ting to her since she had
seen the world and found how much there was to enjoy and how much
influence she could exert in it. Others than Ted Hardy had been
attracted by the airy little beauty, who always managed to make them
serviceable in some way, notwithstanding Archie's oft-repeated protest
that she made too free with strangers, and accepted civilities where she
ought to have given rebukes. Archie had not been altogether pleased with
the campaign, and was glad when at last he drove into the old park at
Stoneleigh and was warmly welcomed by Dorothy and Anthony, who had made
the place as comfortable as possible with the small means at their
command.

CHAPTER IV.

LITTLE BESSIE.

"Oh, Archie, isn't it a poky old place, and doesn't it smell of rats and
must?" Daisy said, as with her husband she went through the great rooms,
whose only ornament consisted in the warm fires on the hearth and the
pots of chrysanthemums and late roses which Dorothy had put here and
there by way of brightening the house up a bit and making the
home-coming more cheerful for the young people.

But it needed more than roses, and chrysanthemums, and fires to satisfy
Daisy, who, forgetting the little back room in the dressmaker's shop
whence she came, and remembering only the delights of the Continent and
the excitement of Monte Carlo, and the honor, as she thought it, of
having a real live earl in her party, tossed her head a little and said
she wished she was back in Paris.

But Archie did not share her feelings. It had not been pleasant for him
to see Daisy ogled and admired by men he wanted to knock down, nor had
he quite liked the escapade at Monte Carlo, for, aside from the fear
lest the fraud should be discovered, there was always before him a dread
of what his Uncle John and the Lady Jane would say, should the affair
ever reach their ears, as it might, for Lord Hardy was not very
discreet, and was sure to tell of it sometime.

As to the playing, could he have had his choice he would far rather have
played himself than to stand by and see Daisy do it. But his vow to his
father could not be broken, and so he was tolerably content, especially
as the result was so far beyond his expectations. Fifteen hundred pounds
was the sum total of the gains, and Daisy, who held the purse and
managed everything, played the lady of Stoneleigh to perfection, and
made enemies of all her former friends, her mother included, and was
only stopped