Chapter I

"IT seems strange that Dr. Connor should advise your going away again in such lovely weather, and from a place to which other people come in search of health. He might let you have a little peace."

So spoke Norah Guiness to Jeannie Bellew, an only child, a probable heiress, and the object of enough thought, care, and indulgence to spoil a much finer nature than she was gifted with.

"It is always a doctor's way. He must order something different from what you have, however good that may be. I have everything that money can buy, and instead of being allowed to enjoy it in peace, am sent hither and thither at the doctor's will. Look at me, Norah. Am I like an invalid?"

Thus appealed to, Norah surveyed Jeannie as she lay back in a folding-chair and challenged her scrutiny with a half-defiant air.

Truly there was nothing of an invalid about the girl. There was a rich colour on her fair face, her figure was symmetrical, and the shapely hand on which her curly head partly rested was plump and well-rounded. Norah thought there was no trace of illness, and said so.

"The doctor should know what is best," she replied; "but as an invalid you appear to me an utter fraud."

A ringing, musical laugh greeted these words, then Jeannie started from her seat, kissed Norah, declared she always was a dear, sensible darling, whose judgment was worth that of all the doctors put together, danced round the room, and finally dropped panting into her seat again, with a considerably heightened colour.

Norah noticed that Jeannie's hand was pressed to her side, and looked grave.

"Are you wise to indulge in such violent exercise?" she asked.

"Perhaps not, though it is only the having been pampered and waited on hand and foot that has made me so susceptible. I must really begin to live like other girls now I am so well again," said Jeannie.

"Only do not make such a sudden start. Have you any pain?"

"Not a bit, now. I had a little twinge or two, but it is all gone. The strongest girl would have felt as much if she had been prancing round as I did a minute ago. I am as well as you are, Norah. It is downright wicked of Doctor Connor to say that I must have another change for a month or so, and then he will decide about next winter. As though one lost nothing by leaving a home like mule with all its comforts. I have often thought that the loss of them counterbalanced the good done by the 'entire change' the doctors are so fond of ordering. If I could take Benvora and all belonging to it, Jet included, away with me, I should care less. And I would have you, Norah, if I could."

"That is impossible, dear. I am quite indispensable at home. But there is Jack Corry. You will want him most of all, now your engagement is a settled thing."

"Want Jack with me!" exclaimed Jeannie. "Why, Norah, what can have put such an absurd notion into your head? If you realised my feelings the least little bit, you would know that the sweet drop in my cup of banishment from Ballycorene is the thought that I shall leave Jack Corry behind me. He bores me to death. He follows me like a lapdog, gives me no chance of wishing to see him, for he is here so often that I am at my wits' end to get rid of him half the time. Jack Corry, indeed!" And Jeannie gave her pretty head a toss, as though she and the individual in question had neither thought nor wish in common.

Norah looked utterly bewildered, and heard without understanding her friend's words.

"I thought you cared so much for Jack," she said. "If not, why did you act in such a way as to make him think you did? 'Why did you accept his offer, and allow your engagement to be announced, if—"

Norah hesitated to put her thoughts into words. She was true to the core herself, and infinitely above the petty vanity and cruel selfishness combined which make up the character of a flirt—vanity, which is ever craving for admiration, and never satisfied with what it gets; selfishness, that cares only for gratifying the whim of the moment, without heeding what the amusement may cost some true heart; vanity, that loves to parade the homage that is rendered, yet only values it so far as it can be displayed and utilised to advance its own importance, or to while away time that would otherwise hang heavily; selfishness, that having had its turn served, its little day of triumph, never asks whether the moths that fluttered round had merely sunned themselves in the light and suffered no harm, or whether they had been cruelly scorched whilst suspecting none.

Hard hearts are like diamonds. The flirt's weapons glance harmlessly aside from them and leave no wound, as the best-tempered tool leaves no scratch on the surface of the precious stone. But those same weapons have pierced many a true and tender heart, and virtually killed its faith in womanly truth, and taught it to doubt the possibility of honest girlish affection.

It seemed too dreadful for Norah to associate the idea of vanity and selfishness with her friend Jeannie, a girl just eighteen, and looking even younger, with her fair face and childish head covered with a crop of short curls. Yet as she gave a mental glance at the past she felt that Jeannie's actions and words belied each other.

