Poor Mr. Ponsonby

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Title:     Poor Mr. Ponsonby
Author: Agnes Blake Poor [More Titles by Poor]

On a bright, windy morning in March, Miss Emmeline Freeman threw open the gate of her mother's little front garden on Walnut Street, Brookline, slammed it behind her with one turn of her wrist, marched with an emphatic tapping of boot-heels up the path between the crocus-beds to the front door, threw that open, and rushed into the drawing-room, where she paused for breath, and began before she found it:

"O mamma! O Aunt Sophia! O Bessie! What do you think? Lily Carey--you would never guess--Lily Carey--I was never so surprised in my life--Lily Carey is engaged!"

Mrs. Freeman laid down her pen by the side of her column of figures, losing her account for the seventh time; Miss Sophia Morgan paused in the silk stocking she was knitting, just as she was beginning to narrow; and Bessie Freeman dropped her brush full of colour on to the panel she was finishing, while all three exclaimed with one voice, "To whom?"

"That is the queer part of it. You will never guess. Indeed, how should you?"

"To whom?" repeated the chorus, with a unanimity and precision that would have been creditable to the stage, and with the due accent of impatience on the important word.

"To no one you ever would have dreamed of; indeed, you never heard of him--a Mr. Reginald Ponsonby. It is a most romantic thing. He is an Englishman, very good family and handsome and all that, but not much money. That is why it has been kept quiet so long."

"So long? How long?" chimed in the trio, still in unison.

"Why, for three years and more. Lily met him in New York that time she was there in the summer, you know, when her father was ill at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. But Mr. Carey would never let it be called an engagement till now."

"Did Lily tell you all this?" asked Bessie.

"No, Ada Thorne was telling everyone about it at the lunch party. She heard it from Lily."

"I think Lily might have told us herself."

"She said she did not mean to write to anyone, it has been going on so long, and her prospects were so uncertain; she did not care to have any formal announcement, but just to have her friends hear of it gradually. But she sent you and me very kind messages, Bessie, and she wants you to take the O'Flanigans--that's her district family, you know--and me to take her Sunday-school class. She says she really must have her Sundays now to write to Mr. Ponsonby, poor fellow! She has been obliged to scribble to him at any odd moment she could, and he is so far off."

"Where is he--in England?"

"Oh, dear, no! In Australia. He owns an immense sheep-farm in West Australia. He belongs to a very good family; but he was born on the continent, and has no near relations in England, and has rather knocked about the world for a good many years. He had not very good luck in Australia at first, but now things look better there, and he may be able to come over here this summer, and if he does they will perhaps be married before he goes back. Mr. Carey won't hear it spoken of now, but Ada says she has no doubt he will give in when it comes to the point. He never refuses Lily anything, and if the young man really comes he won't have the heart to send him back alone, for Ada says he must be fascinating."

"Lily seems to have laid her plans very judiciously," said Miss Morgan, "and if she wishes them generally understood, she does well to confide them to Ada Thorne."

"And she has been engaged for years!" burst out Bessie, whose mental operations had meanwhile been going ahead of the rest; "why then--then there could never have been anything between her and Jack Allston!"

"Certainly not," replied Emmeline, confidently.

"Very likely he knew it all the time," said Bessie.

"Or she may have refused him," said Mrs. Freeman.

"What is Miss Thorne's version?" said Aunt Sophia. "I shall stand by that whatever it is. Considering the extent of that young woman's information, I am perpetually surprised by its accuracy."

"Ada thinks Lily never let it come to a proposal, but probably let Jack see from the beginning that it would be useless, and that is why they were on such friendly terms."

"Well!" said Aunt Sophia, "I am always glad to think better of my fellow-creatures. I always thought Jack Allston a fool for marrying as he did if he could have had Lily, and now I only think him half a one, since he couldn't. I am only afraid the folly is on poor Lily's side. However, we must all fulfil our destiny, and I always said she was born to become the heroine of a domestic drama, at least."

"Oh, here's Bob!" said Emmeline, as her elder brother's entrance broke in upon the conversation. "Bob, who do you think is engaged?"

"You have lost your chance of telling, Emmie," replied the young man, with a careful carelessness of manner; "I have just had the pleasure of walking from the village with Ada Thorne."

"Really, it is too bad of Ada," said Emmeline, as she adjusted her hat at the glass. "She will not leave me one person to tell by to-morrow. Bessie, I think as long as we are going to five o'clock tea at the Pattersons', and I have all my things on, I will set out now and make some calls on the way. You might dress and come after me. I will be at Nina Turner's. Mamma and Aunt Sophy can"--but her voice was an indistinct buzz in her brother's ears, as he stood looking blankly out of the window at the bright crocus tufts. He had never had any intention of proposing to Lily Carey himself, and he knew that if he had she would never have accepted him, yet somehow a shadow had crept over the day that was so bright before.

Lily Carey was at that time a very conspicuous figure in Boston society; that is, in the little circle of young people who went to all the "best" balls and assemblies. She was also well known in some that were less select, for the Careys had too assured a position to be exclusive, and were too good-natured to be fashionable, so that she knew the whole world and the whole world knew her. To be exact, she was acquainted with about one five-hundredth part of the inhabitants of Boston and vicinity, was known by sight to about twice as many, and by name to as many more, with acquaintance also in such other cities and villages as had sufficiently advanced in civilisation to have a "set" which knew the Boston "set." She stood out prominently from the usual dead level of monotonous prettiness which is the rule in American ballrooms and gives piquant plainness so many advantages. Her nymph-like figure, dressed very likely in a last-year's gown of no particular fashion--for the Careys were of that Boston monde which systematically under-dresses--made the other girls look small and pinched and doll-like; her towering head, crowned with a great careless roll of her bright chestnut hair, made theirs look like barbers' dummies; and her brilliant colouring made one half of them show dull and dingy, the other faded and washed out. These advantages were not always appreciated as such--by no means; unusual beauty, like unusual genius, may fly over the heads of the uneducated; and it was the current opinion among the young ladies who only knew her by sight, and their admirers, that "Miss Carey had no style." Among her own acquaintance she reigned supreme. To have been in love with Lily Carey was regarded by every youth of quality as a necessary part of the curriculum of Harvard University; so much so that it was not at all detrimental to their future matrimonial prospects. Her old lovers, like her left-over partners, were always at the service of her whole coterie of adoring intimate friends. If she had no new ideas, these not being such common articles as is usually supposed, no one could more cleverly seize upon and deftly adapt some stray old one. She could write plays when none could be found to suit, and act half the parts, and coach the other actors; she made her mother give new kinds of parties, where all the new-old dances and games were brought to life again; and she set the little fleeting fashions of the day that never get into the fashion-books, to which, indeed, her dress might happen or not to correspond; but the exact angle at which she set on her hat, and the exact knot in which she tied her sash, and the exact spot where she stuck the rose in her bosom, were subjects of painstaking study, and objects of generally unsuccessful imitation to the rest of womankind.

