kind and motherly. They had intended to pay what they owed that very day, but jealousy of her daughter, their lovely cousin, crept in between and made them withhold the pittance, in the malicious hope of preventing Dainty's trip to Ellsworth.

[6]Both girls were handsome and stylish in their way—Olive, a tall, dark, haughty brunette of twenty-four, while Ela Craye was twenty-two, pretty and delicate-looking, with a waxen skin, thick brown hair, and limpid, long-lashed gray eyes. Each girl cherished a hope of winning the rich and handsome heir of Ellsworth, and they feared the rivalry of a girl as fresh and lovely as the morning, and with the rounded slenderness of eighteen, piquant features, rose-leaf complexion, delicious dimples, a wealth of curling golden hair, and large, deep, violet-blue eyes full of soul and tenderness.

[6]

How could Love Ellsworth, as his step-mother called him, keep from losing his heart to such winsome beauty joined to the exquisite timidity of a very innocent and shy girl? Olive and Ela knew but too well that finery would not cut much figure in the case. Dainty had a real French art in dress, and could look as lovely in a print gown as they appeared in their finest silks. Give her a cheap white gown, and a few yards of lace and ribbon, and she could look like a Peri just strayed away from paradise.

Her cousins fairly cudgeled their brains for some scheme to keep Dainty from going with them, and a happy thought struck them at last.

They knew that Dainty had never traveled alone in her life, and that she was an arrant little coward among strangers. If they could only give her the slip, she would sooner give up the trip than to follow alone.

They were to go on Wednesday morning, and Mrs. Chase and her daughter were up betimes, packing the girl's trunk with her freshly laundered clothing, after which the mother said:

"All is ready, dear, and you'd better go and tell Olive[7] and Ela that breakfast will be ready in five minutes, for there's no time to lose."

[7]

But when Dainty knocked at the door of the room the girls shared together, it flew wide open, and she saw that it was vacant, while a note pinned on the pillow conveyed this explanation:

"Dear Aunt,—Just for a lark, we concluded, ten minutes ago, to start to Ellsworth to-night instead of in the 

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