Jack Corry had long been deemed quite first favourite in the neighbourhood. He was bright, kindly. To young and old alike, he was ever ready to render a service, and people used to look at him and say that this was his one fault. He was the same to all, and no person could detect any sign of preference towards any of his fair neighbours.

Jeannie Bellew had spent two winters in the Riviera. Whether there now existed any cause for anxiety on her behalf, there had been enough to justify the fears of her parents and her own banishment.

A sharp attack of inflammation of the lungs, brought on, if truth must be told, by her own wilfulness, had left the girl without absolute disease, but extremely sensitive to every change of temperature. After her second winter in the South, she had returned home with greatly improved strength and looks, but in other respects rather changed than improved.

Jeannie, the little schoolgirl, with her artless country manners and winsome ways, was gone, and in her stead there returned to Ballycorene one who was a girl in age and looks, but who brought with her more knowledge of the world than all her feminine neighbours put together could boast of.

Mrs. Bellew had accompanied her daughter on both occasions, and a middle-aged, trusty servant waited on the two. But the mother dreaded the loneliness of life in apartments, where everything and every person were strange around them, and so the pair spent the two winters in a large hotel, and gained many experiences which the younger especially would have been much better without.

Before Jeannie's reappearance, Ballycorene gossips had begun to couple the name of Jack Corry with that of Norah Guiness, and to say that at last the way to his heart had been discovered. Also that if he had the luck to gain Norah's, he would win the greatest treasure that could enrich his life and brighten a home, though she would be almost a dowerless maiden.

Perhaps it was because no word or act of Norah's gave Jack Corry cause to think she bestowed a thought upon him, that he began to devote much thought to her. She practised no little coquettish airs, did not pretend to shun him, in order to hire him to seek her. She met him, as she did others, with the bright smile, the honest look devoid of all self-consciousness, the kindly greeting which was natural in one whom he had known all his life, and no more.

No girl looked on Norah as a possible rival. All regarded her as a true-hearted friend, and saw in her a self-devoting daughter, the one comfort of her father's life, and a sister almost worshipped by his three motherless lads. None could accuse her of striving to attract Jack Corry, and so, when it seemed that he was likely to be attracted, all the girls with one consent voted, "Better Norah than anyone else."

Then Jeannie Bellew came back to Benvora, changed as aforesaid, a fashionable young lady instead of a simple country girl, and yet with the power to act the latter character to perfection when it suited the whim of the moment. She was prettier than ever, and had acquired an ease and grace of manner which, together with an almost inexhaustible wardrobe, threw all the country girls into the shade.

Jeannie's father was very rich; sole owner of a vast manufacturing concern, which in his skilful hands was always growing in value.

In what way could wealth be better applied than in surrounding his only child with every luxury that it could purchase? Mr. Bellew was a good master, and paid his hands liberally. No man ever applied to him in vain if help was wanted for any good object, and so, as he was generous to all beside, was he likely to stint where Jeannie was concerned?

The girl had excellent taste in the choice of garments, and did not care for show and glitter. But everything she wore was in exquisite harmony with her youth, and only the initiated would have guessed what a simple morning-robe of muslin and lace had cost her father.

Jack Corry had been in and out at Benvora, Mr. Bellew's place, ever since he could walk. He could remember the day when he, a boy of ten, was first trusted to hold Jeannie, a baby three weeks old, in his arms, and how proud he had felt to kiss her pink cheek, then glad to be rid of so great a responsibility when the nurse reclaimed her charge.

Jack dropped in on the evening of Jeannie's return. He had cheered Mr. Bellew with his sunny presence many a time whilst his wife and daughter were away, and now the older man gave him a hearty welcome.

"Jack is here, Jeannie," he said. "Come to see how you look after your wanderings in foreign lands. He has been my best neighbour during the winter, and has deprived himself of many a pleasure to cheer a lonely man."

Jack deprecated the idea of its being possible for him to have had better or pleasanter evenings than those he had spent at Benvora, and congratulated Jeannie on her restored health, as he took in his, the little plump hand which she promptly extended.

"But you have been good, Jack. Father has told us in nearly every letter about your kindness to him. You don't know how grateful we are, mother and I. Are we not, mother?"

Whilst Jeannie was speaking she was also looking straight into Jack's face and leaving her hand resting in his clasp, as if she had forgotten that it was there.

