He was anxious to find little Pansy and explain his conduct to her. Surely she would forgive him when she knew that it was for her sake he had broken faith with Juliette Ives. Of course she would be ready to make up with him.

And his heart throbbed madly at the thought that sweet Pansy’s love was all his own. He knew that there would be a bitter battle with his relatives, but he was determined to make her his wife.

CHAPTER III.
A JEALOUS RAGE.

Juliette Ives rushed up to the house presently and poured the story of her lover’s treachery into the ears of her mother, who became quite indignant at the turn affairs were taking.

“I will go at once to the farmer’s wife, and give her a piece of my mind about her impudent niece,” she said, and she went immediately to Mrs. Robbins, who was in the pantry, labeling the nice jars of preserves she had made that day.

“I have come to complain of your niece, that bold factory girl, who has been making trouble between my daughter and the gentleman she’s engaged to,” she began.

Mrs. Robbins looked around in amazement.

“What has Pansy done, ma’am, to be called sech names?” she exclaimed, rather resentfully; and then Mrs. Ives poured out a garbled version of poor Pansy’s flirtation with Norman Wylde, making it appear that she was a bold, forward creature, who had actually forced the gentleman to pay her attention.

“Maybe she thinks he will marry her and make her a fine lady, but she’s mistaken,” she sneered. “It’s only a way he has of flirting, but it means nothing, as many a poor girl in Richmond and elsewhere knows to her cost. He’s very wild, but he promised my daughter, when she accepted him, that he would reform. I believe he was trying to do so, but when Pansy Laurens kept throwing herself in his way he couldn’t resist the temptation to make a fool of her. So when my daughter caught him kissing the girl, just now, in the hammock, she discarded him at once, and he’s so angry he’ll maybe fall into some mischief that will make Pansy Laurens rue the day she ever saw him. If I were you, Mrs. Robbins, I’d send the girl home to her mother at once,” she advised eagerly.

Mrs. Robbins sat silent, gravely cogitating. She was a large, fleshy woman, good-natured, and slow to anger. It did not occur to her to fly into a passion and resent Mrs. Ives’ harsh opinion of Pansy.

On the contrary, to her calm, equable nature, it seemed best to weigh the pros and cons in the case. Besides, Pansy was her husband’s niece, not hers, and she had no special fondness for the girl, whom she had never seen till this summer.

Mrs. Ives watched her closely, and, seeing how quietly she had taken everything, took heart to continue pouring out her venom.

“I’m afraid that girl is going to make you lots of trouble,” she ventured. “She will want to hang on to Mr. Wylde, of course.”

Mrs. Robbins turned her large, ruminating eyes on the lady’s face, and remarked:

“Perhaps he means fair. Rich men have married poor geerls before now. And Pansy Laurens is a good-looking geerl—as pritty as your Jule, I think, ma’am.”

Mrs. Ives grew quite red in the face with anger, but she restrained herself, hoping to mold the simple-minded woman to her will. Shaking her head vehemently, she replied:

“Ah, you don’t know the Wyldes! They are the proudest people in Richmond, rich and fashionable, and belong to one of the oldest families in Virginia. All of them have been professional men, and they consider working people as no better than their servants. If Norman Wylde was fool enough to want to marry a mechanic’s daughter and a working girl, which you may be sure he isn’t, his folks would disinherit him, and never speak to him again.”

Mrs. Robbins shook her head and sighed.

“I hate to think of my husband’s niece a-being in sech a scrape. Ef she’s been bold and forrard, ma’am, I never noticed it.”

“Of course not. She was too sly,” sneered Mrs. Ives. “But I see you’re bound to take her part, Mrs. Robbins, and I’ll say no more, only this: If disgrace comes on your family through that audacious piece, remember I warned you.”

“I’ll talk to Mr. Robbins,” was the only answer from the woman of few words.

CHAPTER IV.
THE BIRD FLIES.

Meanwhile poor Pansy, half crazed with shame and grief, was sobbing forlornly up in her little chamber under the eaves.

She believed that Norman Wylde had been amusing himself with her, and the thought was agony to her fond, loving heart.

“I loved him so! Oh, I loved him so! And it was cruel, cruel for him to deceive me,” she moaned bitterly, while the shame of it all weighed heavily on her sensitive spirit.

Suddenly the hired girl, a bright mulatto, put her head into the room, and started at seeing Pansy lying on the floor in tears.

“Lor’, Miss Pansy, what’s de matter? You sick?” she exclaimed.

“No—yes. What do you want, Sue?” fretfully.

“Mr. Wylde tole me to tole you to come downsta’rs. He wants to tell you sumfin.”