Why Lily Carey at one and twenty was not married, or even engaged, was a mystery; but for four years she had been supposed by that whole world of which we have spoken to be destined for Jack Allston. Jack was young, handsome, rich, of good family, and so rising in his profession, the law, that no one could suppose he lacked brains, though in general matters they were not so evident. For four years he had skated with Lily, danced with her, sung with her, ridden, if not driven, with her, sent her flowers, and scarcely paid a single attention of the sort to any other girl; and Lily had danced, sung, ridden, skated with him, at least twice as often as with any other man. Jack had had the entrée of the Carey house, where old family friendship had admitted him from boyhood, almost as if he were another son, and was made far more useful than sons generally allow themselves to be made. He came to all parties early and stayed late, danced with all the wall-flowers and waited upon all the grandmothers and aunts, and prompted and drew up the curtain, and took all the "super" parts at their theatricals. He was "Jack" to all of them, from Papa Carey down to Muriel of four years old. The Carey family, if hints were dropped, disclaimed so smilingly that everyone was convinced that they knew all about it, and that Mrs. Carey, a most careful mother, who spent so much time in acting chaperon to her girls that she saw but little of them, would never have allowed it to go so far unless there were something in it. Why this something was not announced was a mystery. At first many reasons were assigned by those who must have reasons for other people's actions, all very sufficient: Lily too young, Jack not through the law-school, the Allstons in mourning, etc., etc.; but as one after another exhibited its futility, and new ones were less readily discovered, the subject was discussed in less amiable mood by tantalised expectants, and the ominous sentence was even murmured, "If they are not engaged they ought to be."

On October 17, 1887, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé stock was quoted at 90-1/2, and the engagement of Mr. John Somerset Allston to Miss Julia Henrietta Bradstreet Noble was announced with all the formality of which Boston is capable on such occasions. It can hardly be said which piece of news created the greater sensation; but many a paterfamilias who had dragged himself home sick at heart from State Street found his family so engrossed in their own private morsel of intelligence that his, with all its consequences of no new bonnets and no Bar Harbor next summer, was robbed of its sting. All was done according to the most established etiquette. Jack Allston had told all the men at his lunch club, and a hundred notes from Miss Noble to her friends and relatives, which she had sat up late for the two preceding nights to write, had been received by the morning post. Jack had sat up later than she had, but only one single note had been the product of his vigils.

Unmixed surprise was the first sensation excited as the news spread. It was astonishing that Jack Allston should be engaged to any girl but Lily Carey, and it was not much less so that he should be engaged to Miss Noble. She was a little older than he was, an only child, and an orphan. Her family was good, her connections high, and her fortune just large enough for her to live upon with their help. She was of course invited everywhere, and received the attentions demanded by politeness; but even politeness had begun to feel that it had done enough for her, and that she should perform the social hara-kiri that unmarried women are expected to make at a certain age. She was very plain and had very little to say for herself. Her relatives could say nothing for her except that she was a "nice, sensible girl," a dictum expressed with more energy after her engagement to Jack Allston, when some of the more daring even discovered that she was "distinguished looking." The men had always, from her silence, had a vague opinion that she was stupid, but amiable; the other girls were doubtful on both these points, certain double-edged speeches forcibly recurring to their memory. Their doubts resolved into certainties after her engagement was announced, when she became so very unbearable that they could only, with the Spartan patience shown by young women on such occasions, hold their tongues and hope that it might be a short one. Their sole relief was in discussing the question as to whether Jack Allston had thrown over Lily, or whether she had refused him. Jack was sheepish and shy at being congratulated; Lily was bright and smiling, and in even higher spirits than usual; Miss Noble spoke very unpleasantly to and of Lily whenever she had the chance; but all these points of conduct might and very likely would be the same under either supposition. Parties were pretty evenly balanced, and the wedding was over before they had drifted to any final conclusion. As the season went on Lily looked rather worn and fagged, which gave the supporters of the first hypothesis some ground; but when, in the spring, her own engagement came out, it supplied a sufficient reason, and gave a triumphant and clinching argument to the advocates of the second. She looked happy enough then, though her own family gave but a doubtful sympathy. Mr. Carey refused to say anything further than that he hoped Lily knew her own mind; she must decide for herself. Mrs. Carey looked sad, and changed the subject, saying there was no need of saying anything about it at present; she was sorry that it was so widely known and talked about. The younger Carey girls, Susan and Eleanor, openly declared that they hoped it would never come to anything. Poor Mr. Ponsonby! His picture was very handsome, and the parts of his letters they had heard were very nice, but he did not seem likely to get on in the world, and he could not expect Lily to wait forever. "Would you like to see his picture?--an amateur one, taken by a friend; and Lily says it does not do him justice."

The photograph won the hearts of all the female friends of the family, who saw it in confidence, and increased their desire to see the original. But Mr. Ponsonby was not able, as had been expected, to come over in the summer. Violent rains and consequent floods in the Australian sheep-runs inflicted so much damage upon his stock that the marriage was again postponed, at least for a year, in which time he hoped to get things on a better basis. Lily kept up her spirits bravely. She did not go to Mount Desert with her mother and sisters, but stayed at home, wrote her letters, hemstitched her linen, declaring that she was glad of the time to get up a proper outfit, and went to bed early, keeping a pleasant home for her father and the boys as they went and came, to their huge satisfaction, and gaining in bloom and freshness; so that she was in fine condition in the fall to nurse her mother through a low fever caught at a Bar Harbor hotel, also to wait upon Susan, nervous and worn down with late hours and perpetual racket, and Eleanor, laid up with a sprained ankle from an overturn in a buckboard.

Eleanor, though not yet eighteen, was to come out next winter, Lily declaring that she should give up balls--what was the use when one was engaged? She stayed at home and saw that her sisters were kept in ball-gowns and gloves, no light task, taking the part of Cinderella con amore. She certainly looked younger than Susan at least, who since she had taken up the Harvard Annex course, besides going out, began to grow worn and thin.

One February morning Eleanor's voice rose above the usual babble at the Carey breakfast-table.

"Can't I go, mamma?"

"Where, dear?"

"Why, to the Racket Club german at Eliot Hall, next Tuesday. It's going to be so nice, you know, only fifty couples, and we ought to answer directly; and I have just had notes from Harry Foster and Julian Jervis asking me for it."

"And which shall you dance with?" asked Lily.

"Why, Harry, of course."

