Loral 
»a,: 
fiinet 
OLIIC 
iOHie 
lomjittniQH 
[Written specially for the Ladies’ Floral Cabinet.] 
By Augusta Larned. 
CHAPTER VII. 
“ O Love, what is it in this world of ours 
Which makes it fatal to be loved ?” 
The Eortescues had come up to Clovernook for the 
autumn, and there were greetings between their cottage 
and the Hall in these latter days of October. The two 
young ladies were plain, and wore eye-glasses, but they 
had the reputation of being very clever. They had read 
Mill and Herbert Spencer, and could converse about evolu¬ 
tion. They came and played wonderful fantasias and 
sonatas on Winmfred’s new grand piano, while their 
brother Charley sauntered languidly about the drawing¬ 
room, making eyes at the young heiress, to convey to her 
the fact that he considered her “ a deuced fine girl.” Mrs. 
Eortescue, a fussy little matron in gray puffs, and with a 
set smile on her false teeth, overflowed with compliments 
and caresses toward her dear, darling Winnifred. 
Mrs. Halcourt had dispatched an exquisite little per¬ 
fumed note to her friend, announcing the fact that matters 
were satisfactorily arranged between Bradley and his 
cousin, and congratulations quite in order. Bradley had 
not behaved very well in company since the arrival of the 
Eortescues, and the whole family voted that his indiffer¬ 
ence to Winnifred was simply brutal, and anything that 
could rescue the dear girl and her money from such a mar¬ 
riage, might be looked upon in the light of providential 
interference. 
To Winnifred, in those days, the Eortescues seemed a 
welcome resource. She was fitfully feverish and restless 
in all her moods, hurrying things on to a certain point, and 
then losing interest in them from mere whim and caprice. 
Her unnatural gaiety was succeeded by petulance and 
irritability, which every one felt except Virginie, towards 
whom she was uniformly tender and considerate. In her 
hoydenish days. she had snubbed Charley Eortescue un¬ 
mercifully, but now she showered her favors upon him, un¬ 
til the foolish youth’s curly blonde head was almost turned. 
One morning nearly all the inmates of the old Hall Were 
assembled in the fine old dining-room, which the young 
heiress had refitted in a very good stylo. Though an un¬ 
tutored girl, without artistic c iltivation, she had a 
feeling for harmonious adornment, The old fireplace was 
a delight to Bradley. It was a great roomy cavern, large 
enough to sit in, and finished with picture-tiles which his 
diplomatic ancestor had brought from abroad; the walls of 
the room had been tinted a cool gray, and Winnifred had 
hung about upon them some of the oldest and mellowest 
of the family pictures. There were heavy crimson curtains 
at the windows, and the great mahogany side-board was 
weighed down by a burden of antique silver. How a 
cheery wood fire crackled and snapped between the hand- 
irons, and Hector lay stretched out at full length on the 
tiger-skin rug. 
Winnie enjoyed presiding at her own board, and order¬ 
ing Steenie and the new maid, and she did the honors with 
a touch of pretty imperiousness that was not unbecoming. 
Bradley occupied the head of the table, and Edgar Swayne 
sat opposite Virginie, who was pale and listless, making 
the merest show of appetite over her tea and toast. 
“ What were you telling me just now, Mr. Swayne,” 
Winnie inquired from behind the tray, “about those 
masked burglars at Deanport ?’’ 
Virginie felt a quiver run through her, and as she looked 
up she caught Bradley’s eye, and a wave of conscious color 
dyed her cheek. Edgar answered with the stiff punctilious 
politeness he always assumed in Bradley’s presence, “It 
was a bad case, Miss Braithwaite, and may involve 
serious consequences. The Deanport people are thorough¬ 
ly aroused, and there are detectives out in several directions. 
This Mrs. Stanley, whose house was entered, is a nervous 
invalid. Her husband was absent on business, and she 
was alone in the house with the servants. The burglars 
obliged her to rise, gagged her, and bound her to a chair, 
while they rifled the drawers and boxes. Of course they 
escaped with their booty, and now the poor woman is ly¬ 
ing very low indeed.” 
Virginie felt a creeping, cold sensation, mount from her 
feet to her vitals, why, she could not tell; and she seem¬ 
ed to hear Winnie's voice far off through a roaring of 
waters, as she said, “ 0, how dreadful! Have they any 
idea where the robbers are hiding ?” 
“ There is a shrewd suspicion that a gang has been or¬ 
ganized in this neighborhood, and every effort will be made 
to unearth them." 
“ You make me quite nervous,” exclaimed Winnie, 
“ talking about an organized gang,” though in fact she 
half enjoyed the spice of danger. “ I shall have new chain 
bolts put upon the doors, and the window fastenings must 
be looked to. Eor outside protection we can depend on 
old Hector, and within doors I suppose two brave gallants 
will suffice.” 