Pansy’s blue eyes flashed through their tears.

“Tell him I won’t come, that I don’t want to see him!” she replied spiritedly.

Norman Wylde sighed when he received the message, and turned away without a word. Going to his room, he dashed off a hasty letter to Pansy, explaining everything, and begged her consent to become his wife. Then he went down, and, finding Sue alone in the kitchen, gave her the letter to take to Pansy, liberally rewarding her for the service.

Just outside Pansy’s door she came upon Juliette Ives, who said carelessly:

“Give me that letter. I’ll hand it to Pansy.”

She held up her hand, with a silver piece shining in its palm. Sue snapped at the bait, and immediately delivered up the precious letter, which Miss Ives hid in her pocket, then ran away to her own room.

Her pale-blue eyes sparkled with fury as she read the tender love letter Norman Wylde had written to Pansy.

“She shall never be his wife if I can prevent it!” she vowed bitterly.

The impatient lover waited in vain for a reply to his letter, for Pansy did not come down that evening, and when he arose, very early the next morning, he learned, to his dismay, that Farmer Robbins had taken his niece away on the midnight train.

He went impatiently to Mrs. Robbins, and she told him, in her cool, straightforward way, that Mr. Robbins had taken Pansy away because he did not approve of her flirting with young men.

“But, my dear madam, my intentions were strictly honorable. I wished to marry Pansy,” he expostulated.

“You are engaged to Miss Ives, ain’t you?” she returned curtly.

“I was, but I am no longer. I broke off with her that I might ask Pansy Laurens to marry me.”

He seemed so manly and straightforward that Mrs. Robbins must have been forced to believe in his sincerity had not her mind been poisoned beforehand by the slanders of Mrs. Ives. But the poison had done its work, and she looked on him as a liar and a libertine. So she answered curtly again:

“Rich young men like you, Mr. Wylde, don’t marry poor working geerls like little Pansy Laurens. I’ve heerd all about your character from Mrs. Ives, sir, and I know you didn’t mean any good to Pansy, so her uncle up and took her away out o’ harm’s reach.”

His black eyes flashed with anger.

“I shall follow her!” he exclaimed hotly, and rushed out on the lawn, where Mrs. Ives was leisurely promenading under the trees.

She cowered a little when she saw his handsome face so pale with anger, and his burning dark eyes fixed on her with such resentful passion.

Controlling his fierce anger by a strong effort of will, he advanced toward her, and said, with forced calmness:

“I am curious to know, Mrs. Ives, what kind of character you have given me to Mrs. Robbins, since it had the effect of incensing her so bitterly against me?”

She tossed up her head defiantly, and replied:

“It was your flirting with her niece that angered Mrs. Robbins.”

His brow darkened, and he waved his hand, as if thrusting aside her petty subterfuge.

“Mrs. Robbins told me that she had had my character from you.”

“Oh, pshaw! What was the foolish creature thinking of?” cried the lady airily. “She asked me about you, and I merely said that you were fickle-minded—that was all. You will grant that I had room to say that much, after your treatment of my daughter?”

He recoiled from the envenomed thrust, and turned away, with a cold bow. He felt sure that she had said much more, but she was not a man—he could not force her to answer for the slanders she had uttered against him.

As he left her side, Juliette approached eagerly, and inquired what Norman had said. Mrs. Ives repeated it, and added, with a chuckle of triumph:

“He did not believe me, but he dared not say so.”

“Have you written to the Wyldes, mamma?”

“Yes; and colored the whole affair as highly as possible.”

“You do not believe they will allow him to marry that upstart girl?”

“No, indeed; for I have given her a fine character, you may be sure,” replied the heartless woman complacently.

“I should die of spite if he married her,” cried Juliette jealously.

“He will not marry her, my dear, for I am determined to thwart her, if possible. I have poisoned the minds of all her relations against him, and they will be sure to keep him at a distance. Besides, you said yourself that she was angry with him, and declared she would never speak to him again.”

“Yes; but if he had a chance to explain——”

“They will have no chance to explain. Their relations will keep them apart,” interrupted her mother firmly.

CHAPTER V.
THE LOVER REAPPEARS.

Arnell & Grey, the firm at whose immense tobacco factory Pansy Laurens worked, were noted for their kindness and liberality to their employees. Every year they planned and carried out, at their own expense, some pleasant entertainment, to which every one in the factory was cordially invited; and this summer it took the form of a delightful excursion.

A crowded steamer carried the large number of employees down the James River, and a fine band furnished music for the gay young people, who danced all day upon the deck, under the blue sky and bright sunlight of August. Downstairs a dinner was waiting, and nothing that could conduce to the pleasure of the occasion had been forgotten by Arnell & Grey, who delighted in the success of their generous undertakings.

