Kitabı oku: «An Old Man's Darling», sayfa 6

CHAPTER XIV

"Mother, Bonnibel has refused Colonel Carlyle."

Mrs. Arnold looked up from the sofa where she lay reading a novel by the gas-light with a start of surprise. Felise had come into the room as quietly as a spirit in her white dressing-gown.

"Mercy, Felise, how you startled me!" she exclaimed. "I had just got to such an exciting part where the heroine was just about to be murdered by her jealous rival when in you came with your long hair and trailing white wrapper, like Lady Macbeth walking in her sleep. I almost expected to hear you exclaim:

"'Here's the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand!'"

"You are quite dramatic to-night, mother—your novel must be an exciting one," said Felise, with a slight sneer. She came forward and sat down in a large easy-chair opposite her mother. She looked pale, and her eyes burned with repressed excitement.

"It is," said Mrs. Arnold, "the most thrilling book I have read lately. But what were you saying when you came in and frightened me so?"

"I said that Bonnibel had refused Colonel Carlyle," repeated Felise, distinctly.

Mrs. Arnold sat up with her fingers between the pages of her book, whose interesting perusal she felt loth to stop. She said, half stupidly:

"Oh, she has, has she? Well, it had to come to that, sooner or later, you know, my love."

"Indeed?" answered Felise, shortly.

"Well, you know we have been expecting it some time, Felise, ever since Colonel Carlyle lost his heart about her. I must say his conduct to you has not been that of a gentleman, my dear."

"I quite agree with you," said Felise dryly.

She was very quiet, but her small hands were tightly clenched. She seemed "to hold passion in a leash" by a strong effort of will.

"But how did you find it out?" inquired her mother, thinking that Felise was taking it quite calmly, after all.

"As I find out most things—by keeping my eyes and ears open!" retorted her daughter, tartly.

"When did it happen?"

"This afternoon, while you were out calling on the Trevertons."

"Was the old fool much cut up about it?" inquired Mrs. Arnold, inelegantly.

"He would not take no for an answer," said Felise. "He wanted her to take time to think of all the advantages he offered her, and he is coming in a week to hear her decision."

"The silly old dotard!" ejaculated her mother. "Well, all he can get by his persistence is a second refusal."

Felise Herbert straightened herself in her chair, and looked at her mother with a strange smile on her face.

"I do not intend that he shall get a second refusal!" she said, in a low voice that was very firm and incisive.

Mrs. Arnold stared at her daughter in blank surprise and incredulity.

"Why, Felise, what can you mean?" she inquired.

"I mean that Bonnibel Vere shall marry Colonel Carlyle!" her daughter answered, in the same low, determined voice.

"Why, my dear, you know it cannot be when she already has a husband! Besides, I did not know that you wanted them to marry. I thought—I thought—" said Mrs. Arnold, stopping short because surprise had overpowered her.

She looked at the white figure sitting so quietly there in the arm-chair, with some apprehension. Had Felise's disappointment impaired her reason?

"You need not look at me so strangely, mother," said Felise. "I assure you I am not mad, as your eyes imply. I am as sane as you are; but I have said that Bonnibel Vere shall marry my recreant lover, and I mean to keep my word. She has stolen him from me, and now she shall marry him and get out of my way! Or perhaps you would prefer to keep her here to spoil the next eligible chance I get," said Felise, looking at her mother with burning eyes.

"I don't see how you can bring her to consent to such a thing, even if you are in earnest, my dear."

"You have got to help me, mother. You shall tell her that you will not allow her to refuse Colonel Carlyle—that she shall become his wife, and that if she does not revoke her rejection, you will turn her instantly into the street!"

"Felise, will you tell me why you are so determined upon their marriage? I supposed you were unwilling to it—it would be only natural for you to oppose it—but you seem as anxious for it as Colonel Carlyle himself. Again, I ask you why?

"Mother, I told you I would take revenge upon my rival. This is a part of my revenge. Their marriage will be the first act in the drama. Do not ask me how I am going to proceed. Let me work out my revenge in my own way. I owe them both a score. Never fear but I will pay it off with interest!"

"But, Felise, you must know that Bonnibel would sooner declare her secret marriage than be forced into another one. I can turn her into the street if you are determined upon it; but I know I cannot make a girl as truthful and pure as Bonnibel Vere knowingly become the wife of two husbands."

