For he had suddenly remembered that at sunrise to-morrow he was to fight a duel with pistols with Jack Tennant, who had declined to apologize for his hasty blow at the picnic. CHAPTER XIX. "THE WOMAN I LOVED AND THE MAN THAT WAS ONCE MY MORTAL FOE!" "What pulls at my heart so? What tells me to roam? What drags me and lures me From chamber and home?"--GOETHE. Ladybird Conway, our little "April's lady," wept disconsolately some time upon the sofa after Aura Stanley had glided away. Her willful prank had not succeeded as she expected, and her young heart was very heavy. "Oh, how could Earle treat me so coldly?" she sobbed. "I hate all the others--silly things. And I wouldn't marry Jack Tennant to save his life." She heard the gate-latch click, then a masculine step on the porch, and started up in a flurry, dashing away her tears. "It is Earle coming back to beg me not to have anything to do with Jack Tennant. Oh, I thought he would repent! I'll forgive the darling, of course, but--I'll be a little haughty just at first!" she thought, her spirits rising to the point of coquetry. She stood up expectantly, a pretty dimpling smile on her rosy lips. In another moment a man stood at the threshold of the open door--a tall handsome man past middle age, with many gray threads in his dark hair. Ladybird looked at the intruder, then flew to his arms with a cry of delight: "Dear papa, you have come at last!" "At last, my pet!" and Bruce Conway hugged her with fervor, then drew her to a seat by him on the sofa. "You have been well, my Ladybird, I see--you are blooming as a rose. And where is good Aunt Prue?" "Oh, nodding in the dining-room, I expect. She always nods after tea, you know. Well, you have been away almost six weeks, you naughty papa." "You have not missed me, I'm sure, for I find you sitting alone in the parlor, and as fine as a peacock, like a young lady expecting her beau. Were you?" He pinched the blushing cheek and laughed mischievously as she affirmed: "No, indeed!" "Glad to hear it. I don't want any young fellow to carry you off from me for ages yet." Miss Prudence Primrose entered presently and Bruce Conway rose with unaffected pleasure to greet this distant relative, a kindly old Quakeress that he had induced to come and live with Ladybird after he brought her home from her Virginia boarding-school. But the old lady did not quite approve of the wildness of the prankish girl, and when she was alone with Bruce that night she said: "Ladybird is asleep by now, so I must tell thee that thee art spoiling thy daughter, Bruce. She is too pretty and willful for her own good." Bruce Conway smiled in a graceful, indolent way he had. "Oh, nonsense, Aunt Prue; there is no harm in being pretty, and she has always been an obedient child." "But she is so young, Bruce, and she has lovers by the dozen. They call her the village belle. I don't like it."