"We are to be married in December. He begged hard for an earlier day, but I was sure that I could not be ready before then. As it is, we shall have to hurry when it comes to the dresses, for, in order to get the latest fashions, we must wait until the eleventh hour. Won't I 'astonish the natives' down South? I couldn't state this to Philip, you know; so I referred him to mother, who is to say, when he asks her, that her preference would be to keep me just as long as she possibly can. Entre nous, my dear, our good mamma has said truer things than this bit of sentiment--but n'importe! These embellishments are necessary to such transactions." Miss West's friendship or curiosity could not endure longer suspense, and the intelligence that she was below checked the monologue. "I will run up again whenever I can," promised Lucy, by way of compensation for her abrupt departure, "and keep up your spirits by telling you all that I can about our concerns. But Philip is to take me to ride this afternoon. I forbade him to come here before then, but I don't much think he can stay away. Don't be vexed if you don't see me again in some hours. Vic. and I are about to settle our trousseaux. If you believe me, we have never been able yet to decide upon the wedding dresses!" And she vanished, warbling delicious roulades from a duet she had engaged to sing that evening with her betrothed. She showed herself upstairs again, when she was ready for her ride, and the carriage at the door--very fair, very bright, and very happy. She was exquisitely dressed, and called on her sister to admire her toilet and envy her her escort. Sarah listened to the cheerful exchange of cautions and promises between her mother and Philip, at the door beneath her open window, and to the rolling wheels that bore them away. Mrs. Hunt received none of her friends that day, being busy "getting things to rights"; and for a like reason she absented herself from her child's sickroom, content with sending up Jeannie, now and then, to inquire how she was getting on. In the abject loneliness that oppressed her, when the first violence of passions had spent itself, Sarah would have been relieved in some measure by the society of this pet sister, the sole object upon earth, besides her father, that had ever repaid her love with anything like equal attachment. But the child shrank, like most others of her age, from the quiet dark chamber of illness, and longed to follow her mother through the house, in her tour of observation and renovation. Sarah detected her restlessness and ill-concealed dislike of the confinement imposed upon her by compliance with her humble petition-- "Please, Jeannie, stay a little while with your poor sister!" And her sensitive spirit turned upon itself, as a final stroke of torture, the conviction that here, also, love and care had been wasted.