"LOVELACE ELLSWORTH. "Introduced to Mrs. Chase by Judith Ellsworth." "I am Mrs. Chase, and I am glad to see you," she said, wonderingly, as she gave him a cordial handshake, and ushered him into the little parlor, where he saw a girl, fairer than any flower, wiping the tears away from lovely eyes that looked like violets drowned in dew. "My daughter Dainty, Mr. Ellsworth," said the widow; and as he took the soft little hand, he did not wonder that her cousins had feared to risk her rivalry for his heart. With his charmed eyes lingering on her perfect face, he explained: "I have been in New York for a few days, and mother wrote me to stop in Richmond and join a party of her nieces who would start to-day on a visit to Ellsworth." Dainty's bright eyes laughed through their tears as she replied: "Oh, how sorry they will be to have missed you! But they went last night!" "But were not you, Miss Chase, to accompany them?" he demanded; and she handed him the girls' note, saying, demurely: "That explains everything." Lovelace Ellsworth read it with a somewhat malicious smile, exclaiming: "How fortunate that I came in time to protect you on your journey!" Mrs. Chase hastened to say: "We shall indeed be grateful for your escort, as Dainty was about to give up her trip through her timidity at venturing alone. Now, as soon as we have breakfast, she will be ready." Oh, how angry Olive and Ela would have been to see that pleasant little party at breakfast, and afterward setting forth for the station in Ellsworth's carriage, Mrs. Chase accompanying to see her daughter off, and both of them perfectly delighted with their genial new acquaintance, of whom the mother could not help thinking: "How admiringly he looks at my bonny girl, as if indeed Olive and Ela were right in fearing her rivalry for his heart! And how good and true he looks, as if he might make any girl a kind, loving husband! What a grand thing it would be for Dainty--" She broke off the thought abruptly, for the parting was at hand, and her daughter clung tearfully about her neck. In a minute it was all over, and Dainty was seated in the parlor-car with Ellsworth by her side, saying in his musical voice: "No more tears now, Miss Dainty; for you must try to amuse me, to make up for your cousins, who have left us in the lurch. But how glad I am they went on ahead of us--are not you? For we shall have such a lovely _tête-à-tête_ journey!" Dainty emerged from her wet handkerchief, like the sun from behind a cloud, blushing and dimpling with girlish mischief, as she exclaimed: "But they will be so sorry! They will never get over it!" She was only a girl, not an angel, so she could not help being pleased with the thought of the discomfiture of her scheming cousins who had so cleverly overreached themselves.