Pansy Laurens went, of course—naughty Pansy, who had been in disgrace for a month with her relations, on account of her crime of stealing a rich girl’s lover away. Yes, it was almost five weeks now since Uncle Robbins had taken Pansy back to Richmond and told her mother sternly that he was sorry he had ever taken her away, since she had made serious trouble among his boarders, and flirted boldly with a young man who was engaged to another girl.

He had brought her home to get her out of harm’s way, he said, and he advised his sister to keep a sharp lookout upon the willful girl, as Norman Wylde had vowed he would follow her to Richmond.

Mrs. Laurens expressed herself to her brother as being ashamed of her daughter’s bad conduct, and determined to keep her in strict bounds hereafter.

She scolded Pansy, and threatened to lock her in her room on bread and water if she ever spoke to that dangerous young man again.

Poor Pansy could do nothing but tell her own side of the story.

She had not been bold and forward. She had not known Norman Wylde was engaged to anybody, and she did not know that he was amusing himself only, when he made love to her in those bright summer days. When she found out that he was only flirting she had told him never to speak to her again.

“Stick to that, little gal, and there won’t be no more trouble,” said Uncle Robbins approvingly.

“Yes; don’t let him come near you again as long as you live,” added Mrs. Robbins sharply, and Pansy thought to herself that she never would.

She was overwhelmed with shame and grief at this pitiless exposé of her futile love dream, and down in her little heart was a secret resentment, too, at the hardness of everybody. Why should they declare that she had been bold and forward? She knew that it was untrue, and their blame cut deep into the sensitive heart. Norman Wylde, too—how could he have been so cruel, so unkind? Her pillow was wet with tears every night as she strove through long, sleepless hours to banish from memory the false, sweet smiles and loving dark eyes that haunted her and made so hard the bitter task she was essaying.

She was not among the dancers to-day, although she was the prettiest girl on board, and had many invitations from gallant young men. But she chose rather to sit leaning pensively over the handrail and gaze with grave blue eyes into the foamy depths of the water. Many eyes wandered to the pretty figure in the snowy-white dress and wide, daisy-trimmed straw hat; many wondered why she seemed so sad, but none guessed that she was thinking that she would like to be at rest under those softly lapping waves, with the story of her young life ended here and now.

Ah, how suddenly her despondent mood was changed! A shadow came between her and the light—some one sat down beside her and facing her. She looked up, startled, and saw—Norman Wylde.

Norman Wylde, pale and impassioned-looking, with a determined light in his splendid dark eyes.

As she made a movement to rise, his strong hand closed over her weak little white ones, and forced her back into her seat.

“Sit still,” he whispered hoarsely, desperately. “I must speak to you, and you shall listen.”

She glanced about her with frightened eyes. No one was looking. The music was pulsing sweetly on the air, and the dancers were keeping time with flying feet. She looked up at him, pale with emotion.

“You can have nothing to say to me that I wish to hear, Mr. Wylde, for I despise you,” she answered bitterly.

“That is not true, Pansy, for a month ago you owned that you loved me, and you have not unlearned your love so soon. Falsehoods have been told you, and you knew no better than to believe them without giving me a chance to defend myself. I have written to you, but my letters came back to me unopened. I have dogged your footsteps on the streets, but you fled from me, and, as a last resort, I came upon this excursion, determined to force a hearing from you. Will you listen to me? Will you let me explain the meaning of that scene with Juliette Ives that day?”

She struggled under his detaining hand, anxious to escape, yet not wishing to make a scene.

“You were engaged to her, yet you made love to me; that is enough for me to know,” she answered, turning crimson in her humiliation; but her indifference and eagerness to get away only made him more determined to conquer her pride.

“Pansy, you are driving me mad,” he cried imploringly; then, with sudden passion, he added: “Unless you will sit still and listen to what I have to say to you, I swear I will drown myself before your eyes!”

CHAPTER VI.
A HAPPY EXCURSION.

Pansy was so startled by the threat of her desperate lover that she sank back into her seat without a word, her slight form trembling with terror. She certainly did not want him to drown himself, although he had treated her so cruelly.

So she consented to listen to him. There could be no great harm in that, for it would not alter her opinion of him at all. He had been false to Juliette Ives and false to her. She was quite sure that she despised him, although her heart was beating furiously as she looked up into the pale, impassioned face, with its eager, burning dark eyes, that seemed fairly to devour her white, startled young face.

