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 Familiar Song.

Chapter II. The Rosy Emblem.

Chapter III. Sweethearts.

Chapter IV. Legitimate Game.

Chapter V. The Turning Point.

Chapter VI. The Book of Fate.

Chapter VII. A Suspected Rival.

Chapter VIII. Loved and Hated.

Chapter IX. Blue Eyes and Brown.

Chapter X. A Tragedy of Love.

Chapter XI. The Curtain Falls.

Chapter XII. A Phantom at Dawn.

Chapter XIII. An Ill-fated Girl.

Chapter XIV. Cottage and Castle.

Chapter XV. Strange Mysteries.

Chapter XVI. A Timely Rescue.

Chapter XVII. Bitter Rivalry.

Chapter XVIII. A Friend in Need.

Chapter XIX. The Old Love.

Chapter XX. Fate Willed Otherwise.

Chapter XXI. The Happy Meeting.

Chapter XXII. Their Plighted Vows.

Chapter XXIII. All For Love.

Chapter XXIV. The Next Day.

Chapter XXV. A Fair Bride.

Chapter XXVI. Bribing a Bride.

Chapter XXVII. Forgetting the World.

Chapter XXVIII. Turn of the Tide.

Chapter XXIX. A Friend Indeed.

Chapter XXX. A Generous Offer.

Chapter XXXI. Alloy Always Glitters.

Chapter XXXII. An Old Fool.

Chapter XXXIII. The Unwelcome Letter.

Chapter XXXIV. Bitter Memories.

Chapter XXXV. Delays Are Dangerous.

Chapter XXXVI. True to His Word.

Chapter XXXVII. A Late Remorse.

Chapter XXXVIII. A Bitter Secret.

Chapter XXXIX. A Stolen Interview.

Chapter XL. The Wedding Day.

Chapter XLI. Trouble Begins Again.

Chapter XLII. In New Guise.

Chapter XLIII. At School.

Chapter XLIV. The Meeting.

Chapter XLV. A Vixen.

Chapter XLVI. A Last Decision.

Chapter XLVII. A Vain Threat.

NEW EAGLE SERIES No. 1172

All For Love

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

ALL FOR LOVE

OR, Her Heart’s Sacrifice

BY MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER

Author of “Love Conquers Pride,” “The Man She Hated,” “A Married Flirt,” “Loyal Unto Death”—published in the New Eagle Series.

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

Copyright, 1903 NORMAN L. MUNRO

All for Love

(Printed in the United States of America)

ALL FOR LOVE.

CHAPTER I. A FAMILIAR SONG.

From a cottage window, embowered in azure morning glories, a girl’s sweet voice sang blithely:

Berry Vining, the little village beauty, singing so blithely at her window of a love that as yet she had never known, was at the crisis of her fate, for at that very moment down the village street swept a gay cavalcade of riders, and as the sweet voice floated out upon the air, their glances turned upward in irrepressible admiration.

She was so lovely, this little Berry Vining, with her wealth of curly chestnut locks, framing a face so fresh[6] and fair as the morning glories round the window—so lovely, with her big, wondering, brown eyes under long, shady lashes, her sea-shell tints, her perfect little nose, and rose-red lips, and dainty chin, where dimples swarmed, entrancingly, whenever she smiled, that no one could look at her without admiration.

When all those eager eyes were leveled at her window the girl drew very hastily backward, but not until she had seen one hat lifted from a handsome head in her honor, as the man’s eyes paid eager tribute to her charms.

It all passed in a moment, but not too quickly for that flashing glance to strike fire in a romantic maiden’s heart.

The laughing, chattering riders passed on, the handsome men, the pretty women, and Berry hid her blushing face among the green, heart-shaped leaves of the morning glories, and whispered to the flowers:

“Oh, what a handsome young man! What beautiful eyes, what a loving smile! How grandly he rode on that fine bay horse—like a young prince, I fancy, although I never saw one—and how courteous to bow to me, though he had never seen me before! Even proud Miss Montague, who rode by his side, did not appear to notice me, little Berry Vining, that she has known all her life! Oh, how I envy her the joy[7] of being with him, of hearing him speak, and looking into his beaming eyes! I would give the whole world for such a splendid lover!”

