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[Illustration: Cover of Dainty's Cruel Rivals by Mrs. Alex. McVeigh
Miller]


DAINTY'S CRUEL RIVALS
OR
THE FATAL BIRTHDAY

BY
MRS. ALEX. McVEIGH MILLER


HART SERIES NO. 88

COPYRIGHT 1898 BY GEORGE MUNRO'S SONS

Published by
THE ARTHUR WESTBROOK COMPANY,
Cleveland, Ohio, U. S. A.




INDEX


CHAPTER                                                 PAGE
       I  "A Sweet Girl Graduate"                          3
      II  "The Prettiest Girl in the Room"                13
     III  The Happiest Day She Had Ever Known             19
      IV  The Old Monk                                    22
       V  "Only a Dream"                                  26
      VI  Love's Rosy Dawn                                33
     VII  "The Trail of the Serpent"                      38
    VIII  The Ellsworth Honor                             42
      IX  "All That's Bright Must Fade"                   48
       X  "The Grim Fates"                                56
      XI  Love's Presentiments                            64
     XII  A Maddened Lover                                69
    XIII  Sad Forebodings                                 75
     XIV  Dainty Would Never Forget That Day              81
      XV  Black Mammy's Story                             87
     XVI  The Ghost Alarm                                 91
    XVII  The Night Before the Wedding                    97
   XVIII  The Wedding Morn                               101
     XIX  A Madman's Deed                                105
      XX  The End of the Day                             110
     XXI  Would Heaven Turn Away From Her Wild Appeal    116
    XXII  Unmasked                                       120
   XXIII  Ah! The Pity of It!                            126
    XXIV  The Darkest Hour                               130
     XXV  Among Strangers                                137
    XXVI  The Mother's Woe                               142
   XXVII  It Seemed Like Some Beautiful Dream            146
  XXVIII  More Bitter Than Death                         150
    XXIX  As We Kiss the Dead                            156
     XXX  A Terrible Deed                                163
    XXXI  Lost! Lost! Lost!                              168
   XXXII  It Was the Overflowing Drop                    172
  XXXIII  A New Home                                     178
   XXXIV  Thrown on the World                            181
    XXXV  Grand Company                                  186
   XXXVI  "Only to See You, My Darling"                  190
  XXXVII  A Wonderful Discovery                          193
 XXXVIII  Good News                                      201
   XXXIX  "For All Eternity"                             205
      XL  Conclusion                                     210




DAINTY'S CRUEL RIVALS




CHAPTER I.

"A SWEET GIRL GRADUATE."


                        "Her eyes
    Would match the southern skies
      When southern skies are bluest;
                        Her heart
    Will always, take its part
      Where southern hearts are truest.

                        "Such youth,
    With all its charms, forsooth.
      Alas! too well I know it!--
                        Will claim
    A song of love and fame
      Sung by some southern poet."


"It's a perfect godsend, this invitation!" cried Olive Peyton, with
unwonted rapture in her cold voice.

"Yes, indeed!" assented her chum and cousin, Ela Craye, joyfully. "I
have wondered over and over how we were going to buy our summer clothes
and spare enough money for a trip, and here comes Aunt Judith's
invitation to her country home just in the nick of time."

"And how lucky, to think of her step-son, Lovelace Ellsworth, getting
home at last from Europe! Either you or I must capture him, Ela!" added
Olive, eagerly, her black eyes sparkling with the hope of getting a rich
husband.

But Ela Craye snapped shortly:

"We might--if only she had not invited Dainty Chase."

Olive frowned, but answered, courageously:

"Pshaw! aunt might just as well have saved her manners. Dainty can not
possibly go. She hasn't a decent thing to wear at such a grand place as
Ellsworth."

"She would look pretty in a rag, and we both know it. Dainty by name,
and dainty by nature," Ela returned, gloomily, yielding reluctant homage
to a fair young cousin of whose charms both were profoundly jealous.

Olive and Ela, who were school-teachers in the southern city, Richmond,
Virginia, boarded with a widowed aunt who took this means of supporting
herself and her only child Dainty, who had but just graduated at a
public school, and hoped to become a teacher herself next year. They
were poor, but Dainty, with her fair face and gay good-nature, was like
an embodied ray of sunshine.

It had been very kind in the rich Mrs. Ellsworth to invite her three
nieces to her grand West Virginia home, and to offer to pay the expenses
of their journey. But for her generosity Dainty could not have gone; but
now, at her mother's wish, she wrote, gratefully accepting the
invitation.

"How thankful I am!" cried the mother, joyfully. "It's just what Dainty
needs, this trip to the mountains! She looks so pale and wan since she
graduated."

"So you really mean to let her go?" Ela exclaimed, with pretended
surprise, while Olive added, spitefully:

"We thought Aunt Judith might be ashamed of her shabby clothes. She
hasn't anything to wear, has she, but her last summer's gowns and the
cheap white muslin she had for her graduation?"

"Mrs. Ellsworth knows we are poor, and that Dainty