All went smoothly, however. No one saw or heard anything further of Henri de Courcelles, nor was Quita even annoyed by the mention of his name. He seemed to have totally disappeared from Beauregard, and Mr Courtney fully believed that he had left the island. The old nurse made no further disagreeable allusions to the past, and appeared to be as devoted to her young mistress as she had ever been, so that Maraquita regained her lightness of heart, and turned her attention entirely to the brilliant prospects before her. The fourteenth was close at hand, and the preparations for the Governor’s wedding, which was to take place in the Fort church, were on a scale of magnificence never before attempted in San Diego. The church was to be embowered in flowers; the military were to line the road leading to it; half the gentry in the island were to be engaged in singing a choral service; and a splendid barouche, drawn by four horses, and preceded by a guard of honour, was to convey the newly-married couple back to Beauregard. Here, naturally, all were in a flutter. Mrs Courtney, never a good housekeeper, was nearly out of her mind over the wedding-breakfast and the completion of Maraquita’s dress, and was thankful to delegate the issuing of the invitations to her husband and her daughter. Mr Courtney made out the list of names, whilst Maraquita wrote the invitations in a very irregular hand on gold-edged paper. Half-way down the list she came upon the name of Miss Fellows. ‘_Lizzie?_’ she exclaimed, with rather rashly expressed astonishment. ‘Of course! why not?’ returned her father quickly. ‘Well, because, although _we_ don’t believe the reports about her, papa, _other_ people do, and some of the ladies of San Diego might object to meet her.’ Mr Courtney consigned the ladies of San Diego to a warmer region, but held to his determination. ‘There shall be no festivity held in my house to which Lizzie Fellows is not invited,’ he answered sternly; ‘and the fact that she is still welcomed here, will be the best denial of these infamous calumnies against her. I should be ashamed of you, my daughter, if you consented to her name being omitted from our guests. The poor girl has suffered enough from the death of her father, and the rascality of that scoundrel De Courcelles, to say nothing of these cruel rumours, without our turning our backs upon her.’ The mention of De Courcelles’ name was enough to stop Maraquita’s tongue, and she wrote the invitation without further comment. Only, as both she and her mother anticipated, Lizzie’s reply was in the negative. She made her recent loss the excuse for not joining in any gaiety; but Maraquita and Mrs Courtney knew that after the insults they had hurled at her, she would never place her foot voluntarily again within the walls of the White House. END OF VOL. II. COLSTON AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.