“As you please about it, though I know he’d fall dead in love with you at first sight. Oh, here’s Bond’s. I am going in here for a blue ribbon. Will you come?”

“No, thanks. My mother will be uneasy if I don’t get home promptly,” Fair answered, and, with a careless nod, she went on, disappearing in the dense throng on the street in an instant, while Miss Platt turned, without entering the store, and walked back in the direction she had come, her handsome face distorted by angry passion.

“So the little fish wouldn’t bite at my tempting bait?” she muttered angrily. “Never mind, I’ll lay a trap that she’ll fall into yet, for I swear I’ll punish her for taking my lover from me. I knew it must be some one in the factory, but until the girls let it out this morning I never suspected that red-headed little apprentice. To think of his leaving me for her—for her—a silly child that hadn’t even sense enough to appreciate the compliment!”

She laughed aloud, but the laugh had no mirth in it. It was rather a convulsive sound, thrilling[Pg 21] with malignancy, and betokening a nature full of venom when fully aroused. Continuing her train of thought, she muttered:

[Pg 21]

“He shall return to me, and I will take him back, but, all the same, I shall take vengeance on both for what his fickleness caused me to suffer.”

[Pg 22]

[Pg 22]

CHAPTER III. SAVED BY A YOUNG HERO.

SAVED BY A YOUNG HERO.

All unconscious of the jealous hatred Belva Platt entertained toward her, Fair Fielding tripped along the crowded streets toward her humble home, her thoughts full of the occurrences of the day and of the tempting bait the embroiderer had held out.

“Can it be true that she knows a rich young man who would rather marry a working girl than a society belle?” she mused, in wonder. “I shall tell mother, and see what she thinks of it.”

And the pretty, giddy head immediately became full of visions of wealth and splendor, in which, to do her justice, her mother reigned supreme, for the dream of Fair’s 

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