She was only a young girl, full of girlish enthusiasm, and it was certainly beyond human expectation to believe she could refrain from mentioning that much to Faynie the next morning. Faynie laid a little white hand on Claire's nut-brown head. "Take care not to fall too deeply in love with this handsome stranger," she said, "for handsome men are not always good and true as they seem." "I am sure this gentleman is," declared impulsive Claire emphatically. "He has the deepest, richest, mellowest voice I ever heard, and such eyes--wine dark eyes--those are the only words which seem to express what they are like--and when he takes your hand and looks down into your face, the hand he holds so lightly tingles from the finger tips straight to your heart." "I am afraid he has been holding your hand, Claire. Ah, take care--beware!" warned Faynie. During the fortnight that followed Kendale was a constant visitor at the palatial Fairfax home. And those two weeks changed the whole after current of Claire's life, as Faynie observed with wonder. It was certainly evident the girl was deeply in love, and Faynie trembled for her, for love would bring to such natures as hers the greatest peace or the bitterest sorrow. She wondered if her stepmother saw how affairs were drifting. If it had not been that she and her stepmother were always at cross-purposes with each other, she would have gone to her and warned her that it was dangerous to throw this handsome young man so often into Claire's society, unless she could readily see that he was pleased with the girl--realizing that poor Claire had a sad drawback in her lameness and that many would seek her society because she was bright and witty, who would never dream of asking her hand in marriage because of it. Once she attempted to warn Claire of the hidden rocks that lay in love's ocean, but the girl turned quickly a white, pained face toward her. "Say no more, Faynie," she cried; "the mischief, as you call it, has already been done. My heart has left me and gone to him. If I do not win him I shall die. You know the words: "Some hold that love is a foolish thing, A thing of little worth; But little or great, or weak or strong. 'Tis love that rules the earth. "The tale is new, yet ever told; It has often been breathed ere now--- 'There was a lad who loved a lass'-- 'Tis old as the world, I trow! "The song I sing has been sung before, And will often again be sung While lads and lasses have lips to kiss, Or bard a tuneful tongue. "And this is the burden of my rhyme-- Though love be of little worth, Yet from pole to pole and shore to shore, 'Tis love that rules the earth." "And it is love that breaks hearts and wrecks lives," murmured Faynie, with streaming eyes and quivering lips. "Oh, Claire! again I warn you to take care--beware!" For one brief moment she was tempted to tell Claire her own story.