Now that he had his chance, he improved it in eloquent fashion. He explained everything clearly, making her understand that he was not the villain they made him out, and that if he were to blame in any way it was for breaking loose from the bonds that held him to a girl whose selfishness and cruelty had changed his love to hate.

“If I ever really loved her, which seems doubtful to me now,” he said. “It was last winter that we became engaged, and, although I admired her fair face and enjoyed her society, I swear to you, Pansy, that the thought of marrying her never crossed my mind until one night in the conservatory, when I was, somehow, drawn into asking her to marry me. I hardly know how it was, unless it was the romance of the moment. You remember the lines:

“Azure eyes, golden hair, scented robes—

“They had crazed my hot, foolish brain then.

“Ah, the silliest woman can make
A fool of the wisest of men!”

“But they say that you are fickle,” murmured Pansy, speaking for the first time.

“It is not true, my little darling. I never really fell in love until your sweet face dawned on my vision. Then I began to realize that my engagement to Juliette was a terrible mistake, and that I would be wrong to continue it. But I kept waiting from day to day, hoping she would see how things were and throw me over herself, as she did at last, but only after I had bungled matters by telling you too soon of my love.”

Where was Pansy’s bitter resentment now? It was melting like snow in the sunshine under his eager words. Everything looked so different now in the light of his manly, straightforward explanations.

Her sad heart bounded with renewed hope, and a leaden weight seemed to be lifted from her spirits.

“Now, Pansy, you see that I was not to blame,” said her lover eagerly. “You will forgive me, will you not, and promise what I was going to ask you that day—that you will be my own little wife?”

She blushed brightly, and could not utter a word. He took her little hand tenderly in his, and whispered:

“‘Silence gives consent.’”

Presently she lifted her little head from his breast, where he had drawn it in reckless defiance of the whole world, if it had been looking on. But, fortunately, no one saw or heeded the pair of happy lovers.

“But how can I be your wife?” she whispered, in a troubled tone. “Mrs. Ives told Aunt Robbins that your family was very rich and grand—that they would never permit you to marry me.”

“Never mind, I will bring them around,” he replied, with pretended carelessness.

He would not tell her that he had spoken to his parents about her, and that both had sternly forbidden him to think of marrying one so far beneath him in position, birth, and fortune.

“Remember that you are descended from one of the first families of Virginia,” exclaimed his haughty mother.

“I shall only regret that fact if it is to separate me from the girl I love,” he replied angrily, and then his father threatened him with disinheritance if he did not give up Pansy Laurens. He told Pansy nothing of all this, although it lay deep in his own heart, like a leaden weight, for he knew that he could not support a wife if his father threw him over. He had no fortune of his own, and, although he had been educated for the law, he had only just hung out his “shingle,” as he humorously called it. It was folly, madness, to woo Pansy Laurens in the face of such prospects, and yet he went straight on, hoping against hope that something would turn up in his favor.

“I will bring them around in time,” he repeated, and she, looking up at her splendid lover in worshipful adoration, believed him, and bright visions of happiness flitted before her mind’s eye. She could not help triumphing in her thoughts over her insolent rival, Juliette Ives.

Oh, how suddenly the face of all the world was changed to the girl who such a little while ago was so unhappy that she wished herself dead! The beautiful face grew so animated that he was charmed and delighted. He told her that she had the fairest face he had ever seen, and that he would like to be a king, that he might make her a queen.

All too soon that happy excursion came to an end, but it stood out brightly forever in Pansy’s memory. She had been so happy, so blessed; and when she parted with her lover it was to look forward to secret meetings—pleasant walks with him that would take away the dreariness and loneliness of her life. He told her that it would not be wrong, and she loved him too well to doubt his word.

Several weeks afterward Pansy’s mother was quite sick one day with a headache, and the girl had to stay home from work. Toward afternoon she grew much better, and then Pansy, who was sitting near the bed with her sewing, said timidly:

“Mamma, I am afraid that we have all been too hard on Norman Wylde. Perhaps he did love me and mean to marry me.”

“Nonsense!” the mother exclaimed curtly, and then she saw tears in Pansy’s blue eyes, much to her dismay, for she thought Pansy had got over her fancy for Norman Wylde.

“But, mamma——”

“I do not wish to hear anything about that villain,” answered the mother sharply, and, although the girl had made up her mind to confess everything to her mother, she was frightened out of it by her harshness; and the next time she saw Norman she told him that she had made the effort to tell her mother all, but had failed through dread of her anger.

They were in the Capitol Square, for it was Sunday afternoon, and Pansy had told her mother that she was going for a little walk.

Norman Wylde was waiting for her under the tree in a secluded part of the grounds, and they sat down together on a rustic bench while Pansy, half in tears, related her failure with her mother.

