Jaquelina took the heavy child in her arms and went slowly back to the orchard.

"That inevitable Dollie," said Violet, warmly, as she saw her coming. "It's a shame that Mrs. Meredith does not hire a nurse for that great, fat child! I am sure if I were Jaquelina I would not be forced to carry it round."

"It is a shame," echoed Walter. "She is so slender she almost staggers beneath its weight."

But it never occurred to him to go and relieve her of the burden. It would have seemed superlatively ridiculous for him, the gay, handsome young dandy, to have carried chubby little Dollie Meredith up the hill, even to save a pretty girl's arms from aching.

He was surprised and vexed when Ronald Valchester rose and sauntered down the grassy orchard slope to meet Jaquelina.

"What is Valchester up to now?" he said, gnawing the ends of his fair mustache, jealously.

"Miss Meredith," said Valchester, with quiet courtesy, "allow me to carry the child for you. You are not strong enough for such a burden."

"No, thank you," she said, nervously, "I am quite accustomed to it you see, and——"

But all further remonstrance was cut short by Mr. Valchester's decisive action. He took the child gently but firmly from her arms and walked up the slope with it, for "all the world," as Violet rather acidly remarked to her brother, "like a country booby going to meeting with his wife and child."

"Val, I only wish that Millard could get a glimpse of you now!" called out Walter, laughing.

"Who is Millard?" Violet queried.

"Oh! one of our class-mates—an artist of no mean merit either. How delightfully he would caricature Valchester's appearance now."

Valchester did not seem disturbed by the playful hit. He sat Dollie down in the long grass and filled her fat little hands with pink-and-white clover heads. Jaquelina sat down beside her, apprehensive that she would cram the blossoms into her ever-open mouth and choke herself.

"And you will spend the two hundred dollars reward you will receive for the capture of the outlaw chief on your education, Miss Lina?" said Walter, resuming the conversation where it had been interrupted by the curt summons of Dollie's mother.

"Yes," Jaquelina answered, simply.

"And then?" said Walter Earle.

"Then," she answered hopefully, and a little eagerly, "I hope I shall leave the farm and earn my own living somewhere. I am ambitious of becoming a governess."

"A vaulting ambition," said Violet, with a light laugh.

"Not very," said Lina, with a gentle innocence and gravity that checked Violet's delicate sarcasm. "It will be better than the farm, that is all."

"Mr. Valchester, here is a four-leaved clover for you," said Violet. "Take it and keep it. It may bring you good luck."

"Thank you," he said, and took it carelessly and held it between his long, white fingers. A little later, when no one was looking, he shut it inside the leaves of Jaquelina's book.

"You have given the clover to one who could not appreciate good luck if it came to him," laughed Walter. "Valchester has known nothing else all his life. He is fortune's favorite."

"I think you are, too, Mr. Earle—you and Violet," Jaquelina said, gently.

A faint sigh quivered over her lips as she spoke. She looked at these three in their costly apparel and with their bright, happy faces, and it seemed to her as if they belonged to quite a different world from her own. They were fortune's favorites, all of them.

"Thank you," said Walter, smiling, "I hope the fickle goddess will always be kind to me."

Then Violet rose, shaking out the apple blossoms that had fallen into the folds of her dress, and declared it was time to go.

"We came to ask you to go boating with us," said Walter, "but I suppose," with anything but a loving glance at innocent Dollie, "it would be no use."

Jaquelina's eyes brightened, then saddened again almost pathetically.

"No, for Aunt Meredith has gone away," she said. "I could not go to-day."

In her keen disappointment she was quite unconscious how much pathetic emphasis she laid upon "to-day."

"To-morrow, then?" said Walter, instantly. "Could you not slip away from that terrible Dollie to-morrow?"

She looked at him, her eyes shining, her lips trembling with pleasure.

"Yes, if you went at noon," she said; "if later—no."

"Why not later?" asked Violet, curiously.

"Because I must help with the milking then," she answered, simply.

"We will go at noon, then," said Walter at once. "We will call for you punctually, and you must be ready."

"Young ladies are never ready when called for," said Ronald Valchester, with his slight smile.

"I will prove the exception to the rule," Jaquelina answered, brightly, while Violet said to herself in wonder:

"What in the world will she wear? I do wonder why mamma insists upon having us patronize Jaquelina Meredith. She is not in our set, and she hasn't a decent thing to wear! It is strange she doesn't have the good sense to understand it herself and decline our invitations."

Violet said the same to herself the next day when she went upon the river.

Violet had on a lovely boating-suit of blue serge, and a leghorn sailor hat set coquettishly on her golden locks.

Jaquelina wore her simple pink-dotted calico dress, with a white ruffled apron tied about the slim, round waist, "for all the world," as Miss Violet said to herself, pityingly and half-disdainfully, "like a parlor-maid."

