At first Mrs. Livingstone hesitated, but when Carrie burst into a passionate fit of weeping, declaring “she’d kill herself if she had to stay much longer at Sunnyside and be petted by _that old fool_,” she consented, and one week from the day of the marriage they started. In Carrie’s eyes there was already a look of weary sadness, which said that the bitter tears were constantly welling up, while on her brow a shadow was resting, as if Sunnyside were a greater burden than she could bear. Alas, for a union without love! It seldom fails to end in misery, and thus poor Carrie found it. Her husband was proud of her, and, had she permitted, would have loved her after his fashion, but his affectionate advances were invariably repulsed, until at last he treated her with a cold politeness, far more endurable than his fawning attentions had been. She was welcome to go her own way, and he went his, each having in San Francisco their own suite of rooms, and setting up, as it were, a separate establishment. In this way they got on quite comfortably for a few weeks, at the end of which time Carrie took it into her capricious head to return to Maple Grove. She would never go back to Sunnyside, she said. And without a word of opposition the captain paid his bills, and started for Kentucky, where he left his wife at Maple Grove, she giving as a reason that “ma could not spare her yet.” Far different from this were the future prospects of Durward and ’Lena, who with perfect love in their hearts were married, a week after the departure of Captain Atherton for California. Very proudly Durward looked down upon her as he placed the first husband’s kiss on her brow, and in the soft brown eyes, brimming with tears, which she raised to his face, there was a world of tenderness, telling that theirs was a union of hearts as well as hands. The next night a small party assembled at the house of Mr. Douglass, in Frankfort, where Nellie was transformed into Nellie Livingstone. Perhaps it was the remembrance of the young girl to whom his vows had once before been plighted, that made John Jr. appear for a time as if he were in a dream. But the moment they rallied him upon the strangeness of his manner, he brightened up, saying that he was trying to get used to thinking that Nellie was really his. It had been decided that he should accompany Durward and ’Lena to Europe, and a day or two after his marriage he asked Mr. Everett to go too. Anna’s eyes fairly danced with joy, as she awaited Malcolm’s reply. But much as he would like to go, he could not afford it, and so he frankly said, kissing away the big tear which rolled down Anna’s cheek.