"I would not have any of course about it," said Lily, rather sharply. Harry Foster was now repeating Jack Allston's late role in the Carey family, with Eleanor for his ostensible object. "My advice is, dance with Julian; and I suppose I must see that your pink net is in order, if Miss Macalister cannot be induced to hurry up your new lilac."

"Shall we not go, mamma?"

"Why, mamma, how can we?" broke in Susan, who had her own game in another quarter. "It's the 'Old Men of Menottomy' night, and we missed the last, you know."

"Those old Cambridge parties are the dullest affairs going," said Eleanor; "I'd rather stay at home than go to them."

"That is very ungrateful of you," said Lily, laughing, "when I gave up my place in the 'Misses Carey' to you, for of course I don't go to either."

"Can't I go to Eliot Hall with Roland, mamma? He is asked, and Mrs. Thorne is a patroness; she will chaperon me after I get there."

"Roland will want to go right back to Cambridge, I know--the middle of the week and everything! He'll be late enough without coming here."

"Then can't I take Margaret, and depend on Mrs. Thorne?" went on Eleanor, with the persistence of the youngest pet. "Half the girls go with their maids that way."

"Oh, I don't know, my dear," said poor Mrs. Carey, looking helplessly from Eleanor, flushed and eager, to Susan, silent, but with a tightly shut look on her pretty mouth, that betokened no sign of yielding. "I never liked it--in a hired carriage--and you can't expect me to go over the Cambridge bridges without James. And I hate asking Mrs. Thorne anything, she always makes such a favour of it, and the less trouble it is the more fuss she gets up about it. Do you and Susan settle it somehow between you, and let me know when it is decided."

"Let me go with Eleanor, mamma," said Lily. "Mrs. Freeman will probably go with Emmeline and Bessie, and she will let me sit with her. I will wear my old black silk and look the chaperon all over--as good a one, I will wager, as any there. It will be good fun to act the part, and I have been engaged so long that I should think I might really begin to appear in it."

Mr. Carey was heard to growl, as he pushed back his chair and threw his pile of newspapers on to the floor, that he wished Lily would stop that nonsensical talk about her engagement once for all; but the girls did not pause in their chatter, and Mrs. Carey was too much relieved to argue the point.

"Only tell me what to do and I will do it," was this poor lady's favourite form of speech. She set off with a clear conscience on Tuesday evening with Susan for the assembly at Cambridge, where a promisingly learned post-graduate of good fortune and family was wont to unbend himself by sitting out the dances and explaining the theory of evolution to Miss Susan Carey, who was as mildly scientific as was considered proper for a young lady of her position. Lily accompanied Eleanor to more frivolous spheres, where chaperonage was an easier if less exciting task; for once having touched up her sister's dress in the ante-room, and handed her over to Julian Jervis, she bade her farewell for the evening, and herself took the arm of Harry Foster, who, gloomily cynical at the sight of Eleanor, radiant in her new lilac, with another partner, had hardly a word to say as he settled her on a bench on the raised platform where the chaperons congregated, except to ask her sulkily if she would not "take a turn," which she declined without mincing matters, and took the only seat left, next to Mrs. Jack Allston, who was matronising a cousin.

"What, Lily! you here?" asked Mrs. Thorne.

"Oh, yes; mamma has gone to Cambridge with Susan, and said I might come over with Eleanor, and she was sure Mrs. Freeman,"--with a smile at that lady--"would look after us if we needed it."

"With the greatest pleasure," said Miss Morgan, who sat by her sister. "Here have Elizabeth and I both come to take care of our girls, as half-a-dozen elders sometimes hang on to one child at a circus. We both of us had set our hearts on seeing this german and would not give up, so you see there is an extra chaperon at your service."

"Doesn't your mother find it very troublesome to have three girls out at once?" asked Mrs. Allston of Lily, bluntly.

"Hardly three; I am not out this winter, you know."

"I don't see any need of staying in because one is engaged, unless, indeed, it were a very short one, like mine."

Mrs. Allston cast a rapid and deprecatory glance at the "old black silk," which had seen its best days, and then a still swifter one at her own gown, from Worth, but so unbecoming to her that it was easy for Lily to smile serenely back, though her heart sank within her at her prospects for the evening.

At the close of the first figure of the german, a slight flutter seemed to run through the crowd, tending toward the entrance.

"Who is that standing in the doorway--just come in?" asked Lily, in the very lowest tone, of Miss Morgan. Miss Morgan looked, shook her head decidedly, and then passed the inquiry on to Mrs. Thorne, who hesitated and hemmed.

"He spoke to me when he first came--but--I really don't recollect--it must be Mr.--Mr.----"

"Arend Van Voorst," crushingly put in Mrs. Allston, with somewhat the effect of a garden-roller. Both of the older ladies looked interested.

"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Thorne, "I sent him a card when I heard he was in Boston. I have not seen him--at least since he was very young--but his mother--of course I know Mrs. Van Voorst--a little."

"I don't know them at all," said Miss Morgan; "but if that's young Van Voorst, he is better looking than there is any occasion for."

"He was a classmate and intimate friend of Jack's," said Mrs. Allston, loftily.

"I never saw him before," said Lily, incautiously.

"He only went out in a very small set in Boston," said Mrs. Allston. "I met him often, of course."

"You were too young, Lily, to meet any one when he was in college," said Miss Morgan, who liked "putting down Julia Allston."

"It's too bad the girls are all engaged," said the simple-minded Mrs. Freeman; "he won't have any partner."

"He wouldn't dance!" said Julia, too tough to feel Miss Morgan's light touches. "Very likely, as you asked him, Mrs. Thorne, he may feel that he must take a turn with Ada; and when he knows that Kitty Bradstreet is with me, very likely he will ask her out of compliment to me. He will hardly ask me to dance at such a very young party as this; I don't see any of the young married set here but myself."

Mr. Van Voorst stood quietly in the doorway, hardly appearing to notice anything, but when Ada Thorne's partner was called out, and she was left sitting alone, he walked across the room and sat down by her. He did not ask her to dance, but it was perhaps as great an honour to have the Van Voorst of New York sitting by her, holding her bouquet and bending over her in an attitude of devotion; and if what he said did not flatter her vanity, it touched another sentiment equally strong in Ada even at that early period of life.

"Who is that girl in black, sitting with the chaperons?"

"Oh, that is Lily Carey."

"Why is she there?"

"She is chaperoning Eleanor, her youngest sister, that girl in lilac who is on the floor now. They look alike, don't they?"

"Why, she is not married?"

"No, only engaged. She has been engaged a great while, and never goes to balls or anything now--only she came here with Eleanor because Mrs. Carey wanted to go to Cambridge with Susan. There are three of the Careys out; it must be a dreadful bother, don't you think so?"

"To whom is she engaged?"