"I fully admit your inability to do that, mother. I do not intend to insist on your performance of impossibilities. As for Leslie Dane, look here!"'

She straightened out a folded paper she had carried in her bosom, and leaning forward pointed out a small paragraph to her mother.

Mrs. Arnold read the brief paragraph with starting eyes, then turned and looked at her daughter. She no longer kept her finger between the pages of her novel. It had slipped down upon the floor. She was getting absorbed in this tragedy in real life.

"Is it possible?" she exclaimed. "Felise, can it be true?"

"Why not?" was the cool interrogatory. "Such things happen often—don't they?

 
"'Every minute dies a man,
Every minute one is born.'"
 

"Let me see the date," Mrs. Arnold said, bending forward. "Ah! it is very recent. Well, I am surprised. But yet it is a very fortunate occurrence, is it not? Of course it is genuine."

"Why, of course it is," said Felise, with a short, dry laugh. "How else could it be in the paper? They don't put such things in for sport, I suppose."

"Of course not; but it came upon me so suddenly I felt quite incredulous at first. Well, this puts a new face upon the matter, does it not, my dear?"

"Certainly, mother. I will show her this paper, and she cannot have any pretext for repeating her refusal in the face of the alternative with which you shall threaten her. I suppose any girl in her senses would marry Colonel Carlyle and his millions rather than be turned out homeless into the street."

She sat still a moment staring before her into futurity with lurid eyes that saw her revenge already, and curling lips that began to taste its sweetness in anticipation.

"When must I tell her, Felise?" inquired Mrs. Arnold.

"To-morrow, mother. There is no use in delaying matters. Let us bring the marriage about as speedily as possible. You will tell her to-morrow what she has to do, and I will be on hand with the paper."

She rose slowly.

"Well, I will go, and leave you to finish your novel," she said; "but if you take my advice you will retire instead. It is growing late. Good-night."

"Good-night, my love, and pleasant dreams," her mother answered.

She went out as quietly as she had entered, her dark hair flying wildly over her shoulders and her white robes trailing noiselessly after her. She was twisting her hands together, and again Mrs. Arnold thought of Lady Macbeth washing her hands and crying in her sleep, "Out, damned spot!"

Ah, Felise Herbert! There was a stain on your soul as red as that on Lady Macbeth's hand!

CHAPTER XV

The morning after the rejection of Colonel Carlyle, Bonnibel Vere sat alone in a pleasant little morning-room that was thrown out from the main residence as a wing. It was daintily furnished in blue plush and walnut, and had double glass doors that looked out upon a lovely little garden that in this pleasant May season was glowing with bloom and fragrance.

Bonnibel had been trying to read, but in the perturbed state of her mind she could not fix her attention upon the book. It had fallen from her lap upon the floor, and as she sat in the luxurious arm-chair she leaned forward with her little chin buried in one pink palm and her blue eyes gazing into vacancy, as if lost in thought.

She looked very fair and sweet sitting there in a cool, white morning-dress, trimmed in lace and dotted about with several bows of black ribbon. Her beautiful hair, which was growing long and thick again, fell upon her shoulders in loose curls, like glints of sunshine.

She had broken a spray of white hyacinth and pinned it on her bosom, and she looked as pure and sweet as the flower itself.

"I am very sorry," she was thinking to herself, "that I was so unfortunate as to win Colonel Carlyle's affection. I certainly never dreamed of such a thing, and a year ago I should have laughed in the face of any old man who dared propose to me, and have told him I did not wish to marry my grandfather. Heigh-ho! I have grown graver now, and do not turn everything into a jest as I did then. Still, I wish it had not happened. I liked him simply as my father's friend, and I thought he liked me just as papa's daughter."

She sighed heavily.

"I think I understand some things now that have puzzled me all the winter," she mused. "He was Felise's lover when I first came, and I have unconsciously rivaled her. She hates me for it, and Aunt Arnold hates me, too. Ah! if they knew all that I knew they need not be afraid. Felise is welcome to him, and I will try to induce him to return to her. I never thought that Colonel Carlyle could have acted so basely toward her, as it seems he has–"

Mrs. Arnold's sudden entrance into the room interrupted her meditations. She looked so angry and overbearing that Bonnibel rose and was about leaving the room when she was recalled abruptly.

"Stay, Bonnibel; I wish to speak with you. Resume your seat, if you please."

