protested Dainty; but just then the loud clangor of the door-knocker made both start in alarm.

Mrs. Chase stepped quickly out into the narrow little hall, and opened the door to a tall, handsome stranger, in whose dancing dark eyes she failed to read the fact that he had listened with interest to every word exchanged between her and her daughter.

With a well-bred bow he presented her with a card, on which she read, with astonishment:

"Lovelace Ellsworth. "Introduced to Mrs. Chase by Judith Ellsworth."

Lovelace Ellsworth.

[9]"I am Mrs. Chase, and I am glad to see you," she said, wonderingly, as she gave him a cordial handshake, and ushered him into the little parlor, where he saw a girl, fairer than any flower, wiping the tears away from lovely eyes that looked like violets drowned in dew.

[9]

"My daughter Dainty, Mr. Ellsworth," said the widow; and as he took the soft little hand, he did not wonder that her cousins had feared to risk her rivalry for his heart.

With his charmed eyes lingering on her perfect face, he explained:

"I have been in New York for a few days, and mother wrote me to stop in Richmond and join a party of her nieces who would start to-day on a visit to Ellsworth."

Dainty's bright eyes laughed through their tears as she replied:

"Oh, how sorry they will be to have missed you! But they went last night!"

"But were not you, Miss Chase, to accompany them?" he demanded; and she handed him the girls' note, saying, demurely:

"That explains everything."

Lovelace Ellsworth read it with a somewhat malicious smile, exclaiming:

"How fortunate that I came in time to protect you on your journey!"

Mrs. Chase hastened to say:

"We shall indeed be grateful for your escort, as Dainty was about to give up her trip through her timidity at venturing alone. Now, as soon as we have breakfast, she will be ready."

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