“Berry! Berry!” called an impatient voice from the foot of the stairs, but unheeding the summons, her thoughts ran on in melodious whispers to the soft, green leaves:

“Oh, I love him already, I cannot help it, for when his eyes met mine a great rapturous shudder thrilled me through my whole being and told me I had met my fate! Oh, shall we ever meet again, I wonder! We must, we must, or my heart will break with love and longing! It was prophetic, that song I was singing as his eyes met mine!” and she began to hum again tenderly:

“Berry!—Ber-en-i-ce Vi-ning!” called the impatient voice downstairs again, and starting from her rosy dreams of love, the girl flew to reply:

“Well, mamma?”

The pale, faded little mother answered complainingly:

“Always too late! I called you to look at the riding party from Montague’s—their summer guests—five[8] grand couples of them, on horseback! But you missed everything coming down so slow!”

“Oh, no, dear mamma, for I was watching them from my window, and saw all. How fine they looked, indeed! I wish I could be like them!”

“If wishes were horses beggars would ride!” mocked the pale, tired mother sourly. “Come, now, and tidy up the kitchen, for I must be off to my day’s work. There’s no rest for the weary.”

She snatched down a rusty black bonnet from the nail where it hung, and hurried from the house, hastening downtown to the shop, where she worked by the day for the pittance that supported herself and daughter. She was a tailoress by trade, and had been reared, wedded, and widowed in this little New Jersey town. Her eldest children had all married, and gone to humble homes of their own; she lived alone in the tiny cottage with her youngest girl, Berenice, or Berry, as she was familiarly called. A boy, still younger, lived on a farm with a relative.

Berry, now almost nineteen, had many admirers, but none of them had ever touched her romantic young heart, much to the regret of her work-worn mother, who longed to see her pretty darling settled down to married life in a comfortable home, with a good husband.

[9]

But Berry had only laughed at her suitors, for in her girlish thoughtlessness she did not realize her mother’s cares and anxieties. Unconsciously to herself, perhaps, she had secret ambitions, born, it may be, of her high sounding name Berenice, or the knowledge that she had the gift of beauty, so potent in its spell upon mankind.

Berry longed for higher things, and despised the humdrum lives of her sisters with the humble mates they had chosen. Like another Maud Muller, she longed for something better than she had known.

So as she tucked the blue gingham apron over her spotless print gown, and deftly tidied up the kitchen, her excited thoughts followed the gay cavalcade of riders with eager interest and longing.

“I believe I am as pretty as any of those proud, rich girls,” she murmured, glancing into the little cracked mirror over the mantel, and sighing: “Why should I have so different a fate? Why did my poor father have to drive an humble delivery wagon all his life and die of a malarial fever at last; and why does poor mamma have to work as a tailoress, while Rosalind Montague has a millionaire for a father, and a fine lady mother flaunting in silks and diamonds? In only one thing has God made us equal, and that is beauty. I have rivaled her to-day with her splendid[10] lover, and who knows but it may end in raising me to her height of wealth and pride! If he loves and marries me, how much I can do for poor mamma and the others! They should never have to work so hard again. Oh, I am so happy, hoping he loves me, for even if he were poor and humble as I am, I could love him just as well.”

“Rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat!” went the knocker on the door, and her heart leaped wildly as she flew to open it.

There stood the red-headed lad from the florist’s with a large bunch of splendid red roses, wet with morning dew, and exhaling the rarest spicy fragrance.

“American beauties, Berry Vining—for you!” he cried, thrusting them into her eager little hands, with a significant grin on his good-natured, freckled face.

[11]

CHAPTER II. THE ROSY EMBLEM.

Berry cried out in delight as she pressed the flowers to her face:

“Oh, how sweet, how lovely! Who sent me the roses, Jimmy Dolan?”

“Gent from up ter de hall, sure, but I dunno his name. He was goin’ past our shop on horseback with Miss Montague, and when they turned the corner he rid back and bought these roses and guv me a dollar ter bring ’em ter you, Berry—leastwise he said, ‘that pretty girl in the morning-glory cottage down the street,’ so I knowed ’twas you, and then he said: ‘Tell her the roses came from an ardent admirer.’”

With that Jimmy darted away, and left Berry standing with the roses pressed to her face, lost in a dream of delight.

“He loves me, loves me! For love is the emblem of the sweet, red rose,” thought the romantic little maiden, trembling with pure joy.

To her young mind the gift of the roses was like an avowal of love from the handsome stranger, and she went happily about her simple tasks, hoping, praying that before another day they might meet again.