“Don’t trust too much to my prowess,” said Bradley, 
who had not spoken before. “I sleep like the dead. I 
would advise you to get a small dog that can rouse the 
house by vociferous barking.” 
“ It would be well to have a burglar alarm put in your 
bed-room,” suggested Edgar. 
“Yes, and to sleep with a brace of pistols under my 
pillow,” said Winnie, laughing gaily. “Your suggestions 
are very kind, and prove your courage. But perhaps you 
will try and prevent the masked gentry from visiting us by 
exerting yourselves to detect them.” 
“ I thought I had got on the trail of one of them yester¬ 
day,” said Edgar, as he helped himself to another muffin. 
“ There has been a suspicious character lurking about the 
mine for some weeks. He has been seen lying in bed in 
the day-time in Smoky Duff’s cabin, so I was told by little 
Ben Harding, a very sharp 'boy, who lives next door to 
Duff’s. Duff’s wife is a virago. I could get nothing out 
of her, and she abused me like a pickpocket, when I went 
to her door. But Ben tells me he believes the man was 
playing possum, lying in bed, and pretending to be sick, 
for he has caught him once or twice prowling about at 
night. He describes him. as a tall man, with a dark, 
watchful face, and black hair, very noiseless and stealthy 
in his motions.” ... 
“ I am convinced he is one of the gang,” said Winnie 
with animation. “His hiding in a miner’s hut, shows he 
was on an evil errand. If you can catch him, Mr. Swayne, 
it will be a feather in your cap.” 
Virginie’s face had grown miserably pallid, even to the 
lips, and her eyes had a hunted, despairing look they 
sometimes wore now. Bradley had watched her cautiously, 
though listening with keen interest to what Edgar was 
saying. He trembled lest she would faint, or break out 
into hysterical weeping. She did neither, but sat rigidly 
in her place. The girl had a power of self-control for 
which he had not given her credit, and happily, just at 
that moment, there came a diversion. Much to the sur¬ 
prise of every one present, Mrs. Braithwaite entered the 
room. Her black dress was huddled carelessly upon her, 
and her gray locks tucked away under a soiled morning 
cap. But there was an unusual look of determination and 
energy in her heavy faoe. 
“ Why, mamma,” exclaimed Winnie, in a tone tinctured 
with annoyance, as Mrs. Braithwaite stood defiantly still, 
and gazed about as if seeking to discover her place at the 
table, “ this is an unexpected favor. You have not break¬ 
fasted with us before for ages.” 
“ I have not been asked to take my rightful place at this 
table,” said Mrs. Braithwaite, her voice breaking into a 
quaver of resentment. “ I have been ignored and slighted 
in this house, where I was born, for many a long year. 
Your father did it before you, and now you are carrying 
out his policy.” 
Winnie colored high with anger, in spite of her deter¬ 
mination to put down a scene with a strong hand. “I am 
sure you are at home here, mamma. It is not my place to 
point out what it is proper for you to do. I have always 
supposed that you consulted your own ease and comfort in 
staying in bed until late, and I have instructed Hanna to 
attend to your every want. If you have any complaints 
to make of me, this is certainly not the time to make them.” 
Both Bradley and Edgar had risen and offered the lady 
a chair. She took her place beside Bradley, and replied, 
with snuffling, but increased acrimony, “I shall choose my 
own time for making complaint's. The strangers here are 
not of my inviting, but Bradley Halcourt is my own nephew, 
and it is right he should know all I have endured. I am 
willing he should judge between us.” 
Bradley looked at his aunt, to whose almost squalid 
figure an exalted sense of injury could not add one touch 
of dignity, with unmixed dismay. The appeal she had 
made to him against her own child, the woman he was in 
a manner pledged to marry, opened up vistas that it re¬ 
quired a stone heart to contemplate. Edgar and Virginie 
had left, the room, and at that moment Steenie entered 
with a card on a salver. 
“Mr. Eortescue has called,” said Winnie, as she took it 
up with an immense sense of relief. “If you would like 
to see him, Bradley, perhaps mamma will defer setting 
forth my high crimes and misdemeanors until a more con¬ 
venient season.” 
“ He is no friend of mine,” returned Bradley. “I have 
nothing to say to him.” 
“I know by your tone you do not approve of poor 
Charley.” 
“ What matters it so long as he is a favorite of yours? ” 
Winnie gave an expressive little twist to her shoulders, 
and went sailing out of the breakfast-room with mixed 
emotions. There were disagreeable things in her triumph¬ 
ant young life that had to be put down, or crushed; but 
deeper than all lurked a feeling of resentment toward 
Bradley, who refused to be piqued with her—who received 
all her doings and sayings with cold imperturbability, or 
sarcastic silence. But why should she wish to pique Brad¬ 
ley ? If he had remonstrated with her it would have been 
to save an appearance of decorum and propriety before the 
world, and for this Winnie had nothing but scorn. In the 
hall she encountered Virginie, who had her hat on for the 
daily visit to the Einster cottage, where little Jake still lay 
ill. Winnie ran and clasped her arm about her friend’s 
waist. 