She had caught up an old straw hat of her uncle's and fastened it on her head with a strip of velvet ribbon passed over the top and tied beneath her chin. It looked quaint and picturesque, and a more charming face than the one it framed could not have been imagined. The bright, dark eyes, curtained by such inky, sweeping lashes, would in themselves alone have made a plain face beautiful, but Jaquelina had delicate, well-cut features, and lovely scarlet lips, parting over small, regular, white teeth. No amount of shabby dressing could have made her a fright or a dowdy with that radiant face. The brune tint, acquired by the too ardent kisses of the wind and sun, marred it a little, but the soft, rich color in her cheeks almost atoned for the fault.

It was a lovely day and a lovely river. The bending trees overhung the green, flowery banks and threw their long, grateful shadows across the sunny water. It was so clear you could see the pebbles in the bottom and the silvery little fish darting to and fro.

Walter and Valchester took turns in rowing. Sometimes they would suffer the boat to drift at its will while they chattered and laughed in the gay thoughtlessness of youth.

Long afterward, when winter was in the sky and the clouds of sorrow overhung their lives, they looked back upon these two days—this one upon the river and yesterday beneath the blossoming apple-boughs—as golden days that were like beautiful pictures set in their memory.

The next day Walter Earle and his friend went back to the University.

Walter Earle had talked a great deal about Jaquelina Meredith since the night of the lawn-party. He saw that his mother was not displeased at his admiration of the lovely orphan girl.

"I admire Miss Meredith very much," he said, in his frank way. "I think she is very beautiful—do not you, Val?"

"She is—fascinating," said Ronald Valchester.

Violet looked up quickly.

"Fascinating," she said. "What do you mean by that, Mr. Valchester? I do not exactly comprehend. Is it more—or less—than beauty?"

"I think it is more," he replied.

"More?" said Violet. "What could be better than beauty, Mr. Valchester."

"The power to win," said Valchester. "I have seen some very beautiful women whom I did not admire. They lacked that je ne sais quoi, which is so strong in Miss Meredith that I could fancy one might even admire her against his will."

"You mean the charm of the serpent," said Violet, innocently.

"No, I did not mean that in the least," said Valchester.

He bit his lip as if the suggestion did not please him.

"There is nothing serpent-like about Miss Meredith. She seems a gentle, fresh-hearted girl; but I do not believe I could quite define my impressions"—abruptly—"will you excuse me from trying?"

"Certainly," she answered, carelessly, to hide a certain girlish pique, while Walter said, gaily:

"You are too dignified to get down to the level of Violet's understanding, Val. Let me explain. He means, in college parlance, sis, that Miss Meredith has a taking way with her."

"Thank you; I quite understand," said Violet, with dignity.

She went out of the room, and the subject was not resumed.

There had been some talk of their going over to the farm to bid Miss Meredith adieu, but the project was tacitly dropped.

They returned to college that night, but without seeing Jaquelina.

One week afterward a huge box of books was forwarded to the girl, over which she went almost wild with joy.

All the best of the poets, ancient and modern, were there, in fine and elegant bindings, and profusely illustrated. In the first volume she opened was a card.

"The compliments of Ronald Valchester."

Jaquelina studied the beautiful chirography of the student admiringly for awhile; then she laid it away with the withered passion-flowers in the box with her dead mother's jewelry.

After several days of passionate delight over the books, Jaquelina remembered that she had not thanked the sender.

Soon afterward a little white note found its way to the University.

Ronald Valchester read the few lines it contained many times; but he must have forgotten to show it to Walter Earle, for the latter never heard of it.

"Mr. Valchester:—A thousand thanks for the books. You have made me very happy.

"Jaquelina Meredith."

That was all she said, but it pleased Ronald Valchester, though the University students unanimously agreed that he was hard to please and fastidious to a fault.

The note was well-written, in a clear, refined hand. It pleased his whim to put it away carefully.

There was one thing Ronald Valchester did not like. It was to read in the newspapers the glowing accounts of the outlaw's capture by a young girl. The students were all quite wild over it.

Walter Earle had described it to them in the most enthusiastic terms, and they would have liked nothing so well as to meet the dark-eyed young heroine. But Ronald Valchester was exceedingly sorry that the story had gotten into the papers.

After awhile the newspapers chronicled the fact that Gerald Huntington had been tried and convicted, and that his counsel had obtained a new hearing in his case; but it was thought that he could not escape being sent to the penitentiary for a long term of years. It was feared by many that the hot-headed Virginians would mob him.

The months flew swiftly past. At the close of the college session, Walter Earle and Ronald Valchester both graduated with distinguished honors.

After they separated, each to their homes, Walter wrote to his friend that Jaquelina Meredith had received the reward of two hundred dollars for Gerald Huntington's capture, and that she had gone away to enter a boarding-school at Staunton.

"But I have found out several pretty girls in the neighborhood," wrote Walter; "so I am trying to console myself for pretty Lina's absence. By the way, Violet is visiting the Claxtons in your city. Give my love to her if you see her."