(Printed in the United States of America) LITTLE SWEETHEART OR, NORMAN DE VERE’S PROTEGEE. BY MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER. HART SERIES No. 49 COPYRIGHT 1889 BY GEORGE MUNRO. PUBLISHED BY THE ARTHUR WESTBROOK COMPANY CLEVELAND, O., U. S. A. LITTLE SWEETHEART. CHAPTER I. The smoking-car was draughty and ill-smelling; the three commercial travelers, with their cards and whisky, noisy to the point of rudeness, and the view from the windows of the slowly moving train was not interesting to one who had gone over the route to Jacksonville a dozen times before. The rocking motion of the train hindered reading with any comfort, and Norman de Vere flung down his newspaper impatiently and went into the ladies’ car. “There may be some pretty women in there to look at,” he thought, idly, having an artistic taste that could interest itself for hours in traveling in watching the delicate profile of some beautiful face with a ravishing turn to chin and throat, or round cheek shaded by the curled fringe of a long, dark eyelash. For the matter of that, any woman might have looked twice at him, too, if she had any feminine penchant for manly beauty. Tall, broad-shouldered, symmetrically formed, with olive skin, large, flashing, dark eyes, wavy dark hair, clear-cut, handsome features, and a mouth so beautifully shaped that the absence of the conventional mustache from the short, curled upper lip seemed almost an affectation to display its beauty. Norman de Vere at two-and-twenty was a magnificent specimen of young manhood, combining in his fine person all the best elements of strength and beauty. You saw, too, from the cut and quality of his well-chosen traveling garments, and from his very air of easy indifference, that he was Fortune’s favorite--beloved of Plutus as well as Apollo. He dropped languidly down into a seat some little distance back of the woman and child who were the sole occupants of the ladies’ car. “Wonder where they got on? They were not in here two hours ago when I went forward to the smoking-car,” he thought, with idle curiosity, having nothing better to attract his attention. The slight, black-robed figure sitting in front of him had its head and face hidden in a little black poke bonnet and black lace veil. The face, turned steadfastly from him, as if gazing through the window, was propped against a small hand in a trim, black kid glove. Before her, on a seat which the accommodating conductor had turned over to face her, slumbered a lovely child of about four years. By contrast with the somber black garments of the lady and the rich crimson velvet of the cushions on which it was lying, the little creature, in its white dress, its tangle of rich golden curls, its round cheeks warmly flushed with happy slumber, its half-parted, dewy red lips giving glimpses of pearly baby-teeth, looked like a beautiful human flower.