And there was no hint of a tragedy or sorrow in the balmy air, nor in the sunset sky where the rosy tints faded to purple, and the full moon rose over the sharp outline of the distant hills and flooded the world with its silver glory. Precious did not speak one word, but her heart thrilled with a silent rapture as pure as the moonlight flooding the world with light. "I shall see him--I can thank him with my own lips for saving my life," she thought happily, and at night she sat alone at her window when Norah believed she was asleep, thinking of the morrow, when Ethel's lover was coming. She thought of Ladybird too, and her romantic fancies and hero-worship. "It was a strange fancy that Lord Chester might some day be my lover," she mused, and added, with an unconscious sigh: "Perhaps--he--might--have been--only that he loved Ethel first!" Did a shadow from the nearing future fall over that young dreaming heart--some prescience of the pathetic truth of the poet's plaint: "Of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'" She sat long by the open window watching the beautiful night with solemn, wide blue eyes, and a strange sadness crept over her spirit, a loneliness never felt before. Tears came at last, tears, and low, soft sobs. Norah caught the sound in the next room, where she dozed upon her pillow, and hurried in. "What, darling! sitting up in your nightgown, catching cold at the open window?" and she carried her in her strong arms to the bed and piled the snowy covers over the shivering form. "Did you have dreams that frightened you, pet?" she continued, as she warmed the cold little hands between her own. Precious, trying to hush her hysteric sobs, murmured faintly: "I have never been asleep, Norah. I was sitting at the window watching the beautiful stars, and thinking--of many things. Then I grew sad--I do not know why--and--and the tears came. I think I am homesick. I want papa and mamma. I have been so long away from them." "I will write to Mrs. Winans to-morrow, and tell her she must come to Rosemont very soon--that you are lonely." "Yes, I am lonely," sighed Precious, all unconscious that it was the restlessness of an awakening young heart. She fell asleep presently with the dew of tears still on her lashes--slept, and dreamed fantastic dreams, in which she saw Ladybird married to Lord Chester, and Ethel drowning in the river, and herself and Kay perishing again in the burning house. CHAPTER XVI. "OH, THAT WORD 'REGRET!'" "Ah, rosebud mouth for kisses made, And are you not the least afraid? And do not know, my little one, What mischief kisses sweet have done, O'er all the world and through all time, In every age and every clime?" --D. L. PROUDFIT. "I think we shall find her here under her favorite tree," said Earle Winans as he and Lord Chester came down toward the river.