"I always knew you were a little simpleton, Queenie, but I never thought you could be so foolish and ungrateful as this! No girl in her senses would refuse the chance of spending Captain Ernscliffe's money!"

Three months had elapsed since the grand ball at Mrs. Kirk's, and Queenie Lyle was arraigned before the bar of maternal justice. Little Queenie had spent those three months in a perfect whirl of excitement, pleasure and conquest. And now Captain Ernscliffe, the irresistible, the invincible, had surrendered at discretion, and actually proposed to marry her! And little Queenie Lyle had had the audacity to refuse the honor.

"To think," went on Mrs. Lyle, reproachfully, "how we have humored and indulged you the last three months, and all for this! You have been to all the balls and parties worth going to—you have had nice dresses and laces—and we all thought you would marry off well, and rid your papa of one of his expensive daughters—yet last month you refused that rich old Myddleton! I did not care as much for that, for I saw that Ernscliffe was madly in love, and thought you would be sure to accept him. Yet now you have actually refused him, too, you wicked, ungrateful girl!"

"Mamma, mamma," pleaded Queenie, with a quivering lip, "do not be angry with me. I could not marry Captain Ernscliffe, because I do not love him."

"Then if you do not love him you can never love anyone," exclaimed Mrs. Lyle. "He is handsome, accomplished, wealthy; and there's not a girl I know but would jump at your chance, Sydney not excepted."

"Sydney loves him, mamma—let her marry him."

"She cannot get him—more's the pity. I wish he had fancied her instead of you," said Mrs. Lyle, sharply.

"I wish so too mamma. I am very sorry for Sydney, and for Captain Ernscliffe, too," said Queenie, with a long, quivering sigh.

"You had better be sorry for yourself, foolish girl; you have thrown away the best chance for marrying that you ever will have!" exclaimed Mrs. Lyle, angrily, for she was deeply chagrined at Queenie's willful disregard of her best interests.

To her surprise Queenie threw herself down at her feet and began to sob wildly.

"Mamma, I am sorry for myself," she moaned, faintly, "so sorry that I wish I were dead!"

"For shame, Queenie, to go into such a passion because I scolded you! Get up and stop making a baby of yourself," said her mother severely.

Little Queenie dried her eyes at that sharp reproof and went on with her packing, which Mrs. Lyle's entrance had interrupted, for they were to sail for Europe that week, and the house was "topsy-turvey" with their preparations.

Her mother sat moodily watching her as she folded silks and laces, and packed them away securely in the great Saratoga trunk.

"What have you in that box, Queenie?" she inquired, seeing the girl put a box in the trunk with a half-conscious glance. "You look as if you were smuggling something."

Queenie blushed violently, and Mrs. Lyle saw that she trembled as she answered falteringly:

"Nothing of any importance, I assure you, mamma."

"Let me see," said Mrs. Lyle, resolutely, and she took the box from the trunk and lifted the lid. "Why, what have we here? Flowers—withered flowers! Queenie, why upon earth are you keeping these dead, ill-smelling things? Throw them out of the window."

"Oh, no, mamma," cried Queenie, blushing very much and trying to take the box from her mother's hand.

But Mrs. Lyle held on to the box and took out three bouquets of withered flowers, and three cards that lay in the bottom of the box. She read aloud:

"From an unknown admirer of Miss Queenie Lyle."

"Oh dear, dear," said Mrs. Lyle, impatiently; "now I begin to understand. These flowers, which were sent by some impudent fellow, have made a fool of you, Queenie. You have been building a romance over him, and that is why you have no eyes for better men. Tell me the truth now, Queenie; do you know who sent you these flowers?"

"How should I know, mamma?" asked the girl, evasively, and turning her crimson face away from her mother's keen scrutiny. "You see he writes himself unknown."

"Well, known or unknown, here is an end to that foolishness," said Mrs. Lyle, crossing the room and tossing the luckless flowers out of the window. "I did not know you were so silly and romantic, Queenie, as to carry a bunch of dead flowers to Europe."

Queenie stamped her little foot on the floor, and her eyes flashed fire.

"Mamma, you had no right to throw my flowers away!" she passionately exclaimed. "Papa would never have intermeddled with my affairs like that!"

Mrs. Lyle dropped into a chair and buried her face in her hands.

"To think that I should have a child that would treat me so disrespectfully," she sighed.

"What has mamma been doing to my little pet?" asked Mr. Lyle, entering quietly and unexpectedly, as he always did.

There was an awkward silence for a moment; then Queenie said, with her sweet face turned away:

"Mamma has been scolding me because I would not marry Captain Ernscliffe."

"Your papa would do well to scold you also," flashed Mrs. Lyle. "After all your father's goodness to you, and your pretense of loving him so well, to think that you would throw away your chance of helping him in his old age. I have no patience with such folly!"

"Papa, you are not angry with me, are you?" asked his daughter, turning her soft, beseeching eyes, now swimming in tears, upon his kind yet troubled face. "I could not marry Captain Ernscliffe, papa, because I do not love him."

"Love," sneered Mrs. Lyle, scornfully. "Love is the last thing to be considered nowadays!"

Papa drew the tearful pleader down by his side on the lounge, and smoothed away the disheveled golden ringlets from the flushed little face.

"No, dear, I am not angry with you," he said. "It is true that my business affairs are tottering on the verge of failure, and if you had accepted the captain he might have helped me to tide over the crisis, but I would not have you sacrifice yourself, my pet, for I would be loth to part from you even if you went willingly and happily to another home. But let us hope for the best. Now that your Uncle Rob is about to take my expensive family off my hands for a year, I may be able to save some money and get straight again."

Three days later Mrs. Lyle and her three fair and charming daughters stood on the deck of the Europa bound for their long and anxiously anticipated continental tour.