Mischievous Maid Faynie | Page 3

& Co. to settle her
monthly account. The old cashier was out to lunch. His assistant, Lester
Armstrong, stepped forward and attended to the matter for the pretty
young girl, surely the sweetest and daintiest that he had ever beheld.
That night he dreamed of the lovely, dimpled rosebud face, framed in a
mass of golden curls; a pair of bewildering violet eyes, and a gay,
musical voice like a chiming of silver bells, and lo! the mischief was
done. The next day the assistant cashier made the first mistake of his
life over his accounts. The old cashier, Mr. Conway, looked at him

grimly from over the tops of his gold-rimmed glasses.
"I hope you have not taken to playing cards nights, Mr. Armstrong," he
said. "They are dangerous; avoid them. Wine is still worse, and above
all, let me warn you against womankind. They are a snare and a
delusion. Avoid them, one and all, as you would a pestilence."
But the warning had come to the handsome young assistant cashier too
late.
CHAPTER II.
"YOU MUST NOT MARRY HIM--HEAVEN INTENDED YOU FOR
ME."
Slowly but surely the sturdy engine struggled on through the huge
snowdrifts, reaching Beechwood a little after seven, over an hour and a
half behind time.
Lester Armstrong swung himself off the rear platform into fully five
feet of snow, floundering helplessly about for an instant, while the train
plunged onward, and at last struck the path that led up over the hills in
the village beyond.
Beechwood consisted of but a few elegant homes owned and occupied
by retired New Yorkers of wealth. Horace Fairfax was perhaps the
most influential, as well as the wealthiest of these; his magnificent
home on the brow of the farthest hill was certainly the most imposing
and pretentious.
Lester Armstrong's heart gave a great bound as he came within sight of
it, standing like a great castle, with its peaks and gables, and windows
all blazing with light and the red glow of inward warmth against its
dark background of fir trees more than a century old, and the white
wilderness of snow stretching out and losing itself in the darkness
beyond.
All heedless of the terrible storm raging about him, the young man

paused at the arched gate and looked with sad wistfulness, as he leaned
his arms on one of the stone pillars, up the serpentine path that led to
the main entrance.
"What I ought to do is never to see Faynie again," he murmured, but as
the bare thought rushed through his mind, his handsome face paled to
the lips and his strong frame trembled. Never see Faynie again! That
would mean shut out the only gleam of sunshine that had ever lighted
up the gray somberness of his existence; take away from him the only
dear joy that had made life worth the living for the few months. He had
drifted into these clandestine meetings, not by design; chance, or fate,
rather, had forced him into it.
Mr. Marsh, the senior member of the firm by whom he was employed,
also resided in Beechwood. It was his whim that the keys of the private
office should be brought to him each night. Thus it happened that the
performance of his duties led Lester each evening past the Fairfax
home.
One summer evening he espied Faynie, the object of his ardent
admiration, standing in the flower garden, herself the fairest flower of
all. It was beyond human nature to resist stopping still to gaze upon her.
This he did, believing himself unseen, but Faynie Fairfax had beheld
the tall, well-known form afar down the road, and she was not
displeased at the prospect of having a delightful little chat with the
handsome young cashier.
Faynie's home was not as congenial to the young girl as it might have
been, for a stepmother reigned supreme there, and all of her love was
lavished upon her own daughter Claire, a crippled, quiet girl of about
Faynie's own age, and Faynie was left to do about as she pleased. Her
father almost lived in his library among his books, and she saw little of
him for days at a time.
Therefore there was no one to notice why Faynie suddenly developed
such a liking for roaming in the garden at twilight; no one to notice the
growing attachment that sprang up and deepened into the strongest of
love between the petted heiress and the poor young cashier.

Lester Armstrong had struggled manfully against it, but it was for a
higher power than man's to direct where the love of his heart should go.
He made strong resolutions that the lovely maiden should never guess
the existing state of affairs, but he might as well have attempted to stay
the