Mabel wondered why so small a matter should be a secret, but Mrs. Livingstone had requested her to keep silence and that was a sufficient reason why she should do so. The next step was to win her consent for the ceremony to take place there, and in the course of three weeks, saying that it was her son’s wish. But on this point she found more difficulty than she had anticipated, for Mabel shrank from being married at the house of his father. “It didn’t look right,” said she, “and she knew Mr. Douglass would not object to having it there.” Mrs. Livingstone knew so, too, but there was too much danger in such an arrangement, and she replied, “Of course not, if you request it, but will it be quite proper for you to ask him to be at all that trouble when Nellie is gone, and there is no one at home to superintend?” So after a time Mabel was convinced, thinking, though, how differently everything was turning out from what she expected. Three weeks from that night was fixed upon for the bridal, to which but few were to be invited, for Mrs. Livingstone did not wish to call forth remark. “Everything should be done quietly and in order,” she said, “and then, when autumn came, she would give a splendid party in honor of the bride.” Mr. Douglass, when told of the coming event by Mrs. Livingstone, who would trust no one else, expressed much surprise, saying he greatly preferred that the ceremony should take place at his own house. “Of course,” returned the oily-tongued woman, “of course you had, but even a small wedding party is a vast amount of trouble, and in Nellie’s absence you would be disturbed. Were she here I would not say a word, but now I insist upon having it my own way, and indeed, I think my claim upon Mabel is the strongest.” Silenced, but not quite convinced, Mr. Douglass said no more, thinking, meanwhile, that if he only _could_ afford it, Mabel should have a wedding worthy of her. But he could not; he was poor, and hence Mrs. Livingstone’s arguments prevailed the more easily. Fortunately for her, John Jr. manifested no inclination to go out at all. A kind of torpor seemed to have settled upon him, and day after day he remained at home, sometimes in a deep study in his own room, and sometimes sitting in the parlor, where his very unlover-like deportment frequently brought tears to Mabel’s eyes, while Carrie loudly denounced him as the most clownish fellow she ever saw. “I hope you’ll train him, Mabel,” said she, “for he needs it. He ought to have had Nellie Douglass. She’s a match for him. Why didn’t you have her, John?” With a face dark as night, he angrily requested Carrie “to mind her own business,” saying “he was fully competent to take charge of himself, without the interference of either wife or sister.” “Oh, what if he should look and talk so to me!” thought Mabel, shuddering as a dim foreboding of her sad future came over her.