"To a Mr. Reginald Ponsonby--an Englishman settled in Australia somewhere. They were to have been married last summer, but he had business losses. She is perfectly devoted to him. He wrote and offered to release her, but she would not hear of it. She was very much admired; don't you think her pretty?"

"Will you introduce me to Miss Carey? I see Mr. Freeman is coming to ask you for a turn--will you be so kind as to present me first?"

There was a sort of cool determination about this young man which Ada, or any other girl, would have found it hard to resist. She did as she was bid, not ill-pleased at the general stir she excited as she crossed the floor with her two satellites and walked up the platform steps.

"Mrs. Freeman, Miss Morgan, allow me to introduce Mr. Van Voorst. Miss Carey, Mr. Van Voorst;--I think you know my mother and Mrs. Allston." And having touched off her train, she whirled away with Robert Freeman, her observation still on the alert.

Mrs. Thorne and Mr. Van Voorst exchanged civilities; Mrs. Allston said Jack was coming soon and would be glad to see him, making room for him at her side.

"No, thank you, Mrs. Allston. Miss Carey, may I have the pleasure of a turn with you?"

"Oh, Mr. Van Voorst! You are quite out of rule--tempting away our chaperons--you should ask some of the young ladies; we did not come here to dance."

"I shall not dare to ask you, then, Mrs. Allston," he said, smiling, and offered his arm without another word to Lily. She rose without looking at him, with a quick furtive motion pulled off her left-hand glove--the right was off already--got out of the crowd about her and down the steps, she hardly knew how, and in a moment his arm was around her and they were floating down the long hall. The quartette left behind looked rather blankly at each other.

"Well," said Mrs. Thorne at last, "it really is too bad for Lily Carey to come and say she did not mean to dance, and then walk off with Arend Van Voorst, who has not asked another girl here----"

"And in that old gown!" chimed in Mrs. Allston.

"It is certainly very unkind in her to look so well in an old gown," said Aunt Sophia; "it is a dangerous precedent."

"Oh, auntie!" said Emmeline, who had come up to have her dress adjusted. "Poor Lily! She has been so very quiet all the winter, never going to anything, it would be too bad if she could not have a little pleasure."

"Very kind in you, my dear; but I don't see the force of your 'poor Lily.' I shall reserve my pity for poor Mr. Ponsonby--he needs it most."

It was long since Lily had danced, and as for Mr. Van Voorst, he was, as we have seen, supposed to be above it on so youthful an occasion; but perhaps it was this that gave such a zest, as if they were boy and girl together, to the pleasure of harmonious motion. Round and round again they went, till the dancing ranks grew thinner, and just as the music gave signs of drawing to a close, they passed, drawing all eyes, by the doorway. The line of men looking on opened and closed behind them. They had actually gone out to sit on the stairs, leaving a fruitful topic behind them for the buzz of talk between the figures. Eleanor Carey, a pretty girl, and not unlike her sister, bloomed out with added importance from her connection with one who might turn out to be the heroine of a drawing-room scandal.

Meanwhile the two who were the theme of comment sat silent under the palms and ferns. No one knew better when to speak or not to speak than Lily, and her companion was looking at her with a curiously steady and absorbed gaze, to which any words would have been an interruption. It was not "the old black silk" which attracted his attention, except, perhaps, so far as it formed a background for the beautiful hands that lay folded together on her lap, too carelessly for coquetry. No such motive had influenced Lily when she had pulled off her gloves; it was only that they were not fresh enough to bear close scrutiny; but their absence showed conspicuous on the third finger of her left hand her only ring, a heavy one of rough beaten gold with an odd-looking dark-red stone in it. Not the flutter of a finger betrayed any consciousness as his eye lingered on it; but as he looked abruptly up he caught a glance from under her eyelashes which showed that she had on her part been looking at him. An irresistible flash of merriment was reflected back from face to face.

"What did you say?" she asked.

"I--I beg your pardon, I thought you said something."

Both laughed like a couple of children; then he rose and offered his arm again, and they turned back to the ballroom.

"Good evening, Jack," said Miss Lily brightly, holding out her hand to Mr. Allston, who had just come in, and was standing in the doorway. Jack, taken by surprise, as we all are by the sudden appearance of two people together whom we have never associated in our minds, looked shy and confused, but made a gallant effort to rally, and got through the proper civilities well enough, till just as the couple were again whirling into the ranks, he spoiled it all by asking with an awkward stammer in his voice:

"How's--how's Mr. Ponsonby?"

"Very well, when I last heard," Lily flung back over her shoulder, in her clearest tone and with a laugh, soft, but heard by both men.

"What are you laughing at?" asked her partner.

"At the recollection of my copy-book--was not yours amusing?"

"I dare say it was, if it was the same as yours."

"Oh, they are all alike. What I was thinking of was the page with 'Evil communications corrupt good manners.'"

"Yes--Jack was a very good fellow when we were in college together--but----"

But "what" was left unsaid. On and on they went, and only stopped with the music. Lily, having broken the ice, was besieged by every man in the room for a turn. One or two she did favour with a very short one, but it was Mr. Van Voorst to whom she gave every other one, and those the longest, and with whom she walked between the figures; and finally it was Mr. Van Voorst who took her down to supper. Eleanor and she had all the best men in the room crowding round them.

"Come and sit with us, Emmie," she asked, as Emmeline Freeman passed with her partner; and Emmeline came, half frightened at finding herself in the midst of what seemed to her a chapter from a novel. Never had the even tenor of her social experiences,--and they were of as unvarying and business-like a nature as the "day's work" of humbler maidens--been disturbed by such an upheaval of fixed ideas; one of which was that Lily Carey could do no wrong, and another, that there was something "fast" and improper in having more than one man waiting upon you at a time.

"Do you mind going now, Eleanor?" asked Lily of her sister, as the crowd surged back to the ballroom. Eleanor looked rather blank at the thought of missing the after-supper dance, and such an after-supper dance; no mamma to get sleepy on the platform; no old James waiting out in the cold to lay up rheumatism for the future and to look respectfully reproachful at "Miss Ellis"; no horses whose wrongs might excite papa's wrath; nothing but that wretched impersonal slave, "a man from the livery stable" and his automatic beasts. But the Careys were a very amiable family, the one who spoke first generally getting her own way. The after-supper dance at the Racket Club german was rather a falling off from the brilliancy at the commencement, as Arend Van Voorst left after putting his partner into her carriage, and Julian Jervis and others of the men thought it the thing to follow his example.