[12]

When Mrs. Vining came home that night to the simple tea Berry had prepared, she wondered a little that the girl wore the pretty, ruffled, white gown that had been kept sacred to Sunday toilets before.

“Must be invited to a party—never saw your Sunday gown on before, in the middle of the week,” she observed tentatively.

Berry, blushing almost as red as the rose on her breast, answered carelessly:

“Oh, I just thought of standing at the gate to see the people going up to the lawn fête at the hall to-night, you know.”

“And wishing in your heart you could go, too, silly child; ain’t you, now? Well, you’re pretty enough to be there, if that was all, Berry, but it isn’t, more’s the pity for you, so don’t waste any regret on it, dearie, for remember the true saying: ‘Poor folks have to have poor ways.’”

“I don’t think it should be the way, mamma, for I’ve often heard it said that clothes don’t make the man—nor woman, either! For instance, now, Miss Rosalind Montague is no better, nor prettier, than I am, if she were stripped of her fine clothes and jewels!”

“Fie, fie! you vain little chick, I’m surprised at your talk. Let me hear no more of it. You must be contented in the sphere where Heaven has placed you,[13] Berry. Or, if you wish to better your lot, you have a fine chance before you now.”

“What do you mean?” gasped Berry breathlessly.

“You have another proposal of marriage—one from a rich man!”

“Oh, mamma!” gasped Berry joyously, her eyes beaming, her cheeks aflame.

She could think of one—only one lover—at this moment.

How quickly he had found out her mother, how impetuous he was, her handsome lover—how impetuous, how adorable!

The future stretched before her eyes in a haze of bliss—the realization of all the golden gleams she had been weaving to-day on the airy foundation of a bow and smile, and the gift of a bunch of red roses!

Silly, happy little Berry! How quickly her dream was to be shattered!

Mrs. Vining, draining her teacup, and setting it back in its saucer, now continued blandly:

“To-day my employer—Widower Wilson, you know—was talking to me about this very lawn fête that the Montagues are giving up at the hall to-night, and he said it was to announce Miss Rosalind’s betrothal to Senator Bonair’s handsome son, the one that rode[14] with her this morning, Berry. And he went on to say—what do you think, my dear?” triumphantly.

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” Berry answered, with a sudden paling cheek, while she said to herself, in dismay:

“Oh, no, no, no, he is not engaged to her—he cannot be! He loves me—me only!—and he will surely come and tell me so!”

“He said, my dear, that he was hoping to have a lawn fête, too, very soon, to announce his engagement to the sweetest and prettiest girl in New Market, if she would have him, and he wanted her mother to ask her to-night if she would. Now can you guess?” smiling broadly.

“N-no, mamma!” faltered Berry.

“Why, then, you are very stupid, indeed, to-night, and I never found you so before! Well, then, it’s you, child, you, poor little Berry Vining, he wants to marry, when he might aspire almost to the highest. What a match for you, dearie! Aren’t you proud and glad?”

Berry, stamping her little foot, cried out petulantly:

“Mamma, you must surely be going crazy! The idea of marrying old Wilson, indeed! Older than my own father, for he began as errand boy in Wilson’s shop, and then old Wilson must have been white-headed!”

[15]

“He was not, you pert minx, he was only a young married man, not more than ten years over your father’s age! But what does that matter, when he’s a widower now, worth a hundred thousand dollars, and willing to stoop to marry a poor girl whose father drove his delivery wagon, and whose mother works by the day in the shop to take care of you!”

“I wouldn’t marry the old blear-eyed miser if every hair of his head were gold and strung with diamonds, but you may take him yourself, mamma, if you want him so badly in the family!” cried Berry, with mocking laughter.

“I only wish he would give me the chance, since you are such a fool!” angrily replied the disappointed mother, who craved the ease and comfort for her old age that Mr. Wilson’s money would give to herself and pretty, thoughtless Berenice.

She flung herself down on the kitchen lounge for her usual evening nap after tea, and her daughter, still laughing at the ridiculous suit of her aged wooer, hastened outdoors to the front gate to watch every passer-by with a throbbing heart, in the eager hope of his coming—his, her lover, for she would call him that in spite of a hundred Rosalinds! It was false what they said of his betrothal to the proud, rich beauty, with her flax-gold hair and bluebell eyes. She could never[16] believe it, never, after all that had passed to-day—the bow, the flashing glance of love, the gift of the roses. Presently he would be coming to tell her that he loved her, and her alone.