“ What on earth put it into mamma’s head to make such 
a scene,” said she in a whisper. “ She must be plotting 
something or other in which she wants Bradley’s assist¬ 
ance. Do you know I am so oppressed by her presence 
that I cannot stay in the room where she is five minutes 
at a time. It was shameful for her to come down in that 
untidy dress; and I shall scold Hanna, and tell her not to 
let the thing happen again. She must lock the chamber 
door if necessary.” 
Virginie lifted her clasped hands with a pretty, imploring 
gesture. “ Pardon, madamoiselle ; would it not be better 
to try and win madam by kindness and gentleness, to try 
and make her life a little less triste. Eorgive me, but she 
is your mother, and that is a holy name.” 
The sensitive mouth began to tremble, and Winnie took 
her playfully by the chin and kissed her. 
“ You have been reared so differently you cannot under¬ 
stand things, Virginie. You have never known anything 
about fighting and contending. But I cannot shut my eyes 
to facts—I cannot be hypocritical, and I do not see why 
one’s life should be spoiled by disagreeable things one is 
not to blame for." 
“ But, dear madamoiselle, is there not such a thing as 
duty?” and the great blue eyes were lifted to lier’s. 
“ Yes, I suppose so; but I cannot stop to discuss it now, 
for I hear Charley Eortescue romping around in the draw¬ 
ing-room like an impatient bear. You know he was a kind 
of beau of mine once, and I used to treat him abominably.” 
“Why does he come back again now? Why do you 
waste time on him ?” 
“0, one must amuse one’s self, as the French say,” and 
she gave her friend another kiss and ran away to engage 
in lively nonsense with the young lounger in the drawing¬ 
room. 
Meantime Bradley was closeted with Mrs. Braithwaite. 
The poor woman had fallen into a very lachrymose condi¬ 
tion, and the flesh of her heavy cheeks and chin trembled 
visibly. 
“ So you are going to marry Winnifred ? ” she asked. 
“ I believe so," he answered somberly, with his hands 
in his pockets and his legs stretched out under the table. 
“ Things have been arranged between Winnifred and me 
partly to that effect.” 
“ I suppose your mother has played her cards,” said Mrs. 
Braithwaite, with a gleam of shrewdness coming into her 
dull face. “ She always had an eye on the property.” 
Bradley did not answer, but he winced under the impu¬ 
tation. “Well,” Mrs. Braithwaite went on, “lam glad 
you are going to marry her; things will be better for me 
than if a stranger was to come in here. They might lock 
me in a lunatic asylum, who knows. But you are my 
nephew, and bound to take my part. You ought to have 
the money if you want it, for I am sure Harold was 
cheated by the old judge. Hobody knows the life I led 
those days when poor father lay dying. It’s perfectly 
natural that you and your mother should want to get the 
property back again, and I suppose there is no other way 
but to marry Winnifred. She is just like her father- 
heartless and hard, though she does fawn over that foreign 
girl. Folks may think I have been so crushed and beaten 
down I have got no natural feelings, but wouldn’t a stone 
feel to be deprived of every right and title ? I brought all 
the money to the Braithwaites. This house was mine, 
but I have no more authority in it than a dog. My wishes 
are never consulted, my spiritual adviser can’t darken the 
door, and I am put down and disgraced in the eyes of 
menials. But when you are married, Bradley, you can 
make things better for me. Promise me that you will 
try.” 
Bradley was deeply shamed by his aunt’s rather coarse 
speech, so far as it bore upon his own motives. A sense 
of repugnance and loathing made him sick at heart. He 
seemed to see what a poor creature he was in other peo¬ 
ple’s eyes; but it was useless to deny anything that might 
be imputed to him, so he sat some instants in silence with 
a black cloud on his face, and then said very slowly and 
coldly, “ You are very much mistaken, aunt, if you suppose 
I shall ever have control of the Halcourt estates. Winni- 
fred’s fortune is settled on herself, and should we marry, 
I shall be only one of her appendages.” 
“ I don’t know anything how it was left,” said the poor 
woman,. shaking her head helplessly; “I haven’t the 
faintest idea what I am entitled to. That Deanport lawyer 
came here and talked a rigmarole I couldn’t understand, 
and then he made me sign some papers, and that is all I 
know. But I thought if you got the handling of the 
money perhaps you could persuade Winnifred to let Father 
Dooley come to the house without setting the dog on him. 
How she has taken a whim to have schools, and a Sunday 
