CHAPTER I. CUPID IN THE RAIN.

Could one lift the impenetrable veil of mystery that hides the future from our curious eyes, what secrets would often be revealed, what shadows would fall upon hearts now light and thoughtless—shadows of grief, of horror, and despair!

“It is better not to know,” agree both the poets and sages.

[6]

Beautiful Cinthia Dawn did not think of that as she drummed upon the window-pane that rainy autumn day, exclaiming rebelliously:

“I wish something would happen to break up the dreadful monotony of my life.”

Widow Flint, who was her aunt and guardian, and as crabbed and crusty as her name, looked at her with dismay, and retorted:

“Some people don’t know when they’re well off. You have enough to eat, to drink, and to wear, and a good home. What more do you want?”

The girl looked at the dingy sitting-room, her own shabby gray gown, then out at the dismal landscape, blurred by the rain and low-hanging clouds, with something like frank contempt, and answered, recklessly:

“I want pretty clothes and jewels, beautiful surroundings, gay times, and lovers, such as other girls have instead of this humdrum, poky existence—so there!”

“Humph!”

It was all Mrs. Flint said aloud, but to herself she added:

“Good land! I do wish my brother would come home from his eternal wanderings and take charge of his rattled-brained daughter. She’s too pretty and restless, and I don’t see how I’m going to hold her down much longer.”

Cinthia Dawn was seventeen now, and ever since she had been given into her aunt’s sole keeping at five years[7] old, the strait-laced soul, who was as prim and particular as an old maid, had been engaged in the difficult task of “holding down” her spirited young niece. She had even erred on the side of prudence, so great was her anxiety to bring her up in the way she should go.

When the lovely child first came her aunt said frankly to all:

“I don’t want anybody ever to tell Cinthy that she is pretty.”

“She can find it out for herself by just looking in the glass,” objected one of her cronies.

“I’ll tend to that,” said Mrs. Flint, crustily, and she furnished her rooms with cracked and distorted mirrors, whose blurred surfaces gave back indeed no fair reflection of the child’s beauty.

She carried out her programme further by dressing the child in the plainest, commonest clothing, and plaiting all her wealth of golden curls in a single tail down her back, though she could not prevent it even then from breaking out on her brow and neck in enchanting little ringlets that a ballroom belle might have envied.

To her dearest crony Mrs. Flint excused her course by saying, confidentially:

“Cinthy’s mother, who is dead now, was the vainest and prettiest creature on earth, and she did wicked work with her beauty. I don’t want to say aught against her now that she is dead; but Cinthy must have a different raising, that’s all. My brother said so when he put her[8] in my charge. ‘Bring her up good and simple in your old-fashion way, Rebecca,’ was what he said.”

“That’s right. ‘Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.’ That’s Cinthy’s Bible verse, and I hope she’ll live up to it,” returned the good crony, Deacon Rood’s wife.

So Cinthia Dawn was reared simply and plainly almost to severity. She received her education at the public school, and at home helped her aunt with the house-work. Surreptitiously she read poetry and novels.

Such a simple, quiet life—just like thousands and thousands of others—but Cinthia was outgrowing it now. She was seventeen—the most romantic age in the world—and she chafed at the dreariness of her life.

School-days were ended now, and her merry mates had their new gowns, their dances, and their lovers. There were none of these for Cinthia Dawn.

Mrs. Flint said her niece was nothing but a child yet, so she was not permitted to attend parties, and she vowed she had no money to spend on finery. As for lovers, if she had any, the bravest would not have dared present himself at Mrs. Flint’s door. She would have said to him as to the veriest tramp:

“Be off!”

It was just the life to drive a pretty, spirited girl frantic with impatience of the present, and longings for something better than she had known—the longing that found impatient expression that afternoon when she watched the[9] dead leaves flying in sodden drifts beneath the chill November rain.

After Mrs. Flint’s curt rejoinder to her complaints she remained silent several minutes drumming impatiently on the pane, then burst out:

“Oh, Aunt Beck, don’t you want me to run down to the post-office for your Christian Advocate?”

“In all this storm?”

“Oh, I won’t mind it a bit! I’m in a mood for fighting the elements!”

“Then take your umbrella and overshoes, and hurry back.”

“Yes, aunt.”