It was one of those moonlight nights in early September, that seem like June. The full moon shone in a cloudless sky, sown thick with stars; the air was warm and fragrant, and seemed to pulsate with love. Every girl remembers how on such a night she has hung over the front gate, gowned in white, with a rose in her hair, waiting and watching for a lover dearer to her heart than all the world beside!

Berenice did not watch long in vain, for it was a true presentiment that told her the idol of her heart was coming.

Men and women passed and repassed for almost an hour, but at last her heart leaped with subtle ecstasy, for one paused and stood in front of her, gazing down with a smile into her starry eyes.

“Ah, Miss Vining, good evening!” cried a musical voice. “You see, I have found out your name. Mine is Charley Bonair. Do you remember me?”

[17]

CHAPTER III. SWEETHEARTS.

Remember him? ah!

Berry could have laughed aloud at the tender question.

She knew that she could never forget his glance and smile of this morning her whole life long.

Yet, with her pretty head poised, coquettishly, on one side, and her eyes half veiled under their shady lashes, she faltered demurely:

“I—I—believe you are the same gentleman that passed with Miss Montague this morning, and bowed to me.”

“Yes, you are right,” he answered, with a soft laugh, as he leaned his elbows on the gate with his face very close to her, while he continued tenderly:

“And from the first moment I saw your lovely face I could not get you out of my mind. I asked Miss Montague who was that pretty young girl, and she frowned at me, and said: ‘There’s not a pretty face that can escape you, Charley; but that is only little Berry Vining, the daughter of a poor tailoress, not in our set at all, so don’t ask for an introduction.’”

[18]

Berry’s cheeks grew hot, and her heart thumped with anger as she said to herself:

“I’ll pay you out for that, my proud lady, by taking him away from you!”

Handsome Charley Bonair continued wheedlingly:

“As I couldn’t get properly introduced to you, I thought I’d present myself. I see you are wearing some of my roses.”

“Thank you so much for them; I love roses dearly,” murmured Berry, in shy bliss, her head in such a whirl under his laughing, ardent glance, that she hardly knew whether she was standing on her head or on her feet.

In his black evening suit, and a white carnation in his buttonhole, he was superbly handsome, and carried with him that subtle aroma of wealth and position so alluring to a poor girl brought for the first time in contact with uppertendom. It was as if a being from another sphere, a distant star, had fallen at her feet, stooping to lift her to his dazzling height.

Trembling with mingled pride and love and joy, she looked up at him with her heart in her eyes, her tender secret plain as day to him, almost too easy a conquest to the blasé young man of the world.

But he continued to smile very tenderly at her, and[19] venturing to clasp her little hand as it clung to the top of the fence, he said:

“I am due at the Montagues’ lawn fête presently, but will you come with me for a little spin in my run-about first? It is just around the corner, and this is the finest night I ever saw for a moonlight drive.”

“Oh, I shall be delighted—but—but—I must ask mamma first,” declared the happy girl.

“Oh, no, for explanations would delay our drive, since I must soon be back to the hall. We will be home before she knows we are gone. Only a two-mile spin, dear little girl,” pleaded the tempter, pressing her little hand.

She thought:

“Mamma is asleep by now, and it would be a pity to arouse her from her nap. Surely there’s no harm in going, as I shall be back before she misses me! And I shall so like to have this triumph over proud Miss Montague, who tried to belittle me in his dear eyes.”

He saw that she was yielding, and, unlatching the gate, quickly drew her outside, placing her small, trembling hand on his arm, and leading her to the waiting trap.

A moment more, and he was lifting her into the elegant little trap, drawn by a magnificent blooded bay[20] horse, whose silver-mounted harness glittered in the moonlight. Seating himself by her side, he took up the reins, and away they went through the town and out upon the broad country road, where the air, with the salty tang from the sea, was fresh and sweet and exhilarating.

“Almost seems like eloping, does it not?” laughed Charley Bonair. “What if it were so, dear little girl?”

Berry caught her breath with a startled gasp, a dizzy suspicion running through her mind.

Did he mean it?

Was it an elopement sure enough? Was he taking her away to marry her, now, to-night?

What would Rosalind Montague say?

She never dreamed of resisting if such were his will.