Lancaster's Choice

"I shall never regret anything, and for the rest I shall never know that I am poor. Having you, my darling, I shall always deem myself rich," he answered, fondly caressing her.

"If only the earth would open and swallow me up!" sighed Lancaster to himself, miserably. It is not pleasant to be made fun of, and the most of people are too thin-skinned to re...

Several days passed away very quietly after Leonora's first day and night at Lancaster Park. The girl stayed in the small rooms to which she was restricted quite as closely as t...

While Lady Lancaster was finishing her toilet upstairs, Leonora finished her fugue in the drawing-room. Then she played a little _morceau_ from Bach. Then she began to sing. The...

He thought he had never seen anything half so enchanting as the face she raised to his. The big black hat was a most becoming foil to her fresh young beauty. There was a smile o...

"I will tell you the truth," she said. "I went early to my state-room, because I was tired of Lieutenant De Vere. I wanted to be alone. But it was so warm and close in my room,...

It was quite likely that De Vere would see the difference between his lowly born love and the real ladies in the room, as Lady Adela had said, but that he would be disenchanted...

The good lady uttered an exclamation almost amounting to terror, and stood regarding her niece with such a rueful and amazed face that the girl burst into a peal of sweet, high-...

It was a pretty scene. The long ball-room was draped in roseate colors and decorated with flowers. The walls were exquisitely painted in appropriate figures, and the waxed oaken...

It was in the evening after the gentlemen had come in from their walnuts and wine. Lord Lancaster had retired rather sulkily to a corner, and the earl's daughter had followed hi...

Something like a startled cry burst from Leonora's lips as she thus beheld that face beside her own--that fair, strong, handsome face that was as familiar as her own--the face o...

Miss West accepted the steamer-chair, the rugs, the wraps, and the books with unfeigned pleasure, and buried herself in the volumes with a pertinacity that was discouraging to h...

"I hope she isn't going to tease me about Lady Adela again," he said to himself, and he looked rather sullen when he went to her. He was exceedingly impatient of the rule she tr...

Lancaster, being wise, chose the latter part. He had an innate conviction that Leonora would accept Lieutenant De Vere. He did not feel strong enough to witness his friend's hap...

De Vere stared in wonder when his friend scrambled up the plank alone with his beautiful bouquet. He was not a minute too soon, for in an instant the gang-plank was hauled in, a...

"Several days ago," De Vere replies, carelessly, and scanning his friend curiously. Lancaster does not bear the scrutiny well. He is wan and haggard looking. There is no color i...

That evening when "sober-suited twilight" had begun to fall over all things, when the stars began to sparkle in the sky, when the air began to be heavy with odors of rose and mi...

He went straight to the housekeeper's room, and he found Mrs. West sitting alone in the little sitting-room, going over her account-book with a pen and ink. She rose in some per...

The next day dawned as fair and lovely as any picnic-party could desire. The party from Lancaster set out as early as twelve o'clock, and left the coast clear for Leonora's expl...

Captain Lancaster got leave and went off in triumph with Lieutenant De Vere to the United States. When he had put the ocean between himself and his match-making relative, he bre...

He came up to her and stood bareheaded before her with the sunlight falling on his fair head--tall, stalwart, handsome--a living Lancaster among those dead and gone ones; one wh...

Lady Lancaster, filled with chagrin and despair, sat gazing on the floor in silence. The thought of losing this trusty, capable woman, who had belonged to the staff of Lancaster...

Captain Lancaster was taken at a disadvantage. He was not at all a vain man. He did not half know how fine looking he was, and his hasty perusal of the mirror was directed rathe...

That night when the girl had gone to her state-room, and the two men were alone on deck smoking their cigars in the soft spring moonlight, Lancaster said, rather diffidently:

"Oh, yes, you can afford to be cool. You are the legal heir to ten thousand a year. You are not at the beck and call of a relative who gives you the most troublesome commissions...

Lieutenant De Vere gazed in the most unfeigned astonishment, not to say dismay, at the strange and unexpected sight of Captain Lancaster coolly leading the unknown beauty across...

Sitting in the quiet little room of Mrs. West that morning, with the golden sunlight of June shining in through the screen of flowers at the window, the pretty American girl lis...

Old Lady Lancaster had twenty thousand pounds a year of her own. She had brought that much dower when she came to her husband, the late Lord Lancaster, and now, when he was dead...

Things went on smoothly as usual at Lancaster Park after Mrs. West had given her consent to my lady's clever plan. They put Richard West's child out of their heads for awhile an...

Lady Lancaster was surprised and angry and frightened all in one when she heard that Leonora West had refused Lieutenant De Vere. She made him own the truth when he came to make...

"Yes, in their palmy days," said Clive Lancaster; "but not now, when their patrimony is wasted, their lands encumbered with taxes, and their last descendant earning a paltry liv...

"Oh, Lord Lancaster, you are too late! She is come now!" cried Lady Adela, for her glance, too, had fallen on the graceful, hesitating figure. She saw with inexpressible chagrin...

"Good-day, Miss West. I see how disagreeable my presence is, so I will leave you to your meditations among the tombs. I hope none of those old fellows will come out of their gra...

Captain Lancaster and his friend, having brought letters of introduction from England, were having rather a nice time in the cultured and æsthetic circles of Boston. They had ma...

"Yes, I know," said Leonora. "Poor papa always called me his little girl, and if he had lived until I was an old woman it would have been the same. And he forgot that you could...

"It's my brother-in-law's child, and he's dead away off in New York somewhere, and the child's left to me--his penniless, friendless orphan child, left to me by the dead; and ho...

Lady Lancaster bounded erect in her bed and regarded the maid for a moment in unfeigned dismay. She had utterly forgotten the existence of Mrs. West's niece, and it took several...

"Hardly ever," he replied, with a laugh, adding, with veiled anxiety: "I hear that you have killed the fatted calf in my honor, Aunt Lydia. Whom have you staying with you?"

It was a beautiful night, bright with moonlight and starlight, and sweet with balmy air and the breath of fragrant flowers. Leonora sat at the window and silently drank in the s...

Lancaster electrified his friend next morning by informing him that he must get their traps aboard the steamer himself, as he would not have time to attend to his own affairs, h...