The Heiress of Kurston Chace

Into the usual stillness of Kurston Chace a strange bustle and
excitement had come--the master was returning with a young bride, whom
report spoke of as "bewitchingly beautiful." It was easy to believe
report in this case, for there must have been some strong inducement to
make Frederick Kurston wed in his sixtieth year a woman barely twenty.
It was not money; Mr. Kurston had plenty of money, and he was neither
ambitious nor avaricious; besides, the woman he had chosen was both poor
and extravagant.

For once report was correct. Clementina Gray, in tarlatans and flowers,
had been a great beauty; and Clementina Kurston, in silks and diamonds,
was a woman dedicated, by Nature for conquest.

It was Clementina's beauty that had prevailed over the love-hardened
heart of the gay old gallant, who had escaped the dangers of forty
seasons of flirtation. He was entangled in the meshes of her golden
hair, fascinated by the spell of her love-languid eyes, her mouth like a
sad, heavy rose, her faultless form and her superb manners. He was blind
to all her faults; deaf to all his friends--in the glamour of her
enchantments he submitted to her implicitly, even while both his reason
and his sense of other obligations pleaded for recognition.

Clementina had not won him very easily; the summer was quite over,
nearly all the visitors at the stylish little watering-place had
departed, the mornings and evenings were chilly, every day Mr. Kurston
spoke of his departure, and she herself was watching her maid pack her
trunks, and in no very amiable temper contemplating defeat, when the
reward of her seductive attentions came.

"Mr. Kurston entreated the favor of an interview."

She gladly accorded it; she robed herself with subtle skill; she made
herself marvelous.

"Mother," she said, as she left her dressing-room, "you will have a
headache. I shall excuse you. I can manage this business best alone."

In an hour she came back triumphant. She put her feet on the fender, and
sat down before the cheerful blaze to "talk it over."

"It is all right, mother. Good-by to our miserable shifts and
shabby-genteel lodgings and turned dresses. He will settle Kurston Chace
and all he has upon me, and we are to be married next month."

"Impossible, Tina! No _modiste_ in the world could get the things that
are absolutely necessary ready in that time."

"Everything is possible in New York--if you have money--and Uncle Gray
will be ready enough to buy my marriage clothes. Besides, I am going to
run no risks. If he should die, nothing on earth could console me for
the trouble I have had with him, but the fact of being his widow. There