Glad to escape from the monotony of the little brown house, she hurried out into the teeth of the storm, and made her way through the village streets to the little post-office. The rain blew in her face, and the wind crimsoned her cheeks and made her dark eyes flash like stars. Cinthia did not care. In her splendor of youth and health she found it exhilarating.

But going back, the storm, that had been gathering its forces for a fiercer onslaught, increased in angry violence.

She had left the paved main street, too, now, and was emerging into the thinly populated suburbs where her home was situated.

A great gust of wind met her at the corner of a street, taking her breath with its fierce onslaught, wrapping her damp skirts about her ankles, and whisking her umbrella[10] from her grasp. She chased it wildly almost a block, only to see it whirled into the middle of the street and crushed under the wheels of a heavily loaded farm wagon lumbering into the little town. Meanwhile, the vagrant wind pelted her with drifts of dead leaves, and the flood-gates of heaven opened and poured down torrents of water.

“Take my umbrella, Miss Dawn!” cried the gay musical voice of a young man who had been chasing her as fast as she flew after the umbrella.

Turning with a quick start, she looked into the face of Arthur Varian, a new comer in the town, with whom she had recently formed an acquaintance. His laughing blue eyes were irresistible, and she cried merrily as she took shelter under the umbrella:

“Didn’t I look comical chasing the parachute? I was hoping no one saw me. Thank you, but I can not deprive you of it.”

“Then you will let me hold it over you? It is large enough for both,” stepping along by her side, and giving her the best half of it as they struggled along against the high wind. “I saw you coming out of the post-office and have been trying to overtake you ever since. I thought perhaps you would allow me the pleasure of walking home with you,” continued Arthur Varian, bending his admiring blue eyes on the beautiful face by his side—the bright, arch face with its large, soft dark eyes set off by that aureole of curly golden hair, now blown into the most enchanting spiral rings by the wind and rain.

[11]

He had met her several times before, and he knew enough of her lonely life to make him sympathize with her forlornness, even if her beauty had not already charmed him with its girlish perfection.

Cinthia met that glance and looked down with a kindling blush and a wildly beating heart, for—it was of him she had been thinking when she uttered her complaints to Mrs. Flint, longing for the privileges of other young girls of her class that she might have opportunities of meeting him and winning his heart.

Who could blame her? for Arthur Varian was very winning and handsome—tall, with wavy brown hair, regular features, a slight brown mustache, a beautiful mouth—“just made for kissing,” vowed all the girls—well dressed, and having that indefinable air of ease and elegance that betokens good breeding joined to prosperity.

Perhaps the fates had heard Cinthia’s longing for something to happen, for the storm now gathered fresh force, and the darkening earth was irradiated by a vivid and brilliant flash of lightning, followed by a terrific thunder peal.

The rain poured out of heaven like a waterfall, and the fierce driving gale caught the frightened girl up like a feather and tossed her against the young man’s breast and into his arms, that clasped and held her protectingly, while all about them the air was darkened with flying débris and broken branches of trees that swayed, and[12] creaked, and bent, and crashed in agony beneath the cyclonic force of the elements.

Cinthia was not a coward, but the situation was enough to strike terror to the bravest heart. The edge of a cyclone had indeed struck the village, and in almost an instant of time dozens of trees had been uprooted, several houses unroofed, and the air filled with flying projectiles, one of which suddenly struck Arthur Varian with such force that both he and his companion were hurled to the ground. It was a portion of a tin roof, and cut a gash on the young man’s hand from which the blood began to stream in a ruddy tide.

In another minute the wind began to abate, and they struggled up to their feet.

“Oh, you are cut, you are bleeding! and you did it to save me! I saw you ward off that horrible missile from me with your hand. It must have killed me had I received the blow, for, as it was, it grazed my head. Oh, what can I do? Let me bind your hand to stop the blood,” sobbed Cinthia, unwinding the silk scarf from her neck and wrapping it tightly, with untaught skill, about his wrist above the wound to stop the spurting blood.

[13]

CHAPTER II. ONE GOLDEN HOUR.

She trembled and paled as the warm blood spurted over her own white and dainty hands as she essayed the task, and her heart throbbed wildly with new and sweet emotion. She could have clasped her arms about his neck and wept over the cruel wound he had received in her defense and for her sake.

“Thank you. That will do very well,” Arthur Varian cried, gratefully; and taking her hand gently, he added: “I see we are almost at the gates of my home. You must come in with me till the storm is over, then I will take you home in the carriage.”

