But it was cruel, cruel, for the horror of the present was only augmented by the memory of the past. Her eldest born, her precious boy, had been stolen in his babyhood, and four years elapsed before he was recovered. It had taken all the strength of youth and hope to endure that cross. Now she was older, frailer, and she knew she could not bear another such agony and live. But her husband's seeming hopefulness put a gleam of sunshine in her heart, and for his sake, because she loved him very dearly, she would not add to his remorseful grief by one reproachful word. The morning papers in glaring black headlines chronicled the abduction of the senator's favorite daughter and the princely ransom he had offered for her restoration. Excitement ran high over the terrible sensation, and stories of the girl's wonderful grace and beauty passed from lip to lip. The studio of a famous artist who had but just completed the portrait of Precious for her father was thronged with gazers. He could not deny them, for it was hoped that familiarity with her looks might in some way help the search for the missing girl. Among the first of the curious visitors to the studio was handsome Lord Chester. The senator's earnest praises of his favorite child rang continuously in the young man's head. His eager curiosity drove him to the studio of the famous artist, and when he stood at last before the full-length portrait he could not turn his eyes away; they lingered in rapture on the pictured loveliness of Precious Winans. "Sweet face, swift eyes and gleaming Sun-gifted rippling hair-- Lips like two rosebuds dreaming In June's fruit-scented air: Life when her spring days meet her, Hope when her angels greet her, Is not more calm--nor sweeter; And love is not more fair. "God bless your thoughts, my sweet one, Whatever they may be! Youth's life is but a fleet one, Foam from an ebbing sea. Time, tide, and fate o'erturn all, Save one thing ever vernal, Sweet love that lives eternal, Life of eternity!" To the day of his death Arthur, Lord Chester, carried this picture in his memory and his heart--this picture of a girl standing by a magnificent large mastiff with one tiny white hand holding his silver collar. Beneath her fairy feet was daisied grass, and her simple white gown and the broad straw hat she carried on her arm seemed to fit the spring-time that was imaged in the golden lengths of rippling hair. So she stood--"a sight to make an old man young"--Ethel's younger sister, the senator's favorite. The words of a poet of his own fair land leaped to his lips: "Sovereign lady in fair field Myself for such a face had boldly died." Later in the day he called at the Winans mansion, and Ethel received him alone. Her mamma was too ill and nervous to see any one.