Two days after the german, "Richards's Pond," set in snowy shores, was hard and blue as steel under a cloudless sky, while a delicious breath of spring in the air gave warning that this was but for a day. The rare union of perfect comfort and the fascination that comes of transient pleasure irresistibly called out the skaters, and "everybody" was there; that is, about fifty young men and women were disporting themselves on the pond, and one or two ladies stood on the shore looking on. Miss Morgan, who was always willing to chaperon any number of girls to any amusement, stood warmly wrapped up in her fur-lined cloak and snow-boots, talking to a Mrs. Rhodes, a mild little new-comer in Brookline, who had come with her girls, who did not know many people, and whom she now had the satisfaction of seeing happily mingled with the proper "set"; for Eleanor Carey, who had good-naturedly asked them to come, had introduced them to some of the extra young men, of whom there were plenty; and that there might be no lack of excitement, Mr. Van Voorst and Miss Lily Carey were to be seen skating together, with hardly a word or a look for anyone else--a sight worth seeing.

No record exists of the skating of the goddess Diana, but had she skated, Lily might have served as her model. Just so might she have swept over the ice with mazy motion, ever and ever throwing herself off her balance, just as surely to regain it. As for Arend Van Voorst, he skated like Harold Hardrada, of whose performances in that line we have not been left in ignorance. "It must be his Dutch blood," commented Miss Morgan.

Ada Thorne, meanwhile, was skating contentedly enough under the escort of the lion second in degree--Prescott Avery, just returned from his journey round the world, about which he had written a magazine article, and was understood to be projecting a book. His thin but well-preserved flaxen locks, whitey-brown moustache, and little piping voice were unchanged by tropic heats or Alpine snows, but he had gained in consequence and, though mild and unassuming, felt it. He had always been in the habit of entertaining his fair friends with a number of pretty tales drawn from his varied social experiences, and had acquired a fresh stock of very exciting ones in his travels. But his present hearer's attention was wandering, and her smiles unmeaning, and in the very midst of a most interesting narrative about his encounter with an angry llama, she put an aimless question that showed utter ignorance whether it took place in China or Peru. Prescott, always amiable, gulped down his mortification with the aid of a cough, and then followed the lady's gaze to where the distant flash of a scarlet toque might be seen through the thin, leafless bushes on a low spur of land.

"That is Lily Carey, is it not?" he asked. "How very handsome she is looking to-day! She has grown even more beautiful than when I went away. By-the-by, is that the gentleman she is engaged to?"

"Oh, dear, no! Why, that is Arend Van Voorst! Don't you know him? She is engaged to a Mr. Ponsonby, an English settler in South Australia."

"I see now that it is Mr. Van Voorst, whom I met several times before I left," said Prescott, with unfailing amiability even under a snubbing. Then, cheered by the prospect of again taking the superior position, he continued in an impressive tone: "But it is not astonishing that I should have taken him for Mr. Ponsonby. I believe I had the pleasure of meeting that gentleman in Melbourne when I was in Australia, and the resemblance is striking, especially at a little distance."

"Did you, indeed?" asked Ada, inwardly burning with excitement, but outwardly nonchalant. The remarkable extent of Miss Thorne's knowledge of everyone's affairs was not gained by direct questioning, which she had found defeated its own object. "It is rather odd you should have happened to meet him in Melbourne, for he very seldom goes there, and lives on a ranch in quite another part of Australia."

"But I did meet him," replied Prescott. "He had come to Melbourne on business, and I met him at a club dinner--a tall, handsome, light-haired man. He sat opposite to me and we did not happen to be introduced, but I am certain the name was Ponsonby. He took every opportunity of paying me attention, and said something very nice about American ladies, which made me feel sure he must have been here. Of course I did not know of Miss Carey's engagement, or I should certainly have made his acquaintance."

"The engagement was not out then, and of course he could not speak of it. Now I think of it, Mr. Van Voorst does really look a great deal like Mr. Ponsonby's photograph."

"I will speak of it to Miss Carey when I get an opportunity," said Prescott, delighted. "The experiences one has on a long journey are singular, Miss Thorne. Now as I was telling you----"

Ten minutes later the whole crowd were gathering round Miss Morgan, who made a kind of nucleus for those with homeward intentions, when Mr. Avery and Miss Thorne came in the most accidental way right against Mr. Van Voorst and Miss Carey. By what means half the crowd already knew what was in the wind, and the other half knew that something was, we may not inquire. It was not in human nature not to look and listen as the four exchanged proper greetings.

"Mr. Avery, Lily, has been telling me that he had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Ponsonby in Melbourne," said Ada, "and thought you would be glad to hear about it."

"Oh, thank you," said Lily, quietly, "I have had letters written since, of course. You were not in Melbourne very lately, Mr. Avery?"

"Last summer--winter, I should say. You know, Miss Carey, it is so queer, it is winter there when it is summer here--it is very hard to realise it. But it is always agreeable to meet those who have really seen one's absent friends, don't you think so?"

"Oh, very!"

"Mr. Ponsonby was looking very well and in very good spirits. I fancied he showed a great interest in American matters, which I could not account for. I wish I had known why, that I might have congratulated him. I hope you will tell him so."

"Thank you," said Lily again. She spoke with ease and readiness, but her beautiful colour had faded, and there was a frightened look in her eyes, as of someone who sees a ghost invisible to the rest of the company.

"Mr. Avery was struck with Mr. Ponsonby's resemblance to you, Mr. Van Voorst," said Ada; "you cannot be related, can you?"

"Come," said Aunt Sophia, suddenly, "what is the use of standing here? I am tired of it, for one, and I am going to the Ripley's to get a little warmth into my bones, and all who are going to the Wilson's to-night had better come too. Emmie, you and Bessie must, Lily, you and Susie and Eleanor had better--you see, Mr. Van Voorst, how nice are the gradations of my chaperonage."

"Let me help you up the bank, Miss Morgan," said Arend; "it is steep here."

"Thank you--come, Mrs. Rhodes. Mrs. Ripley isn't at home, but we shall find hot bouillon and bread and butter."

"I had better not, thank you. I don't know Mrs. Ripley," stammered, with chattering teeth, poor Mrs. Rhodes, shivering in her tight jacket and thin boots.

"You need not know her if you do come, as she is out," said Miss Morgan, coolly; "and if you don't, you certainly won't, as you will most likely die of pneumonia. Now Fanny may think you a fool for doing so, if you like, but I'm not going to have her call me a brute for letting you. So come before we freeze."

Mrs. Rhodes meekly followed her energetic companion, both gallantly assisted up the bank by Arend Van Voorst, who was devoted in his attentions till they reached the house. He never looked towards Lily, who, pale and quiet, walked behind with Emmeline Freeman, and as soon as she entered the Ripley drawing-room ensconced herself, as in a nook of refuge, behind the table with the big silver bowl, and ladled out the bouillon with a trembling hand. The young men bustled about with the cups, but Arend only took two for the older ladies, and went near her no more.