Flushing with resentment at the insolent authority of the tone, Bonnibel turned and faced the lady with a gleam of pride shining in her blue eyes.

"Pardon me," she answered, coldly. "I will hear what you have to say standing."

"As you please," said Mrs. Arnold, with a sneer. "Perhaps your strength may not stand the ordeal, however."

Bonnibel stared at her in silent surprise.

"You have refused an offer of marriage from Colonel Carlyle," said Mrs. Arnold in a tone of deep displeasure.

Bonnibel's fair cheeks deepened their color ever so slightly.

"Yes, madam, I have," she answered after a moment's thought. "But I am ignorant of the means by which you became cognizant of the fact."

"It does not matter," Mrs. Arnold replied, flushing to a dark red under the clear pure eyes bent upon her. "Perhaps he told me himself. One would think that even so elderly a lover would consult a young lady's guardian and protector before addressing her! But no matter how I came by my information, you admit its truth."

"Certainly, madam," Bonnibel answered quietly, but wondering within herself what all this fencing meant. She was growing slightly nervous. The fair hands trembled slightly as they hung lightly clasped before her, and the white and red rose triumphed alternately in her cheek.

Mrs. Arnold stood resting her folded arms on the back of a chair, regarding the lovely young creature as if she had been a culprit before the bar of justice.

"May I ask what were your reasons for declining the honor Colonel Carlyle offered you?" she inquired in measured tones.

Bonnibel was half-tempted to deny Mrs. Arnold's right to ask such a question. With an effort she fought down the quick impulse, and answered in a voice as gentle as the other's was rude and self-assertive:

"I did not love him, Aunt Arnold!"

"Love! Love!" sneered the widow contemptuously. "What had love to do with the matter? You, a poor, penniless, dependent creature, to prate of love when such a man as Colonel Carlyle lays his millions at your feet! You should have jumped at the chance and thanked him for his condescension!"

The listener regarded her with horror and amazement. Her delicate lips quivered with feeling, and her eyes were misty with unshed tears.

"Surely, Aunt Arnold," she said, questioningly, "you would not have had me accept Colonel Carlyle simply for his gold?"

"Yes, I would, though," answered Mrs. Arnold roughly, "and what is more, I intend that you shall accept him, Bonnibel Vere! Girl, you must have been mad to dream of refusing such a splendid offer. When Colonel Carlyle returns for his final answer you will tell him that your first refusal was only a girlish freak of coquetry, to try his love, and that you accept his offer gratefully."

Bonnibel's cheeks turned as white as her dress, a mist rose before her eyes, shutting out the sight of her aunt's angry face.

She staggered and put out her hand to steady herself by a chair. Mrs. Arnold regarded her with an air of cold insolence.

"I thought you would find it rather beyond your strength to stand before our conversation was over," she remarked, with slight sarcasm.

Bonnibel did not seem to hear the last shaft of malice. She answered the preceding words in a voice that she strove to render steady and controlled.

"I cannot recognize your right to dictate to me in a matter that concerns myself alone, madam."

Mrs. Arnold listened to the proud, calm tones in furious wrath.

"You defy my authority? You refuse to obey me?" she broke out angrily.

"Your violence leaves me no other alternative, Aunt Arnold," said the young girl, trying hard to speak calmly. "I do not wish to marry yet, and the man whom you wish me to accept as a husband, could never be the choice of my heart. I cannot understand why you should wish to force me into a marriage so unsuitable."

The graceful, womanly dignity of the young girl's words and manner made no impression on the coarse woman's nature. She only saw before her the girl she had hated ever since her innocent babyhood, the girl whose peerless beauty had come between Felise and her brilliant prospects. She broke out in a passionate resentment:

"Because I want to be rid of you, girl! You have been a tumbling-block in my path your whole life, and I hate the very sight of your baby-face! But I took pity on you and cared for you when poverty came upon you. In return for my kindness you stole my daughter's lover! Now you shall marry him and get out of her way. It is the only reparation you can make her. Do you think I will allow you to refuse Colonel Carlyle, and remain here to cheat her out of the next eligible chance that offers? Never!"

It was hard work for the listener to be so fiercely assailed by this woman and not break out into the angry remonstrances that were swelling in her heart. But Bonnibel had learned the difficult art of self-control lately. She reflected to herself that it was but natural that Mrs. Arnold should feel sore over the disappointment and humiliation of her clever, handsome daughter.