“I am sorry, for I have wished so much that I might be able to visit you at your own home,” said her lover. Then his face brightened, and he added:

“But never mind, darling, it does not matter so much now, for I am going away from Richmond very soon. Do not look so woebegone, my little Pansy, for I have good news for you.”

She started and looked up eagerly, wondering if his parents had relented.

But it was nothing like that.

In a moment he continued:

“Congratulate me, my dearest. I have at last found a client!”

“Oh!” cried Pansy gladly.

“Yes, and a wealthy one, too,” said the young man exultantly. “He wishes me to go to London upon some law business for him, and if my mission proves successful my reputation will be made at once, and I shall earn a princely fee, also.”

“But to go away so far—oh!” cried Pansy, in unutterable distress.

But her lover laughed.

“Pshaw! Not so very far,” he said lightly, then, pressing her little hand warmly, he whispered: “We can bear the separation, my darling, since, in reality, it only brings us nearer together, as, of course I shall be in a position to marry then.”

But Pansy had burst into tears. A dark cloud had settled over her spirits.

No one was near them, and he bent tenderly over her, trying to soothe her girlish distress.

“It is only for a few months, dearest, and we will write to each other every week. Then, when I come back, we will be happy.”

“I feel as if we were parting forever,” she sighed, but he smiled tenderly, and answered:

“No, no, Pansy—only for a little while.”

But his own heart was heavy, too. He adored his lovely little sweetheart, and vague fears assailed him lest some one should win her away from him during his enforced absence. She was so young, so untaught, what if she learned to doubt him? What if the enemies that encompassed both should turn her heart against him?

A sudden mad resolve came over him. With quickened breath, he whispered:

“Pansy, in a week I must go and leave you. What if I married you before I went, and left my own sweet wife waiting for my return?”

She started and gazed wildly at him.

“They—they—would not permit it,” she returned breathlessly.

He smiled triumphantly.

“We could run away, my pet,” he said. “For instance, suppose when you started to work to-morrow morning I should meet you? We could take the early morning train for Washington, be married, and return by the time the factory closes for the day. You could go quietly home again, and no one need know our sweet secret until I came back to claim you.”

CHAPTER VII.
ACQUIRING A STEPFATHER.

Mrs. Laurens would have been only too glad to listen to her daughter, if she had had any idea that Norman Wylde’s intentions toward Pansy were strictly honorable. But her brother’s representations had so thoroughly alarmed her that she deemed it proper to repress the girl with the utmost sternness, while at the same time her motherly heart yearned tenderly over her and she longed for the means of lightening the girl’s hard lot in life. And it was for her children’s sake more than aught else that the yet young widow began to contemplate the idea of a second marriage.

She was still a pretty and attractive woman, and for a year past she had had an admirer who had pressed his suit more than once, and would have been accepted only for the fact that her five children were, with one accord, vehemently opposed to having a stepfather.

The widow could not help feeling vexed with her dictatorial brood.

Her suitor was a groceryman with a fair business, and owned a neat brick house, well furnished, from which a wife had been carried out more than two years ago to her grave.

The widower sadly wanted a housekeeper, and it seemed to him that pretty little Mrs. Laurens was the proper one to fill the position.

The children were rather a drawback, it was true, but he had decided that Pansy could go on earning her living at the factory and Willie at the store.

Mrs. Laurens, all unconscious of her suitor’s sordid intentions, wished very much to marry Mr. Finley, and at last permitted him to overrule her objections and persuade her that her children had no right to dictate to her in regard to a second marriage. It seemed quite a coincidence that, on the very Sunday when Norman Wylde was persuading pretty Pansy to a secret marriage, her mother was listening to counsel somewhat similar from her elderly lover.

And on Monday evening, when Pansy got in, rather late, flustered and frightened lest her mother should chide her for her tardiness, she found the children sitting around, supperless and forlorn, and manifestly relieved at her entrance.

“Where is mamma?” she asked, glancing around, rather guiltily; and Alice, the eldest of the three younger children, replied:

“Mamma had on her gray cashmere dress when we got home from school, and she put on her bonnet and said she was going out a while, and that we must be good children till she got back.”

“Very well; I will get you some supper,” their sister answered, relieved to think that her own escapade would pass undetected. She bustled around with glowing cheeks and curiously bright eyes, until, in a few moments, carriage wheels were heard pausing in the street before their door, and the eager children hastened to open it, tumbling over each other in their gleeful excitement.

What was their surprise to find that it was their own mother who had come in the carriage. She was accompanied by Mr. Finley, who came with her into the house and stood by her side with a consequential air, while she said, in a half-frightened voice: