Miss Chase lost the game, because she had made up her mind to be defeated; but the next she won. Still, during the whole evening her attention was not sufficiently fixed upon either board or moves to prevent her hearing and seeing every thing that passed around her.
The engagement between Laurence and Margaret Waring had been a family affair, brought about principally by the romance of a maiden aunt, with whom the young man was a favorite.
Edward had been under this relative's charge after the death of his parents, which occurred during his childhood, and she had petted and spoiled the boy as only a spinster could have done.
Mr. Waring, the uncle of Margaret, was one of Miss Laurence's nearest neighbors, and the girl had been almost as great a favorite with the spinster as her own nephew. Indeed, it was said that Mabel Laurence had loved Margaret's father in her youthful days; but how that might be nobody really knew, for the old maid wisely kept her own secrets, as women, after all, are apt to do when there is nothing to gratify the vanity in them.
But it happened that the boy and girl were reared almost like brother and sister, and the two houses were almost equally homes to both. Mr. Waring was a confirmed invalid, whose life seemed to hang upon a thread, and Miss Laurence had always been in yearly expectation that the girl would soon come entirely under her charge.
People are generally mistaken in such calculations, and Miss Laurence was no exception; for when Margaret Waring was sixteen, the spinster died in her arms after a short but violent illness.
Edward, then a youth of twenty, was traveling in Europe, and by one of the old lady's last commands was to remain there at least a year longer. When the will was opened, it was found to contain a singular clause--one common enough in novels, and as the spinster had been an insatiable devourer of light literature, it is quite probable that she derived from thence the idea which was expressed in her testament.
Her fortune, which was a very large one, was divided equally between her nephew and Margaret Waring, on condition that they became husband and wife; otherwise, no provision was made for Margaret, a small annuity was left Laurence, and the rest of the property was to be employed in founding a hospital for old maids.