"I am very sorry to hear that you hate me so much," she said, a little sadly. "I have had no one to love me since Uncle Francis died, and I hoped I might win a little place in his wife's heart. But you wrong me, indeed, in charging me with stealing Felise's lover. I never dreamed of winning him away from her; I was deceived by his interest in me, thinking it was simply because he had been a friend and comrade of my dear papa. I might have known better, you say. Perhaps I might, but I was blinded by private troubles of my own, and scarcely heeded what went on around me. I am very sorry I have been the innocent cause of pain to Felise."

"Spare her the additional mortification of your sympathy," was the ironical answer. "I think she can bear the old dotard's desertion. She does not desire your regrets, and I believe I have named the only reparation possible for you."

"And that?" said the girl, slowly.

"Is to marry Colonel Carlyle and get out of her way," was the harsh reply.

"I cannot do that," said Bonnibel, hurriedly. "It is impossible for me to marry Colonel Carlyle—there are many reasons why I should not. As to the other, I will–"

She was about to add, "I will go away from here," but a sickening thought flashed across her. Where could she go?

She had no relative to fly to in her trouble. She did not know how to work and take care of herself. She had never learned anything useful, and her education had been mostly limited to those showy, superficial accomplishments in vogue in the fashionable world. She had five hundred fashionable friends, but not one to whom she could turn for comfort in this her dark hour.

"You say you cannot marry Colonel Carlyle," said Mrs. Arnold, breaking in on her troubled silence. "Listen to the only alternative that is left you. I give you until he returns for his answer to decide in. If you do not then accept him you shall no longer have the shelter of my roof. Yes, in the very hour that you refuse Carlyle's millions, I will turn you out homeless into the streets!"

Into the streets! How the words grated on the girl's horrified hearing. She had seen them take up a dead girl from the street once, a girl as young and fair almost as herself.

They said she had poisoned herself because she had no home. They took her away to the Morgue, but Bonnibel had never forgotten that fair, still face as it lay cold in death.

She recalled it now with a shiver. Some one had turned the poor girl into the streets to die. Would that be her fate?

A deadly weakness stole over her. She dropped into a chair like one shot, and Mrs. Arnold as she stood near her could hear the loud, wild beating of her heart. Her little white hands trembled, and her cheeks and lips turned white as marble.

"Aunt Arnold," she said, looking up at the cruel, relentless woman, "you would not do that, surely? I should have nowhere to go, and I am so terribly afraid of the night and the darkness in the dreadful streets of the city!"

"No matter," sneered the listener. "You can go to one of the finest houses in the city if you like, and have every luxury that wealth can command—but if you refuse that, out you go from under the shelter of this roof!"

There was the sound of some one singing in the flower-garden outside.

It was Felise. She came in with one handful of roses, while the other held a newspaper which she was studying with a thoughtful brow.

"Bonnibel," she said, abruptly, "do you recollect that young artist, Leslie Dane, who used to visit at Sea View last summer?"

A wave of color drifted into the girl's white cheek. She looked up quickly into the thoughtful face of Felise.

"Yes," she answered, "what of him, Felise?"

"Did he not go to Rome to study painting?" inquired the artful girl.

"That was his intention, I believe," said Bonnibel, wondering what was coming now.

"I thought so. There can be no mistake, then—poor fellow! Look here, Bonnibel."

She put the paper she carried into the young girl's hand, and touched her taper finger to a marked paragraph.

Bonnibel's eyes followed the jeweled finger and read the few lines with staring gaze, mutely conscious of the overpowering scent of the roses that Felise carried in her hand.

Ever afterward Bonnibel associated roses with the thought of death.

"Died on the 10th of April, at Rome, Italy, of malarial fever, Leslie Dane, in the 24th year of his age. Mr. Dane was an artist and a native of the United States of America. Requiescat in pace."

CHAPTER XVI

Felise was prepared to see her rival fall fainting at her feet.

She expected nothing less from the shock to the girl's already overwrought feelings, and in anticipation she already gloated over the sight of her sufferings.

But she was mistaken. Bonnibel neither screamed nor fainted. She sat like one dazed for a moment, her blue eyes riveted to the paper, and her face growing white as death, while the two women who hated her watched her with looks of triumph.

