Hot Springs Weekly Star

It had been arranged that Agnes, Madge and June were to go up to the Hall for tea and lawn tennis the next afternoon, and that her cousins were to call for June in the pony carriage. She came tripping out of the door as they drove up.

Arrived at the Hall, the cousins were requested to join the party in the garden, and found Mrs. Ellesmere and her guests sitting under the trees. Tom's big form loomed in the distance: he was doing something to one of the nets. Dallas sat on a garden seat beside Mrs. Petherston, a guest from London, talking to her in an engrossed manner. The moment, however, that he became aware of the new arrivals, he left her and went forward to greet them. He looked handsomer than ever to-day, in his white flannels, with the pale-blue Eton sash and tie, straw hat and Brigade ribbon.

"I will start the first party," whispered Tom to June. "You will play with me, won't you?"

"Of course I will," answered June, who had recommenced her tactics of last night, and was speaking to and looking at her lover in her softest manner.

So Tom threw off and paired the two young ladies staying in the house with the son of a neighboring rector and a man who was of the Hall party, and returned in triumph.

"Now," he said to June, "you and I will play Dal and Madge: then we shall be about equal."

"Cannot we do without Mr. Broke?" asked June. "Because, he is so much engaged, it would be a pity to disturb him."

"Oh, he wants to play, and we must have him."

"Does not Mrs. Petherston play?"

"No: she says she hates romping. Dal!" shouted Tom.

Dallas looked up, but did not move for a moment. It was evident his companion was urging him not to play.

"Let him off for half an hour, Mrs. Fetherston, won't you?" said Tom, going up to her, and she, raising her eyebrows, answered stiffly:

"Certainly: altogether, if he likes."

Lawn tennis may be played gracefully or ungracefully—nine times out of ten it is certainly the latter. In the set now made up, the spectators had an opportunity of seeing both styles of performance.

Dallas and June were graceful in the extreme, moving with the utmost rapidity, yet never looking awkward: their eyes sparkled with excitement, there was a bright color in their faces. A man standing near Mrs. Ellesmere and watching the game whispered to her that he had rarely seen so handsome or so well matched a couple. She assented to his remark with a smile.

June was quite ready to depart when Agnes proposed it, in spite of Tom's earnest entreaties.

"I'm going to get up a bit of a dance to-morrow," he whispered, as he was escorting her to the pony carriage. "We can make up about six couples."

June's eyes glistened.

"But you don't dance, Tom!" she said.

"Well," he answered, his honest face illumined by a broad smile. "I'm not such a dog in the manger that, because I can't do a thing myself, I won't let anybody else."

"But," said June, fearful of counting in vain upon such an immense pleasure, "perhaps your mother won't invite me."

"Won't she?" said Tom, significantly. "Look out for a note at ten sharp to-morrow morning."

"You really are an angel," observed June, affectionately, and Tom was, happily for himself, unconscious that this sudden warmth on her part arose from joy at the anticipation of a pleasure in which he could not take part.

June could scarcely sleep that night for the delicious anticipation of the morrow. She woke early, and, unable to rest, rose, dressed herself, and went out into the garden. It was only seven o'clock then.

June has been twice round the garden, has gathered a bunch of roses and a dozen big strawberries in a cabbage leaf for her mother's breakfast, and, having carried them indoors, has come out again and strolled a little way down the lane. And, behold! there is Tom on his big bay horse riding toward her.

"Why, June! you are up betimes!" he cried, in his cheery voice, all his face aglow with smiles.

She went up to him, put her slim fingers in his, and stroked the glossy neck of King Charlie.

"I could not sleep," she said, with radiant eyes. "I could not sleep for thinking of the dance to-night. Oh, Tom! have you brought my invitation?"

"My mother is in bed and asleep as yet," laughed Tom, "but, my darling, what doubt can you have about it, when I got it up on purpose for you?"

"Oh, Tom," cried the girl, suddenly bethinking of Madge, "is Madge to be invited, too? Oh, do try to get her asked. It would be such a treat for her!"

"Of course she shall," he answered, good-naturedly.

"Thank you, Tom. You are a dear, good Tom."

And June gave him such a smile that it sent ideas to his brain which she was far from intending it to do. He laid his big brown hand on her little white one that lay like a lily on King Charlie's neck.

"You are beginning to care a little bit more for me, aren't you?" he said, dropping his voice.

The color stole to June's cheek, and an uneasy sensation to her heart.

