Jaquelina went into the clean, neat sitting-room and took the cross, heavy child into her slender young arms, and proceeded to walk up and down the floor with it—the only method she knew of to still its clamorous cries, for its mother had gone to the kitchen to hurry the noonday meal for her farmer husband.
Her uncle and the hired man, who had just come in from the field, sat at the window discussing the country news in general.
"The gang of horse-thieves seems to be getting into our neighborhood," said the plowman. "Squire Stanley's fine bay mare was taken from the stable last night."
Farmer Meredith started and looked anxious.
"Is it possible?" he said. "Why, Stanley's isn't more than two miles from here. Who knows but they may come here next? It would be a terrible thing if they took my two horses now, and the plowing not half done."
"Dreadful," said the man, "but it's a desperate gang—little they'd care if the plowing be done or not. But they do say as how the thieves don't meddle with poor men's beasts much. It's the rich farmers as has fine horses and such that they go for. I suppose they don't find a ready market for common plow-horses."
"Likely not," said Mr. Meredith. "Well, I wish the gang could be smoked out of the country, or caught up with in their thieving. It's a terrible scourge to the country—this gang."
"There's a large reward out for the ringleader," said the hired man. "I saw the posters out on Smith's fence as I came along this morning. Two hundred dollars for his apprehension."
Jaquelina, who had been listening, gave a startled cry.
"Two hundred dollars! Oh, my! I wish I could catch the wretch! Two hundred dollars would give me a whole year at a good boarding-school!"
Farmer Meredith looked round in surprise. Something in the girl's unconscious wistfulness struck him oddly.
"Boardin'-school," he said; "what put that foolish idea in your head, Lina? Haven't you larnt enough readin' and writin' at the public school four months in every winter?"
"No, indeed, Uncle Charlie;" and Lina shook her head so decisively that the short, soft rings of hair danced coquettishly with the movement. "It's very little I know, indeed, and if I only knew how to catch that horse-thief I'd spend every cent of the reward in getting myself a good education."
"You've more learning than is good for you now," said Mrs. Meredith, sharply, as she re-entered the room and overheard the words. "Every time I want you there you are out of the way, with your face poked into a book. And me slaving my life away all the time. Is the baby asleep? Put her into the cradle, then. Come, men—dinner's ready."
The sharp-faced, sharp-voiced mistress of the house bustled out.
Jaquelina put the heavy child out of her tired, aching arms into the cradle, and sat down to rock it.
Her full red lips were quivering; her dark eyes were misty with tears that her girlish pride would not suffer to fall.
"How hard and unkind Aunt Meredith is," she said to herself. "Ah! if only papa and mamma had lived, how different my life would have been. I wish I had died, too. Shall I go on forever like this, minding the baby, washing the dishes, bringing the cows, serving as scape-goat for Aunt Meredith's ill tempers, and considered a burden in spite of all I can do to help? I wish when papa died he had left me to the alms-house at once."
"Miss Jack-o'-lantern," said a voice at the window; and she looked around with a start.
It was only a neighbor's cow-boy—a good-natured, ignorant negro lad, who had converted her odd name of Jaquelina into "Jack-o'-lantern."
"Well," she said, "what do you want, Sambo? Why do you come to the window and frighten me so?"
"I'm in a hurry, if you please, Miss Jack," said the lad. "Is your uncle at home?"
"Yes—at dinner," said the girl.
"Master sent me over to see if Mr. Meredith and his man would jine a party to hunt the horse-thieves to-night," said Sambo. "Squire Stanley's headin' it; his stable was robbed last night."
Jaquelina went into the kitchen with her message, and Mr. Meredith came out himself.
"Tell your master I'll be going over to the Grange meeting this afternoon, and I'll stop by and make arrangements to join them in the hunt," he said.
He finished his dinner and started.
The idea of the thief-hunt so inspired the plowman that he begged to be excused from working the balance of the day, and went away full of enthusiasm to join the gallant band of pursuers.
Jaquelina washed the dishes, and while Mrs. Meredith sat by the cradle with her knitting, the girl took her book and sat down on the doorstep to read.
Half an hour went by quietly. The hum of the bees and the warble of the birds were all that broke the silence, save the low whisper of the wind as it sighed among the trees.
Jaquelina enjoyed the silence thoroughly, every moment dreading to hear the fretful wail of her aunt's baby, and to be summoned to tend it again.
But lifting her head at last, as she turned a page, she saw a lady crossing the narrow foot-bridge that spanned the brook.
"Aunt Meredith," she said, turning her head toward the sitting-room, "there's company coming."
Mrs. Meredith whisked off her kitchen apron, slipped a white ruffled one over her dark print dress, and appeared at the door just in time to hear a musical voice saying, kindly:
"Good-afternoon, Lina—ah, good-afternoon, Mrs. Meredith."
CHAPTER II.
The new-comer was Violet Earle, a girl scarcely older than Jaquelina, but taller, better dressed, and exquisitely lovely. She was fair as a lily, with soft, languishing blue eyes, and golden curls falling in beautiful luxuriance upon her graceful shoulders.
A cool, tasteful costume of blue and white lawn, with pale-blue ribbons fluttering here and there, lent an artistic grace to her appearance that made Jaquelina shrink into herself upon the doorstep, feeling dowdy, miserable and commonplace by the contrast.
Jaquelina knew no one on earth whom she envied so much as this fair and self-possessed young lady—the petted, only daughter of the wealthiest man in the county.
"Good-afternoon, Miss Earle. Will you walk into the sitting-room?" inquired Mrs. Meredith, a little flustered by the lovely young visitor's appearance.
She led the way to the little sitting-room where the baby slumbered peacefully still, and they sat down, Jaquelina with her slim finger between the pages of her book.
"Lina, I have come to invite you to a party to-morrow night," Violet said, graciously.
Jaquelina's brune face flushed, her scarlet lips trembled with pleasure.
"My brother and one of his classmates are come from college for a visit, and mamma is going to give us a party. Will you come, Lina?"
Jaquelina glanced at Mrs. Meredith.
"Yes, if Aunt Meredith will permit me," she answered, frankly.
"Of course she will," Violet said, looking at the hostess, who frowned slightly as she said, almost bruskly:
"Lina has nothing fit to wear to a party."
Lina's sensitive cheeks turned crimson, but Miss Earle only laughed.
"Everyone says that when invited to a party," she observed