BUELL HAMPTON - Willis George Emerson

IT was only a game of tennis that brought on this affair of love's entanglement.

Ethel Horton, with rich, maidenly flushes on her soft cheeks, played as she had never played before?played and won.

Athletic suppleness and vivacious buoyancy were emphasized in every movement of this intense American girl.

With heightened color, she contested the game, point by point.

It was thrilling sport, and her clever opponent was Lenox Avondale, an Englishman.

And while this exciting neck and neck game was in progress, her mother, Mrs. J. Bruce-Horton, was idly conversing with Mrs. Lyman Osborn on a wide veranda of the hotel that overlooked the blue waters of the lake.

?Really,? she observed, leaning back in her easy chair, ?Lake Geneva is not such a bad place, after all. One can get on here very well for a few days.?

?Oh, yes,? said Mrs. Lyman Osborn, as she seated herself languidly, and gazed across the blue waters, ?yet I fancy that in time it would become quite dull for us, it is so thoroughly American. Let me push the cushions under your shoulder a little farther, dear.?

?Thank you,? replied Mrs. Horton, ?that is more comfortable. What does Doctor Redfield say of my illness??

?That in a week's time we can continue our journey to the Southwest.?

?My dear husband,? murmured Mrs. Horton, reflectively, ?how glad he will be to see Ethel! It has been four years since the child was placed in that fashionable London school; she was then only fifteen. Her dear father will hardly know her.?

?The thanks of all are due to you, my dear Mrs. Horton, for the educational advantages that Ethel has enjoyed.?

?Yes, my husband is so determined in his ideas; but I manage to spend as little of my time on the frontier, you know, as possible, and I certainly shall see to it that Ethel does not deteriorate under the influence of our stupid American ways. She is certainly a girl of rare gifts, and I could never have forgiven myself had she been educated in the States.?

?Quite right,? assented Mrs. Osborn, ?your husband may stay with his herds of cattle, and my husband may stand at his bank counter, year in and year out, if it pleases them to do so, but you and I will take our annual trip to merry England,? and Mrs. Osborn laughed a ripple of indifference at the crude taste of their respective husbands.

Mrs. J. Bruce-Horton was a woman in her early forties. Her features were regular, and her complexion had a youthfulness not in keeping with her age. Her heavy brown hair was most becomingly arranged. Her neatly fitting suit of tweed,?a production of Redfern,?in keeping with the latest London style, admirably set off her rather stately figure. Her companion, Mrs. Lyman Osborn, was probably thirty-five, although in appearance she seemed much younger. A pink and white skin, fair hair, and blue eyes combined in giving her a bewitching appearance.

They were returning from a trip to England, whither they had gone to bring home with them Ethel Horton, who had recently finished her education in a London school. At Chicago Mrs. J. Bruce-Horton had been taken suddenly ill; and Doctor Redfield had been recommended and summoned. On his advice they had come to Lake Geneva until Mrs. Horton sufficiently recovered to continue their journey to southwestern Kansas.