Not a Ripley was there, though it was reported that Tom had been seen on the ice that morning and told them all to come in, of course. No one seemed to heed their absence; Miss Morgan pulled Mrs. Ripley's own blotting-book towards her and scribbled a letter to her friend; Eleanor Carey threw open the piano, and college songs resounded. Mrs. Rhodes was lost in wonder as she shyly sipped her soup, rather frightened at Mr. Van Voorst's attentions. How could Mrs. Ripley ever manage to make her cook send up hot soup at such an unheard-of hour? And could it be the "thing" to have one's drawing-room in "such a clutter"? She tried to take note of all the things lying about, unconscious that Miss Morgan was noting her down in her letter. Then came the rapid throwing on of wraps, rushing to the station, and a laughing, pell-mell boarding of the train. Mr. Van Voorst had disappeared, and Ada Thorne said he was going to walk down to Brookline and take the next train from there--he was going to New York on the night train and wanted a walk first. No one else had anything to say in the matter, certainly not Lily, who continued to keep near Miss Morgan and sat between her and the window, silent all the while. As the train neared the first station, she jumped up suddenly and hastened toward the door.

"Why, Lily, what are you about?" "Lily, come back!" "Lily, this is the wrong station!" resounded after her; but as no one was quick enough to follow her, she was seen as the train moved on, walking off alone, with the same scared look on her face.

"There is something very odd about that girl," said Miss Morgan, as soon as she was with her nieces on their homeward path.

"It is only that she feels a little overcome," said Lily's staunch admirer. "You know what Prescott Avery said about Mr. Van Voorst looking like Mr. Ponsonby, and I'm sure he does. Don't you think him very like his photograph?"

"There is a kind of general likeness, but I must say of the two Arend Van Voorst looks better fitted to fight his way in the bush, while Mr. Ponsonby might spend his ten millions, if he had them, pleasantly enough. Perhaps the idea is what has 'overcome' Lily, as you say."

"Now, auntie, I am sure the resemblance might make her feel badly. She has not seen Mr. Ponsonby for so long, and that attracted her to Mr. Van Voorst; and it was so unkind of people to say all the hateful things they did at the ball."

"I must say myself, that she rather overdoes the part of Mrs. Gummidge. It looks as if there was something more in it than thinking of the 'old un.' If she really is so afraid of Mr. Ponsonby, he must look more like Arend Van Voorst than his picture does. Well--we shall see."

Late that afternoon Arend Van Voorst walked up Walnut Street westward, drawn, as so many have been, by the red sunset glow that struck across the lake beyond, through the serried ranks of black tree trunks, down the long vista under the arching elms. Straight toward the blazing gate he walked, but when he came to where the road parted, leaving the brightness high and inaccessible above high banks of pure new snow that looked dark against it, and dipping down right and left into valleys where the shade of trees, even in winter, was thick and dark, he paused a moment and then struck into the right hand road, the one that did not lead toward the Careys' house. It was not till two or three hours later that he approached it from the other side, warm with walking, and having apparently walked off his hesitation, for he did not even slacken his pace as he passed up the drive, though he looked the house, the place, and the whole surroundings over with attentive carefulness.

The Careys lived in a fascinating house, of no particular style, the result of perpetual additions to the original and now very old nucleus. As Mr. Carey's father had bought it fifty years ago, and as his progenitors for some time further back had inhabited a much humbler dwelling, now vanished, in the same town, it was called, as such things go in America, their "ancestral home." It was the despair of architects and decorators, who were always being adjured to "get an effect something like the Carey house." The component elements were simple enough, and the principal one was the habit of the Carey family always to buy everything they wanted and never to buy anything they did not want. If Mr. and Mrs. Carey took a fancy to a rug, or a chair, or a picture, or a book, they bought it then and there, but they would go on for years without new stair-carpets or drawing-room curtains--partly because they never had time to go and choose them, partly because it was such a stupid way to spend money; it was easier to keep the old ones, or use something for a substitute that no one had ever thought of before, and everybody was crazy to have afterwards.

How much of all this Arend Van Voorst took in I cannot tell, but he looked about him with the same curiosity after the house door had opened and he was in the hall, and then as the parlour door opened, and he saw Lily rising from her low chair, before the fire afar off at the end of the long low room, a tall white figure standing out in pure, cool darkness against the blaze, like the snow-banks against the sunset. He did not know whether he wanted or not to see her alone, but on one point he was anxious--he wanted to know whether he was to be alone with her or not. The room was crowded with objects of every kind; two or three dogs and cats languidly raised their heads from the sofas and ottomans as he passed, and for aught he knew two or three children might be in the crowd. Lily had the advantage of him; she knew very well that her mother had driven into town with the other girls to the Wilsons' "small and early"; that the younger children had been out skating all the afternoon and had gone to bed; that the boys were out skating now and would not be home for hours yet; and that her father, shut into his study with the New York stock list, was as safe out of the way as if he had been studying hieroglyphics at the bottom of the Grand Pyramid. So she was almost too unconcerned in manner as she held out her hand and said, "Good evening."

He took the offered hand absently, still looking round the room, and as he took in its empty condition, gave a sigh of relief. She sat down, with a very slight motion toward a chair on the other side of the fire. He obeyed mechanically, his eyes now fixed on her. If she was lovely in her "old black," how much more was she in her "old white," put on for the strictest home retirement. It was a much washed affair, very yellowish and shrunken, and clinging to every line of her tall figure, grand in its youthful promise. She had lost her colour, a rare thing for her, and she had accentuated the effect of her pale cheeks and dark eyelashes with a great spray of yellow roses in the bosom of her gown.

"I thought you had gone to New York," she said, trying to speak lightly.

"No," slowly; "I could not go without coming here first. I must see you once at your own home." Then with an eager thrill in his voice, "He has never been here, I believe?"

"No," said Lily; "he was never here."

"I have come the first, then; let him come when he wants to; I shall not come again, to see him and you together."

Both sat silently looking into the fire for a few moments, which the clock seemed to mark off with maddening rapidity. Then Lily said in a low tone, but so clearly that it could have been heard all over the room, "If you do not wish to see him, he need never come at all."

"For God's sake, Miss Carey!" burst out Arend, "show a little feeling in this matter. I don't ask you to feel for me. I knew what I was about from the first, and I took the risk. But show a little, feign a little, if you must, for him. You know I love you. If your Mr. Ponsonby were here to fight his own battles for himself, I would go in for a fair fight with him, and give and ask no quarter. But--but--he is far away and alone, keeping faith with you for years. If he has no claim on you, he has one on me, and I'll not forget it."

He paused, but Lily was silent. She looked wistful, yet afraid to speak. Something of the same strangely frightened look was in her eyes that had been there that afternoon. Arend, whose emotion had reached the stage when the sound of one's own voice is a sedative, went on more calmly:

"And don't think I make so much of a sacrifice. I am sure now you never loved or could have loved me. If you had, there would have been some struggle, some pleading of old remembrances. Your very feeling for me would have roused some pity, at least, for him. He has your first promise; I do not ask you to break it. You can give him all you have to give to anyone, and perhaps he may be satisfied."

