He was returned for the borough of Rutsford, and his fame as an able an eloquent orator spread over the country.

Then he studied to become a model landlord; he built large, airy cottages and schools; he paid the attention that every landlord ought to pay that the land be well drained, well cultivated.  He was a friend to all his tenants, a benefactor to his dependants.  In the course of time people forgot to whisper there had been some story about Mr. Carruthers; they only mentioned him in terms of praise.  The very quality that his mother once thought would be against him now proved to be in his favor.  If he was more romantic, more enthusiastic than other young men, he employed the superabundance of his gifts to excellent purpose.

After some years there was a grand wedding at Ulverston.  Basil Carruthers won Marion Hautville for his wife.  Before they were married he took her one afternoon for a long ramble in the green summer woods and told her this story.  Marion was shocked at first; it seemed to her impossible that a man could be so foolish as to mistake a deed like that for chivalry.

“And what has become of your lovely Lady Amelie now?” she asked.

“She is still the queen of coquettes,” replied Basil; “but, Marion, although it was a terrible mistake, and I suffered so bitterly for it, I cannot be altogether sorry that it happened.  I should have been a useless dreamer until the day of my death if this had not taken place.  It was a rude, rough, but sure awakening.”

“I shall never call you my knight,” said Marion.  “Why, Basil, dear, a schoolboy would not have been taken in by such nonsense.”

“But, Marion, I was not so wise as a schoolboy,” he replied.

“She only used you for her own purposes.  She simply made a cat’s-paw of you, Basil.”

“I can see it now, darling, I did not then.  But you will forgive me, Marion?”

“Yes; because, after all, though you were so greatly mistaken, still the faults that led to your mistake were almost virtues.”

Lady Carruthers was rendered very happy by her son’s marriage.  When Mrs. Carruthers went to London, she proved to be Lady Amelie’s greatest rival.  She was quite as beautiful, as witty, as clever, but in place of coquetry, she was gifted with honest simplicity, that men pronounced charming, while Lady Amelie, to her great chagrin, began to find her attractions on the wane.  Men grew tired of her vanity and her cruelty.  Women disliked her for her selfish disregard of everything but her own triumph.

Basil Carruthers bows his head in shame and contrition when he remembers this episode in his career.  Then Marion, his wife, kisses him with a smile, and tells him he is not much the worse for having been once upon a time a coquette’s victim.

The end.

[Illustration]

GOLD MONOGRAM DINNER SET FREE