Thoroughly frightened, and glad of a shelter from the still angry elements, Cinthia accompanied him inside the gates of the finest residence in the county—Idlewild, as it was called—being a large rambling old stone mansion, exceedingly picturesque in style, and surrounded by a fine estate in lawns, gardens, and virgin woodlands. For many years the place had been tenantless, save for the old housekeeper in charge, but last summer it had been carefully renovated, and Arthur Varian and his widowed mother, who owned the place, had come there to live.

As the young man led Cinthia in, he added, thoughtfully:

“You are quite drenched, but my mother will give[14] you some hot tea and dry clothing, and perhaps that will prevent your getting sick.”

“Oh, I don’t think the wetting will hurt me. I’m very strong,” Cinthia answered; adding, bashfully: “I shouldn’t like your mother to see me looking like I had been fished out of the river. You had better take me to the housekeeper. I know her well. She has been lending me novels and poetry from your library ever since I was a little girl.”

And, in fact, before they rang the bell the front door flew open, and the old woman appeared, pouncing upon Cinthia, and exclaiming:

“Come right in out of the wet, you poor, dear child! I saw it all from the window, and I thought you both were killed when the piece of tin knocked you both down. I believe it is a piece off of our own roof. My heart jumped in my mouth, and I was about to faint when I saw you both rising to your feet, and I got better at once. But, law sakes! wasn’t it terrible? Your hand’s cut, too, ain’t it, Mr. Varian? Well, I’ll see to’t in a minute, as soon as I take Cinthy to my room.”

Leading the dripping girl along the corridors to a plain, neat bedroom, she produced a dainty white night-gown, saying:

“There, honey; jest strip off your wet clothes and put on that, and jump into my bed and kiver up warm, whiles I go and sew up that cut on Mr. Arthur’s hand, for I can do it jest as neat as any doctor. Then I’ll dry[15] your clothes and brew you both some bone-set tea to keep you from ketching cold.”

She bustled away, and Cinthia gladly did as she was bid, looking ruefully at the puddles of water that streamed from her clothing on to the neat Brussels carpet.

When Mrs. Bowles returned she was indeed covered up in the warm bed, with only her bright eyes and the top of her golden head visible.

“Do you feel chilly, dearie? Drink this, to warm your blood,” she said, forcing a bitter concoction of bone-set tea on the protesting girl; adding: “Law, now, ’tisn’t so bad, after all, is it? Why, Mr. Varian drank his dose without so much as a wry face. Law, honey, but that was a deep cut! It almost severed an artery. It took all my nerve to sew it up, I tell you, and he’ll have to carry his hand in a sling some time, sure.”

“He saved my life!” cried Cinthia, eagerly. “I would have received that blow on my head but that he so quickly warded it off with his hand. See, it just grazed my temple,” showing a little bleeding scratch under her ringlets.

“Dearie me, let me put a strip of court-plaster on it! There, it’ll be well in a day or two. Now, Cinthia, you take a little nap whiles I hang your clothes to dry in the laundry,” gathering them up into a bucket.

“I’ve ruined your carpet,” sighed the girl.

“Oh, no; it’ll be all right when it’s dry. Them colors[16] won’t run. Don’t worrit over that, but shet your eyes and go to sleep,” bustling out again.

“Dear old soul!” sighed Cinthia, grateful for the kiss pressed on top of her curly head. She shut her eyes, but she was too nervous to sleep.

She lay listening to the storm that still raged outside, and wondering what her aunt would think of her protracted stay, if she would be angry, or just frightened. Then her thoughts flew to Arthur Varian, his tender smiles, his bonny blue eyes.

“I will never marry any man but a blue-eyed one,” she thought, thrillingly, and at last fell into a gentle doze induced by weariness, the warmth of the bed, and the dose she had swallowed.

The nap lasted an hour, and when she opened her eyes Mrs. Bowles was rocking placidly by the cozy fire in the twilight.

“Oh, I have been asleep! How long?” she cried, uneasily.

“Most an hour. Do you feel rested?”

“Oh, yes, indeed, and I’d like to get up and go home. Are my clothes dry?”

“Oh, no—not yet; and as for that gray woolen frock of yours, it has shrunk that much you can never hook it up again, I can tell you that! But no matter. You’ve had it two years a’ready. I know, and it was too skimp for a growing girl, anyway. But Mrs. Varian has sent[17] you in a suit of her clothes to put on, and when you’re dressed you are to take tea with her and her son.”