What wonder that Jack was in no hurry to relinquish it, that he thought Jeannie very charming and winsome, and was conscious of an undercurrent of gladness at the conviction that she had come back unspoiled, the same simple-minded country lassie whom he had always regarded as a dear, loving child-friend of his own?

She positively had tears in her eyes, called thither by the thought of his little attentions to Mr. Bellew. Why, he would have been the most ungrateful monster in existence if he could have neglected the man who had tipped him as a boy, given him his first pony, been his good friend always, and whom, apart from all this, he loved and honoured.

"You'll stay the evening?" said Mr. Bellew to Jack.

"Not to-night. You will want to talk, and Mrs. and Miss—"

"Jeannie," put in the owner of the name, before Jack had time to finish. "How dare you try to make me grown-up and call me 'Miss,' you that nursed me when I was a tiny baby? For shame, Jack!"

There was quite a distressed look on Jeannie's face, and Jack was sure there would be tears directly, and felt and said that he was ashamed of himself.

"Then take off your overcoat this minute. You are going to say that we must be tired and want to talk to each other, too. You forget that father met us, that we spent three days in London, and have made other halts on the road. To-day we have only been travelling two hours. Father has told all the home news; we are not a bit tired, and now you must stay and tell us about everything and everybody else. Do stay, Jack."

The tone was beseeching, the look no less so. Jack was vanquished before Mrs. Bellew had time to add—

"Yes, do stay. We shall all be glad to have you, and I cannot tell you how much I feel all your kind attentions to my husband."

Mrs. Bellew was in earnest in her welcome and in her thanks to Jack. But she was uneasy. Her eyes had for some time past been opened to the fact that there were many sides to Jeannie's nature, and somehow she dreaded, both for the girl herself and for others, the exhibition of the artless childish side, which most people found so charming, but which she knew to be the least real and the most dangerous of all.

How could Jack Corry refuse the triple invitation? He was actually on his way to Mr. Guiness's house, for of late he had dropped in there on two nights in the week, and he knew that he was expected this evening.

Of late, too, he had begun to delight in seeing a soft flush rise on Norah's cheek when she gave him her hand, or when she noted how he followed her movements with looks of interest and approval. The home of which Norah was the mistress was as well ordered and as refined as Benvora, and there was true comfort at comparatively little cost. He had said to himself, "What a home she will some day make of mine!"

He had settled everything in his own mind, and though as yet no direct word of love had been spoken, he knew that he had been wooing Norah Guiness by his frequent visits, his manifested pleasure in her society, and by a thousand looks and nameless attentions that were as eloquent as speech.

Jack meant them to be so. He was thoroughly honest in paying these attentions. But he did not regard Norah as one who could be lightly won, and he wanted to feel sure of his ground before he risked all on a distinct offer.

He was beginning to feel satisfied with the progress of his wooing, for he knew she would never wish to bring him to her feet in order to fling back an honest heart, or make pretence that she had not thought him in earnest.

She, too, was beginning to feel that he was in earnest, and the thought filled her with a great gladness. She would not have given her heart unasked, but was not Jack pleading for it in numberless ways?

He, on his part, argued well for his suit, when he noticed that Norah was a little shyer than of old, though more thoughtfully kind than ever. A little more silent, but so careful to listen to every word of his. And Jack said to himself, "Norah is a pearl amongst girls. What matters her lack of fortune? She is the rose out of the whole 'rosebud garden.'"

From his very heart, he thanked God that he had no need to trouble himself about money, but would have enough and to spare for both. He had been orphaned very early in life, but was abundantly provided for. Yet never till he thought of what his ample means would do for Norah did Jack Corry greatly value them, and then it was for her sake.

"My rose flourishes in a poor soil now; she shall be transplanted into a fair garden. My pearl's surroundings are all unsuited to so rare a jewel. It shall have a brave setting when I become the owner."

Jack planned how he would help Norah to increase her father's home comforts; how he would smooth things for the lads who would be his brothers, and as such the lawful objects of his care; how, in short, he would turn the good things he possessed to account for the benefit of the whole Guiness family, and one in particular, "bless her!"

He had almost made up his mind to tell his tale to Norah on that evening, when, on his way to her home, he felt it right just to look in at Benvora, and ask after Mrs. Bellew and Jeannie. He would be sure not to stay long, and the call was a matter of positive duty to old friends.