The next instant, with a bound like that of a wounded fawn seeking some leafy covert in which to die, she sprang from her seat and rushed from the room, clenching the fatal paper in her hand.

They could hear her light feet flying along the hall and up the stairs to her own especial apartments.

The two wicked women looked at each other blankly.

"I did not expect her to take it that way," said Mrs. Arnold.

"Nor I," returned Felise. "I looked for a fainting spell, or some kind of a tragic scene at least."

"Perhaps she does not care much after all," suggested Mrs. Arnold. "She is young, and the young are proverbially fickle. She may have ceased to love him."

"No, she has not. I am confident of that, mother. Her face looked dreadful when she went out. She is too proud to let us see how she is wounded—that is all. She turned as white as a dead woman while she was reading, and there was a hunted, desperate look in her eyes. Depend upon it she is terribly stricken."

"Do you think she will consent to marry Colonel Carlyle now, Felise?"

"I rather think she will after the awful alternative you placed before her."

"Did you hear our conversation, my dear?"

"Every word of it, mother. I must say you sustained your part splendidly. I feared you would not display sufficient firmness, but you came off with flying colors."

Mrs. Arnold smiled. She was well-pleased at her daughter's praise, for though her life was devoted to the service of Felise, this scheming girl seldom gave her a word or smile of commendation. She answered quickly:

"I am glad you were pleased, my love. I tried to be as positive as you wished me to be. I fancied I heard you under the window once."

"I was there," said Felise, with a laugh.

"She was very much shocked when I threatened to turn her out of doors," said Mrs. Arnold. "She looked at me quite wildly."

"She will be more shocked when she finds you meant every word, for, mother, if she does not accept Colonel Carlyle, you shall certainly drive her away!" exclaimed Felise, and a wild and lurid gleam of hatred fired her eyes as she spoke, that boded evil to the fair and innocent girl upon whom she had sworn to take a terrible revenge.

Bonnibel flew up the stairs to her own room, still clenching the fatal paper tightly in her hand, and locking her door, threw herself downward upon the carpet and lay there like one dead.

She had not fainted. Every nerve was keenly alive and quivering with pain. Her heart was beating in great, suffocating throbs, her throat felt stiff and choked as if compressed by an iron hand, and her head ached terribly as if someone had hurled a heavy stone upon it.

Her whole being seemed to be but one great pulse of intense agony, yet she lay still and moveless, save that now and then a convulsive clutch of the small hand pressed to her throat showed that life still inhabited that beautiful frame.

Life! The thought came to her suddenly and painfully. She raised herself slowly and heavily, as if the weight of her sorrow crushed her down to earth, and the full realization of the terrible change broke over her. Leslie Dane was dead. That graceful form, that handsome face was hidden beneath the damp earth mould. The dark eyes of her artist husband would never shine down upon her again with the love-light beaming in them, those lips whose smiles she had loved so well would never press hers again as they had done that night when he had blessed her and called her his wife. But she—she was a living, agonized creature, the plaything of fate—oh, God! she thought, clasping her hands together wildly, oh, God! that she were dead and lying in the grave with the loved one she would never see again. She felt in all its passionate intensity the force of another's heart-wrung utterance.

 
"Dead, dead!" she moaned.
"Oh, God! since he could die,
The world's a grave, and hope lies buried there."
 

Ah! Bonnibel, sweet Bonnibel! It is a dark world indeed on which your tearful gaze looks forth! It has been the grave of hope to many, yet destiny pushes us forward blindly, and we cannot stay her juggernaut wheels as they roll over our hearts.

"I am eighteen years old, and I am a widow," she moans at last, and staggers blindly to her feet, pushing back the fair locks from her brow with shaking hands. "I am a widow!"

Oh! the pathos of the words! As she speaks them she draws the blinds, drops the curtains, and the room is shrouded in darkness. She has shut out the world from the sight of suffering. You and I, my reader, will turn aside, too, from the contemplation of that cruelly tried young heart as it fights the battle in the gloom and silence.

 
"Who breathes must suffer; and who thinks must mourn;
And he alone is blessed who ne'er was born."
 

Six days later Colonel Carlyle was ushered into Mrs. Arnold's drawing-room and sent up his card to Miss Vere.

After a slight delay she came gliding in, pale and pure as a snow-drop, and demure as a little nun. Colonel Carlyle both felt and saw that some subtle and indefinable change had come over her as he bowed over the cold, white hand she placed in his.

