e young girl
thought, with a heart full of joy.

So the happy days slipped away, each crowded with pleasures, for there
was never a dull day at Ellsworth. The mistress kept it gay with
pleasant entertainments, to which she always invited the best people in
the county, especially the eligible young men, hoping that the nieces
Lovelace had slighted for Dainty might yet catch rich husbands.

But somehow the best catches seemed already engaged, and the next best
ones, while politely attentive to Mrs. Ellsworth's guests, did not
betray any marked predilection for their society. Though handsome and
well-dressed, they failed somehow in that indefinable charm that often
wins for a plainer girl a really enviable lover.

This fact has been often observed in life. The most perfect beauty,
unless united to an innate goodness that forms an attractive aura about
the person, often fails to impress and win.

"What a beautiful girl! Pray introduce me!" exclaims some admiring young
man; but on being presented, he feels an unconscious chill, and after
leaving the beauty's presence, finds he has lost all interest in what
before had charmed him so. The most probable cause is, that the fair
face hid an ignoble soul whose influence had vaguely chilled and
depressed his admiration.

Olive Peyton was peculiarly of this unpleasant type. Proud, vain, cold,
and ambitious, she had never possessed any magnetic power of attraction,
and had actually never received a single proposal, though it would have
mortified her intensely for any one to find it out.

Ela, who patterned after Olive as nearly as possible, had never had any
offer but that of Vernon Ashley, which she had been glad enough to
accept until she thought a better chance had presented itself.

So, very naturally, both the young girls cherished an inward spite and
envy for the sweet, lovable girl who had won so easily the prize they
coveted.

They could see, too, from the actions of the young men who came to
Ellsworth, that they envied the proud lover the prize he had won. She
might easily have had a dozen other offers had not Love won her promise
so quickly. How could any one wonder at it who saw how kind-hearted and
gentle she was, always thinking of others more than herself, always
pitying another's sorrow, always glad of another's joy, always
light-hearted and sunny, hiding her grief, if she ever had one, under a
merry smile?

"Her laugh,
As light as wine or cha