"You need not trouble yourself about Mr. Ponsonby," said Lily, now cold and calm, "as no such person exists."

"What!" exclaimed her hearer, in bewildered astonishment. Wild visions of the luckless Ponsonby, having heard by clairvoyance, or submarine cable, of his own pretensions, and having forthwith taken himself out of the way by pistol or poison, floated through his brain, and he went on in an awe-struck tone, "Is he--is he dead?"

"He never lived; Mr. Ponsonby, from first to last, is a pure piece of fiction. Oh, you need not look so amazed; I am not out of my senses, I assure you. Ask my father, ask my mother--they will tell you the same. And now, stop! Once for all, just once! You must hear what I have to say. I shall never ask you to hear me again, and you probably will never want to."

He looked blankly at her in a state of hopeless bewilderment.

"Oh," she broke out suddenly, "you do not know--how should you?--what it is to be a girl! to sit and smile and look pleasant while your life is being settled for you, and to see some man or other doing his best to make an utter snarl of it, while you must wait ready with your 'If you please,' when he chooses to ask you to dance with him or marry him. And to be a pretty girl is ten times worse. Everyone had settled ever since I was seventeen that I was to marry Jack Allston. Both his family and my family took it as a matter of course, and liked it well enough, as one likes matters of course. I liked it well enough myself. I cannot say now that I was ever in love with Jack Allston, but he seemed bound up in me, and I was very fond of him, and thought I should be still more so when we were once engaged. All the girls in my set expected to marry or be called social failures, and where was I ever to find a better match in every way than Jack? If I had refused him everyone would have thought that I was mad. I had not the least idea of doing so, but meanwhile I was in no hurry to be married. I thought it would be nicer to wait and have a little pleasure, and I did have a great deal, till I was eighteen, then till I was nineteen, and so on----"

She stopped for a moment, for her voice was trembling, but with an effort recovered herself and went on more firmly:

"Just as people began to look and talk, and wonder why we were so slow, and why it did not come out, and just as I began to think that I had had enough of society, and that perhaps I ought to be willing to settle down, I began to feel, too, that my power over him was going, gone! The strings I had always played upon so easily were broken, and though I ran over them in the old way, I could not win a sound. I hardly had time to feel more than puzzled and frightened, when his engagement came out, and it was all over. But there! it was the kindest way he could have done it. I hate to think of some of the things I did and said to try if he had indeed ceased to care for me; but they were not much, and if I had had time I might have done more and worse. I was struck dumb with surprise like everybody else. My father and mother were hurt and anxious, but it was easy to reassure them, and without deception. I could tell them the truth, but not the whole truth. I did not suffer from what they supposed. My heart was not broken, or even seriously hurt, but oh! how much I wished at times that it had been! Had I really loved and been forsaken, I could have sat down by the wayside and asked the whole world for pity, without a thought of shame. But for what had I to ask pity? I was like a rider who had been thrown and broken no bones, in so ridiculous a way that he excites no sympathy. What if he is battered and bruised? If he complains, people only laugh. I held my tongue when my raw places were hit. I had the pleasure of hearing that Julia Noble had been saying--" and here Lily put on Mrs. Allston's manner to perfection--"'I hope poor Miss Carey was not disappointed. Jack has, I fear, been paying her more attention than he ought; but it was only to divert comment from me; dear Jack has so much delicacy of feeling where I am concerned!'--No, don't say anything; let me have done, I will not take long. I could not get away from it all, and what was I to do? To go on in society and play the same game over with some one else was unendurable; I was getting past the age for that. Susan was out and Eleanor coming out, and I felt I ought to have taken myself out of their way, in the proper fashion. To take up art or philanthropy was not in my line. The girls I knew were not brought up with those ideas and didn't take to them unless they started with being odd, or ugly, or would own up to a disappointment. My place in the world had suited me to perfection, and now it was hateful and no other was offered me.

"It was just at this time that the devil--to speak plainly, as I told you I was going to--put the idea of poor Mr. Ponsonby into my head. An engaged girl is always excused from everything else. My lover was not here to take up my time, and as I could postpone my wedding indefinitely whenever I pleased, my preparations need not be hurried. I dropped society and all the hateful going out, and had delicious evenings at home with papa when I was supposed to be writing my long letters to Australia. I thought I could drop it whenever I liked. I did not know what I was doing."

"You? Perhaps not!" exclaimed Arend, with an exasperating air of superior age; "but your father and mother--what in the name of common sense were they thinking about to allow all this?"

"Oh, you must not think they liked it; they didn't. To tell you all the truth, I don't think they half-understood it at first. I did not tell them until I had dropped a hint of it elsewhere, and I suppose they thought I had only given a vague glimpse of a possible future lover somewhere in the distance. Poor dears! things have changed since they were young, and they don't realise that if a man speaks to a girl it is in the newspapers the next day. I had not known what I was doing. I really have not told as many lies as you might think. Full half that you have heard about Mr. Ponsonby never came from me at all. You don't know how reports can grow, especially when Ada Thorne has the lead in them. Not that she exactly invents things, but a hint from me, and some I never meant, would come back all clothed in circumstance. I could not wear my old pink sash to save my others without hearing that that tea-rose tint was Mr. Ponsonby's favourite colour. Ponsonby grew out of my hands as this went on; and really the more he outgrew me the better I liked him, and indeed I ended by being rather in love with him. He had to have so many misfortunes, too, and that was a link between us."

"But," said her hearer, suddenly, "did not Prescott Avery meet him at Melbourne?"

"Oh, if you knew Prescott, you would know that he meets everybody. If it had been a Mr. Percival of Java, instead of Ponsonby of Australia, he would have remembered him or something about him. Still, that was a dreadful moment. I felt like Frankenstein when his creature stalks out alive. Poor Mr. Ponsonby! I shall send him his coup-de-grâce by the next Australian mail. People will say that I did it in the hope of catching you, and have failed. Let them--I deserve it. And now, Mr. Van Voorst, please to go. I have humiliated myself before you enough. I said I would tell you the truth, and you have heard it all. If you must despise me, have pity and don't show it."

Lily's voice, so clear at first, had grown hoarse, and her cheeks were burning in a way that caused her physical pain. She rose to her feet and stood leaning on the back of her chair and looking at the floor.

"Go! and without a word? Do you think I have nothing to say? Sit down!"--as she made some little motion to go. "I have heard you, and now you must hear me."

