Doctor Matthewson had spent most of the winter in New York, but of Josephine’s whereabouts little was known. She had been in New York, and Holburton, and Boston, where she was the guest of Mrs. Arnold, with whom she had been abroad, and whose good opinion she had succeeded in retaining by telling her a part only of the truth, and doing it in such a manner that she appeared to be the party to be pitied rather than Everard. Mrs. Arnold was not a person who looked very deeply into matters, she chose rather to take them as they seemed, and Josephine had been very faithful to her and her interest while they were abroad; and though she was shocked and surprised when she first heard the story of the marriage, Josephine told it so well for herself as to make it appear that she had not been greatly in fault, and the lady believed her more sinned against than sinning, and invited her to her own home in Boston, where she was stopping somewhere about the middle of March, when word came to the man in charge of the Forrest House that the doctor, who had already been gone two months and more, would remain away still longer, and that when he returned Mrs. Matthewson would accompany him. Who Mrs. Matthewson was the letter did not state, but Beatrice readily guessed, and was not at all surprised when, a week later, she received a letter from Mr. Morton, who was still in Boston, and who wrote that he had been asked to officiate at the marriage of Miss Josephine Fleming with Dr. John Matthewson, said marriage to take place at the house of one of his parishioners, Mrs. Arnold, April 15th, at eleven o’clock, A. M. What Everard thought or felt when he heard the news he kept to himself, but the townspeople unanimously disapproved of the match, and arrayed themselves against the bride elect and decided that she should be made to feel the weight of their disapprobation, and know that they resented her marriage and coming back there to live as an insult to Everard and an affront to themselves. Nor were they at all mollified by the arrival of _cards_ inviting them to the wedding. There were in all a dozen invitations sent to as many families in Rothsay, and Beatrice had a letter from Josephine, in which she tried to make everything seem fair and right with regard to the divorce and marriage, and hoped Miss Belknap would be friendly with her when she came back to Rothsay.