Jaquelina was lying at ease under her favorite apple tree the next afternoon when the murmur of voices roused her.

She lifted her head, and saw Walter and Violet Earle with Mr. Valchester.

"I knew we should find you here," said Violet, with her soft laugh. "I have heard about your pretty retreat under the apple trees."

She did not say that she had come straight there, feeling quite sure of catching Jaquelina at a disadvantage.

Violet would not have owned to herself that she was prompted by a spiteful little feminine instinct. But she gave Ronald Valchester an arch little smile that said plainer than words:

"Did I not tell you the truth? Is not the little beauty of last night brown, awkward and shabby to-day?"

Violet herself looked as fair and pure as a lily in her cool, white dress and white chip hat with its delicate wreath of violets.

She had some violets fastened with the lace at her throat, and they were just the color of her eyes.

She was fully conscious of the pleasant fact that though Jaquelina had rivaled her last night, she had a very decided advantage over her to-day.

But men never do see with woman's eyes. Ronald Valchester only saw that the brune skin was glowing with the rosy tint of health, that the careless, boyish locks of chestnut hair had caught and held some stray gleams of summer sunshine, that the brown hands were slender and delicately formed.

He noticed, too, that the girlish form, guiltless of stays or laces, was very graceful with the willowy lightness and roundness so lovely in youth.

But he never realized at all, until he heard Violet telling her mamma at tea that night, that "poor Lina Meredith had on a faded and darned calico, and worn-out boots with half the buttons gone."

Jaquelina had been reading a book of poetry, and some of the dreaminess still lingered in her eyes as she rose to greet her visitors.

A half wish darted into her mind that they had gone into the house at first, that she might have slipped into the back way and donned her Sunday dress, but no one guessed the thought, not even Walter Earle, who said, with a careless laugh:

"Ah! Miss Cinderella, we have caught you without your ball-dress to-day. Where are your diamond ring and gold locket?"

Jaquelina looked at them a little surprised.

"I have put away the ring and locket," she said. "I do not wear them usually; they belonged to my mother."

Then she added, a little shyly and anxiously:

"Will you come into the house and see Aunt Meredith?"

"Thanks—no," answered Violet, promptly. "It is so pretty out here in the orchard, we would rather stay."

She fluttered down to a seat at the root of the great apple tree, making a pretty picture with the low boughs bending above her head.

Valchester had already taken a seat and possessed himself of Jaquelina's worn poetry volume. He immediately became lost in its pages.

Walter Earle groaned.

"What has the book-worm got hold of now?" he inquired.

Violet moved a little nearer—near enough to look over at the open volume.

"Favorite poems by favorite authors," she replied.

"Is that your daily reading?" asked Walter of Jaquelina.

"Yes," she admitted.

"Are you fond of poetry?" Violet asked her.

"Yes," she said again, demurely.

"You should ask Valchester to show you his volume of manuscript poetry," said Walter, laughing. "He is a very untiring and voluminous poet—I might say a second Byron!"

Valchester looked up, flushed and confused—evidently annoyed. He was about to speak when Jaquelina broke out reproachfully:

"Oh! Mr. Valchester—I asked you—and you denied it!"

"Asked him what?" cried Walter, enjoying the situation immensely.

"If he was a poet," said Jaquelina, breathless, "and he said——"

"That no one ever accused me of it," said Valchester. "I confess to some rhymes, Miss Meredith, but to be a poet—a real poet—means more than that."

"Miss Lina, it is only modesty that makes him talk so," said Walter, laughingly. "He has written some very readable rhymes, I assure you."

"Miss Meredith, I hope you will not give credence to Walter's idle gossip," exclaimed Ronald Valchester, really distressed now. "It is as I told you just now, I have rhymed some—I confess it. Of course my verses sound well to Earle—he has not the slightest taste for poetry. True poetry and real doggerel would be alike to him. But the critics might tell me to——"

"Return to your gallipots, as they told the poet-apothecary," laughed Earle.

"Yes," said Valchester, and returned to his reading.

"Read aloud to us," said Violet. "Should you not like that, Lina?"

"Very much," she replied, and her dark eyes brightened at the thought.