Lily sank unresistingly into her chair, while he went on, "You say girls have a hard time; so they do--I have always been sorry for them. But don't you suppose men have troubles of their own? You say a pretty girl has the worst of it. How much better off is the man, who, according to the common talk, has only to 'pick and choose'; who walks along the row of pretty faces to find a partner for the dance or for life, as it happens--it is much the same. The blue angel is the prettiest and the pink the wittiest; very likely he takes the yellow one, who is neither, while in the corner sits the white one, who would have suited him best, and whom he hardly saw at all. If he thinks he is satisfied, it is just as well. I was not unduly vain nor unduly humble. I knew my wealth was the first thing about me in most people's minds, but I was not a monster, and a girl might like me well enough without it. A woman is not often forced into marriage in this country. I had no notions of disguising myself, or educating a child to marry, as men have done, to be loved for themselves alone. What is a man's self? My wealth, my place in the world were part of me. I was born with them. I should probably find some nice girl who appreciated them and liked me well enough, and I felt that I ought to give some such one the chance--and yet--and yet--I wanted something more.

"In this state of mind I met you at the ball. Very likely if I had seen you among the other girls, I might not have given you more than a passing glance; but I thought you were married, and the thrill of disappointment had as much pleasure as pain, for I felt I could have loved. But you were not married, only engaged. What's an engagement? It may mean everything or nothing. For the life of me I could not help trying how much it meant to you. What must the man be, I thought, as I sat by you on the stairs, whom this girl loves? He should be a hero, and yet, as such things go, he's just as likely to be a noodle. You laughed--I could have sworn you knew what I was thinking."

"Yes! I remember. I was thinking how nicely you would do for a model for my Ponsonby," Lily said. Their eyes met for a moment with a swift flash of intelligence, but the light in hers was quenched with hot, unshed tears.

"No laugh ever sounded more fancy free! I felt as if you challenged me; and if he had been here I would have taken up the challenge--he or I, once for all. But he was alone and far away, and I could not take his place. Why did I meet you on the pond, then? why did I come here to-night? Because I wanted to see if I could not go a little further with you. I wanted something to remember, a look, a tone, a word, that ought not to have been given to any man but your promised husband; something I could not have asked if I had hoped to be your husband. My magnanimity toward Ponsonby, you see, did not go the length of behaving to his future wife with the respect I would show my own."

"You have shown how much you despise me," said Lily, springing to her feet, her hot tears dried with hotter anger, but her face white again. "That might have been spared me. I suppose you think I deserve it. Very well, I do, and you need not stay to argue the matter. Go!"

"Go! Why I should be a fool to go now, and you would be--well, we will call it mistaken--to let me. After we have got as far as we have, it would be absurd to suppose we can go back again. We know each other now better than nine tenths of the couples who have been married a year. I don't ask you to say you love me now; I am very sure you can, and I know I can love you--infinitely----"

"Oh, but--but you said you would not take his place--Mr. Ponsonby's. Can you let everyone think you capable of such an act of meanness? And if you could not respect me as your wife, how can you expect others to? Can we appear to act in a way to deserve contempt without despising each other?"

"There will be a good deal that is unpleasant about it, no doubt; but everyone's life has some unpleasantness. It would be worse to let a dream, even a dream of honor, come between us and our future. You made a mistake and underestimated its consequences, but it would be foolish to lose the substance of happiness because we have lost the shadow. We will live it down together and be glad it is no worse."

"But I have been so wrong, so very wrong--I have too many faults ever to make anyone happy."

"Of course you have faults, but I know the worst of them and can put up with them. I have plenty of my own which you may be finding out by this time. I am very domineering--you will have to promise to obey me, and I shall keep you to it; and then I can, under provocation, be furiously jealous."

"You are not jealous of Jack Allston?" she whispered.

"Jealous of old Jack? Oh, no! I shall keep my jealousy for poor Mr. Ponsonby."

Society had been so often agitated by Lily Carey's affairs that it took with comparative coolness the tidings that she was to be married to Arend Van Voorst in six weeks. Miss Morgan said she supposed Lily was tired of "engagements," and wanted to be married this time. Her niece Emmeline shed tears over "poor Mr. Ponsonby," and refused to act as bridesmaid at his rival's nuptials; and in spite of her aunt's scoldings and Lily's entreaties, and all the temptations of the bridesmaids' pearl "lily" brooches and nosegays of Easter lilies, arranged a visit to her cousins in Philadelphia to avoid being present. Miss Thorne had no such scruples, and it is to her the world owes a lively account of the wedding; how it was fixed at so early a date lest "poor Mr. Ponsonby" should hurry over to forbid the banns, and how terribly nervous Lily seemed lest he might, in spite of the absolute impossibility, and though Ponsonby, true gentleman to the last, never troubled her then or after.

"Poor Mr. Van Voorst, I should say!" exclaimed Mrs. Jack Allston. "I am sure he is the one to be pitied. But do tell me all the presents that have come in, for Jack says that I must give them something handsome after such a present as he gave me when we were married."

Mrs. Van Voorst received the tidings of her son's approaching marriage rather doubtfully. "Yes--the Careys were a very nice family; she knew Mrs. Carey was an Arlington, and her mother a Berkeley, and his mother--but--Miss Carey was very handsome, she had heard--with the Berkeley style of beauty and the Arlington manner, but--but--she did not mind their being Unitarians, for many of the very best people were, in Boston, but--but--but--indeed, my dear Arend, I have heard a good deal about her that I do not altogether like. I hope it may not be true--about her keeping Jack Allston hanging on for years, as pis-aller to that young Englishman she was engaged to all the while--and finally throwing him over--and now she has thrown over this Mr. Ponsonby too!"

"Will you do just one thing for me, dear mother," asked her son; "will you forget all you have heard about Lily, and judge her by what you see?"

Mrs. Van Voorst had never refused Arend anything in his life, and could not now. By what magic Lily, in their very first interview, won over the good lady is not known, but afterwards no mother-in-law's heart could have withstood the splendid son and heir with which she enriched the Van Voorst line. The young Van Voorsts were allowed by all their friends to be much happier than they deserved to be. Long after the gossip over their marriage had ceased, and it was an old story even to them, Arend was still in love with his wife. Lily was interesting; she had that quality or combination of qualities, impossible to analyse, which wins love where beauty fails, and keeps it when goodness tires. Her own happiness was more simple in its elements. She was better off than most women, and knew it--the last, the crowning gift, so often lacking to the fortunate of earth. She thought her husband much too good for her, though she never told him so. Nay, sometimes when she was a little fretted by his exacting disposition, for Arend was a strict martinet in all social and household matters and, as he had said, would be minded, she would sometimes more or less jestingly tell him that perhaps after all she had made a mistake in not keeping faith with "poor Mr. Ponsonby."

[The end]
Agnes Blake Poor's short story: Poor Mr. Ponsonby

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