"Good-by," she said, "I must be going in."

Tom rode away with a blithe heart: he would not have changed places with any

She answered him, but "silence gives consent."

Evening came. Half-past nine saw June and Madge in the rector's brougham driving up to the Hall, the gladdest, merriest, most excited maidens possible to behold.

"Oh, you darling, darling June!" cried Madge, "if it were not for spoiling your frock and your flowers and mine too, I would give you such a hug. Tom told me it was all your doing. Agnes did all she could to prevent my going, but Tom got hold of mamma on the quiet and made her promise."

Tom is waiting at the door to receive them. Dancing is to take place in the hall, which is lofty and spacious and has a polished oak floor of glassy smoothness. Already there is a squeak of a fiddle getting into tune, and the two girls' hearts throb responsive.

As June was standing beside Tom, flushed and lovely with excitement, Dallas Broke came up to her.

"You will give me a waltz, won't you?" he said persuasively: and June, who was too happy to be cold or disdainful to any one to-night, replied that she would be very happy.

"The second?" And she assented.

"Ah, my dear old chap," said Dallas, laying a friendly hand on Tom's arm, "I have one pull over you. Miss Rivers, why don't you make him learn to dance?"

Happy as she was, June felt a slight sense of vexation at Mr. Broke's manner. She wished he would not always look and speak as though she were Tom's property.

The quadrille was over, the music of the first waltz had commenced, June's partner this time was the son of a neighboring rector. He was a little rough in his paces, but June had an extraordinary facility for adapting herself to almost any step and any partner. When they made their first pause, Dallas and Mrs. Fetherston had the floor to themselves. Everyone was watching them. Their movements were the perfection of ease and grace; such a lover of dancing as June could not look at them without admiration, even though it occurred to her that there was rather more abandon in Mrs. Fetherston's style than was quite decorous. They stopped. Dallas looked down into his partner's eyes and whispered something; she answered him in kind.

June felt a sudden spasm of anger flit through her heart: she told herself that it was due to a sense of outraged propriety. Exquisitely as Dallas danced, she decided with a sudden impulse that she did not want to dance with him. He was not nice: she would rather not dance, talk, or have anything else to do with him.

Tom came to her when the waltz was over: the rector's son made way for him.

"Tom," she whispered, "take me into the conservatory. I want to get another flower. These are crushed."

"All right, come along," said Tom, giving her her arm.

He gathered her a rich cluster of crimson geraniums, and she fastened it in her dress.

"How are you enjoying yourself?" he asked, and June replied:

"Immensely."

"You are going to dance the next with Dal," he said. "I shall come and have a look at you. I hear the music beginning."

"I don't particularly care about dancing with Mr. Broke," uttered June, loitering.

At this moment he came to look for her. Seeing Tom, he half paused, and again that smile hovered in his eyes and mouth.

"Would you rather dance another one instead of this?" he said, and June answered coldly, putting her hand on his arm:

"No; I think this is ours."

"Was I wrong to come for you?" he whispered as they passed out of the conservatory, and she replied, more coldly still:

"Certainly not."

A minute later his arm is round her. Is it possible that erewhile she was angry with him? Now one soul seems to animate them; together they fulfill the perfect poetry of motion; never in her eighteen summers has June been conscious of such ecstasy as this.

When at last they pause, he looks down at her with a glance which she no longer resents.

"Was not that perfect?" he whispers.

She answers him by a look.

"Let us go on. It is a sin to lose a moment of this!" Dallas says, and again they float along the polished floor.

Alas! alas! it is over! the piano has banged the final chord: perforce they stop.

Mrs. Rivers was sitting up for her darling, anxious to hear all the events of the evening, and, as June made her recital, a sudden consciousness came to the girl that, instead of pouring all her heart out to her mother as was her wont, she was talking almost as insincerely as though she had been speaking to a stranger. It was a relief to her when her story was finished and she had kissed her mother fondly and bidden her good-night. The maid who acted as parlor maid, house maid and lady's maid at the Rose Cottage unfastened her dress and lingered a little, deeply interested in the doings at the Hall.

When at last she went, June stood immovable for a moment. Then she flung herself down by her bedside and cried as if her heart would break.

CHAPTER VI.

June, scarcely knowing how it happened, found herself in the boat in the garden lake, while Mr. Broke was leisurely dipping the sculls into the water and rowing her away to the furthest point from the house. And when he came to the big