"Then I will read on from where we interrupted you," said Valchester, looking at Jaquelina. "Which poet was it, Miss Meredith?"

"Longfellow—it was Hiawatha's Wooing," she said, and blushed, though she did not know why, at Violet's laugh.

"And you left off—where?" inquired Valchester, holding the open book toward her.

Jaquelina leaned forward a moment, turned a page with her brown forefinger, and showed him the verse.

She did not know why her breath came quicker for an instant as his white hand touched hers quite accidentally, but Violet Earle saw the swift color rise into her cheek.

It was a beautiful scene. The day was so bright and golden, the grass so green, the clover blossoms and the orchard blooms were so sweet, and the quartette under the apple tree were so young and so happy.

Sorrow had never touched them with her gloomy finger. It was one of those "hours we frame in gold—pictures to be remembered."

Valchester read on in his deep, sweet voice that seemed to blend harmoniously with the warble of the birds and the myriad sweet voices of nature:

"It is very beautiful," said Valchester, shutting the book and glancing round quickly, so as to catch the expression on each face, "but I will not read anymore. I see that Walter looks bored, and Miss Earle as if she would rather talk to Miss Meredith about the party last night."

"I am dying to ask her if she enjoyed it all," said Violet, piqued that he had read her indifference to poetry, yet carrying it off with cool self-possession; "did you, Lina?"

Jaquelina looked up with a start, her dark eyes soft and dreamy. In fancy, she was still following the young brave, Hiawatha, as he bore his bride homeward.

"Oh! yes, it was delightful," she said, and a smile chased the momentary dreaminess away. "I enjoyed it all very much, except, perhaps, just at the last."

"I should have thought you would have enjoyed that most of all," cried Walter Earle. "Do you know, Miss Meredith, that you are quite a heroine all over the country this morning. Your presence of mind and daring are on every lip. The farmers breathe freely once more. You have not only earned the reward of two hundred dollars, but you have won the admiration and gratitude of all who have heard of it. By to-morrow morning you will find yourself in all the newspapers."

"'You will wake up and find yourself famous,'" quoted Violet, laughing.

But Jaquelina did not look elated at their words. A shadow seemed to fall over the brightness of the arch, brunette face. She glanced at Ronald Valchester shyly. His face was perfectly non-committal.

"I do not know whether to be ashamed or proud," she said, frankly. "Gerald Huntington seemed to think I had taken an unfair advantage of him. But to tell the truth, I have brooded so much and so ardently over his capture that I was wild with delight at the idea of its possibility. I forgot gratitude and everything else in the moment when I frantically clutched him—forgot everything but the offered reward."

"I did not know you were so mercenary, Lina," said Miss Earle, laughing.

Jaquelina looked abashed for a moment, then she answered, without looking up, and almost pleadingly:

"You see, Violet, I needed two hundred dollars so very, very much."

"For what?" said careless, thoughtless Walter. "To buy a silk dress, or a watch, or a pair of diamond earrings?"

"Neither," she answered, half vexed, half smiling. "I wanted it to buy an education."

Walter and Violet laughed. Valchester looked surprised a moment, then smiled a smile of sweet approval.

"I thought you were—educated," said Walter.

She was about to reply when Mrs. Meredith's shrill, peculiar call was heard from the house:

"Jack-we-li-ner! Jack-we-li-ner!"

Jaquelina's face faded in a frown of shame and annoyance. She rose, with a hurried excuse, and, promising to return, went to the house.

"Aunt Meredith, I have company," she said, a little impatiently, to the red-faced, cross-looking woman in the doorway.

"Where?" asked Mrs. Meredith, looking around, bewildered.

"Out in the orchard—Miss Violet Earle, with her brother and his friend," said Jaquelina. "I should like to go back if you can spare me."

"I can't spare you. I want you to tend Dollie while I run over to Mrs. Brown's on a matter of business," Mrs. Meredith said sharply.

"Can I take Dollie to the orchard with me? It is very warm and sunny there," said Jaquelina, timidly.

"Yes, take her if you choose—I don't care," said her aunt, as she slipped on her sunbonnet and hurried off to a gossiping neighbor's.