Mischievous Maid Faynie | Page 4

mighty waters of the ocean by his weak will. All in an unforeseen
moment the words burst from his lips--the secret he had attempted to
guard so carefully was out.
He had expected that beautiful Faynie Fairfax would turn from him in
anger and dismay, but to his intense surprise, she burst into a flood of
tears, even though she looked at him with smiling lips, April sunshine
and showers commingled, confessing with all a young girl's pretty,
hesitating shyness that she loved him, even as he loved her, with all her
heart. Then followed half an hour of bliss for the lovers such as the
poets tell of in their verses of a glimpse of Paradise.
Although they exchanged a hundred vows of eternal affection, Lester
Armstrong hesitated to speak of marriage yet. Faynie was young--only
eighteen. There was plenty of time. And to tell the truth, he dared not
face the possibilities of it just yet. It required a little more courage than
he had been able to muster up to seek an audience with the
millionaire--beard the lion in his den, as it were--and dare propose such
a monstrously preposterous thing as the asking of his lovely, dainty
young daughter's hand in marriage. Lester was timid. He dreaded
beyond words the setting of the ball rolling which would tear his
beautiful love and himself asunder. Heaven help him, he was so
unutterably happy in the bewildering present.
His reverie was suddenly interrupted by seeing a little black figure
hurrying down the path. Another instant, and the little breathless figure
was clasped in his arms, close, close to his madly throbbing heart.
"Oh, Faynie, my love, my darling, my precious, why did you brave the
fury of the tempest to keep the tryst to-night? I am here, but I did not
expect you, much as I love to see you. I was praying you would not
venture out. Oh, my precious, what is it?" he cried in alarm, as the fitful
light of the gas lamp that hung over the arched gate fell full upon her.
"Your sweet face is as white as marble, and your beautiful golden hair

is wet with drifted snow, as is your cloak."
To his intense amazement and distress, she burst into the wildest of
sobs and clung to him like a terrified child. All in vain he attempted to
soothe her and find out what it was all about.
The first thought that flashed through his mind was that their meetings
had been discovered, and that they meant to put him from Faynie, and
he strained her closer to his heart, crying out that whatever it was,
nothing save death should separate them.
Little by little the story came out, and the two young lovers, clasped so
fondly in each other's arms, did not feel the intense cold or hear the
wild moaning of the winds around them. Through her tears Faynie told
her handsome, strong young lover just what had happened. Her father
had sent for her to come to his library that morning, and when she had
complied with the summons, he had informed her that a friend of his
had asked for her hand in marriage, and he had consented, literally
settling the matter without consulting her, the one most vitally
interested. She had most furiously rebelled, there had been a terrible
scene, and it had ended by her father harshly bidding her to prepare for
the wedding, which would take place on the morrow, adding that a
father was supposed to know best what to do for his daughter's interests;
that the fiat had gone forth; that she would marry the husband he had
selected for her on the morrow, though all the angels above or the
demons below attempted to frustrate it.
"You will save me, Lester?" cried the girl, wildly clinging to him with
death-cold hands. "Oh, Lester, my love, tell me, what am I to do? He is
very old, quite forty, and I am only eighteen. I abhor him quite as much
as I love you, Lester. Tell me, dear, what am I to do?"
He gathered her close in his arms in an agony that words are too weak
to portray.
"You shall not, you must not, marry the man your father has selected
for you, my darling. You are mine, Faynie, and you must marry me," he
cried, hoarsely. "Heaven intended us for each other, and for no one else.

You shall be mine past the power of any one human to part us ere the
morrow's light dawns, if--if you wish it so."
She clung to him, weeping hysterically, answering:
"Oh, yes, Lester, let it be so. I will marry you, and you will take me
away from this place, where no one,