It was a very warm day, even for May; but she was clothed from head to foot in heavy mourning draped with crape. Her golden hair was brushed straight back from her temples and gathered into a simple coil fastened with a comb of jet. From that somber setting her fair face and bright hair shone like a star.

"You are pale, Bonnibel; I trust you have not been ill," exclaimed the ancient suitor anxiously.

"I am as well as usual," she answered, with a slight, cold smile.

They sat down, and the ardent lover at once plunged into the subject nearest his heart.

"Bonnibel, I have come for my answer, you know," he said. "I hope and trust it may be a favorable one."

The girl's sweeping lashes lifted a moment from her pale cheeks, and her blue eyes regarded him sadly; but she did not speak. He bent down and lifted her white, listless hand in his and held it fondly.

"My dear, shall it be yes?" he inquired. "Will you give me this precious little treasure?"

Bonnibel looked down at the hand that lay in the colonel's—it was the one which wore the opal ring—that beautiful, changeful gem. Its colors were dim and pale to-day. She shivered slightly, as if with cold.

"Colonel Carlyle, I told you when we spoke of this before that I did not love you," she said, faintly.

The colonel did not appear to be disheartened by this plaintive plea.

"At least you do not hate me, Bonnibel," he said, half questioningly.

"Oh, no," she answered quickly; "I like you very much, Colonel Carlyle. You have been so very kind to me, you know—but it is only the liking one has for a friend—it is in no way akin to love."

"I will try to be contented with just your friendly liking, my dear one, if you will give yourself to me," he answered, eagerly.

"I believe I could give you a daughter's affection, but never that of a wife," she murmured.

He did not in the least understand the swift, appealing look of the eyes that were raised a moment to his own. A swift thought had rushed over her and she had given it words:

"Oh, that he would adopt me for his daughter and save me from either of those two alternatives that lie before me," she thought, wildly. "He might do so for papa's sake, and I would make him a very devoted daughter!"

But the sighing lover did not want a daughter—he was after a wife.

"I will take you even on those terms," he replied. "Let me give you the shelter of my name, and we will see if I cannot soon win a warmer place in your heart."

She shook her head and a heavy sigh drifted across her lips.

"Do not deceive yourself, Colonel Carlyle," she said. "My heart is dead. I shall never love any one."

"I will risk all that," he answered. "Only say yes, most peerless of women, and so that I call you mine I will risk all else!"

"Do you mean it?" she asked, earnestly. "The hand without the heart—would that content you?"

"Yes," he answered, bent on attaining his end, and foolishly believing that he could teach her to love him. "Yes; am I to have it, Bonnibel?"

"It shall be as you wish," she answered, quietly, and leaning slightly forward she laid in his the hand she had withdrawn a while ago.

Colonel Carlyle was beside himself with rapture.

"A thousand thanks, my beautiful darling," he exclaimed, pressing passionate kisses on the small hand. "Nay, do not take it away so soon, my love. Let me first place on it the pledge of our betrothal."

Still and white as marble sat Bonnibel while the enraptured colonel slipped over her taper forefinger a magnificent diamond ring, costly enough for a queen to wear. Its brilliant stone flashed fire, and the opal on her third finger seemed to grow dull and cold.

So Bonnibel had made her choice.

Her nature was tender, refined, luxurious. She was afraid of poverty and cold, and darkness; yet if Leslie Dane had lived she would have faced them all rather than have chosen Mrs. Arnold's alternative.

But Leslie Dane was dead. Life was over and done for her. There was nothing to do but to die or forget. Death would have come soon enough in the streets, perhaps, but she was so afraid of such a death. So she took "the goods the gods provided," and blindly threw herself forward into the whirling vortex of fate.

It was not to be expected that Colonel Carlyle would be willing to defer his happiness. He was well-stricken in years, and had no time to spare in idle waiting. He therefore pressed Bonnibel to name an early day for the wedding.

She had no choice in the matter, and allowed him to name the day himself.

Armed with her permission, he consulted Mrs. Arnold in regard to the earliest possible date for his happiness.

Mrs. Arnold, tutored by Felise, was all smiling graciousness, and fully appreciated his eagerness. She thought it quite possible that a suitable and elegant trousseau might be provided for a wedding on the twenty-fifth of June.