“Oh, but, Mrs. Bowles, I ought to go home at once. Aunt Beck will be so uneasy over me.”

“Listen to the wind and the rain, child. The storm is still raging, and the horses can’t be taken out till the weather clears up. So make your mind easy, and get up and dress, for Mrs. Varian will be in to see you presently.”

Cinthia got up rather nervously, with a little dread of Mrs. Varian, whom she had seen at church and out riding—a beautiful, haughty-looking woman, with olive skin and flashing dark eyes, very young looking to have a grown son of twenty-three or four.

“I would rather have my own clothes,” she said pleadingly.

“They are all over mud and water, child, and I don’t think the maid can have them fit for you till to-morrow. Mrs. Varian very kindly offered the loan of hers, and unless you wear them, you’ll have to go to bed again, that’s all. Here, let me help you,” said Mrs. Bowles, beginning to slip the garments over Cinthia’s shining head.

“But this crimson silk with white lace trimmings—it is too fine for me, dear Mrs. Bowles.”

“It can’t be helped, for this is more likely to fit—too tight in the waist for her, she said, and she never wore it but twice; and see, it laps over two inches on you. But I can hide that with the lace at the neck and the bow at[18] the waist. Now let me comb your hair loose over your shoulders, it’s so damp yet. My! how it crimples up and curls, and shines in the light! You look well, Cinthy Dawn!” She would have said beautiful, but she was mindful of Mrs. Flint’s objection, though she said to herself:

“She can’t keep Mr. Arthur from finding it out, that’s sure. He knows it a’ready, by the look in his eyes when he brought her in. And it’s hot, impulsive blood that flows in the Varians’ veins. What is going to come of this accident, I wonder? for I saw love in her eyes when she told me how he saved her life. I hope he didn’t save it just to blight it.”

Cinthia went to the old woman’s mirror and looked at herself in the unaccustomed gown.

The glass was not blurred and cracked like those at home, and it gave back her charming reflection truthfully.

“Why, how pretty I look!” she cried, gazing in frank delight at the beautiful vision, the lissom form, just above medium height, the regular features, the fair arch face, the starry dark eyes, the rose-red mouth, the enchanting dimples, and the aureole of golden hair that set it off like a halo of light. “Why, Mrs. Bowles, I did not know I was so pretty! But perhaps it’s only the dress.”

“Fine feathers make fine birds,” returned the housekeeper, discreetly.

“Yes,” sighed Cinthia; but she continued to gaze at[19] herself in delight, wondering, shyly, what Arthur Varian would think of her in his mother’s fine gown.

Then she turned with a start, for a light tap at the door announced the entrance of Mrs. Varian, and the housekeeper hastened to present the young girl to her mistress.

Both thrilled with admiration, for both were rarely beautiful in their opposite types, the elder a brunette of the finest style, the younger a dark-eyed blonde, so rarely seen, so much admired.

“I hope you have quite recovered from your fright, Miss Dawn,” her hostess said, in a voice so exquisitely modulated that it was as pleasant as music.

Cinthia murmured in reply that she had enjoyed a delicious rest, and was so grateful for the loan of the clothes that made it possible for her to escape from bed.

“I dare say our good Mrs. Bowles would have liked to keep you there all night. She suggested that plan to Arthur after dosing him with bitter herb tea; but he disregarded her advice, and is now waiting impatiently for you,” rejoined the lady, casting an arch glance at the old woman while she took Cinthia’s hand and drew her toward the door.

When the door closed on them the old housekeeper wagged her head doubtfully.

“How sweet my mistress can be when she pleases; but I wonder if she would be as kind if she guessed what I have read in those young peoples’ eyes—that story of[20] love—love between a rich young man and a poor young girl, that folks like Mrs. Varian call misalliances?” she muttered, uneasily.

No matter what the outcome was to be, Cinthia Dawn had come to the happiest night of her life.

Though outside the windows the wild wind and rain swirled and beat with ghostly fingers, inside Mrs. Varian’s luxurious drawing-room all was warmth and light and pleasure.

The lady and her son exerted themselves to make their young guest happy, and she was so glad and grateful in her pleasant surroundings that all were mutually sorry when toward ten o’clock the storm abated, and the moon struggled fitfully through the lowering clouds.