“‘I’m ow’re young to marry yet.’” “If you put off the wedding-day long, I shall be getting gray. You would not like that,” he answered, getting in return the sweetest, shyest look of love that seemed to bid defiance to the frosty encroachments of age. But by and by she found that he was quite in earnest in pleading for an early marriage. He did not want to seem selfish, but he knew in his heart that it would be better to marry Thea as soon as possible, and take her away from Verelands, lest some echo of the vile rumors that had been circulating should reach her ears and sully her pure spirit with their venom. “Mother, what is to hinder your taking Sweetheart to New York at once and ordering the wedding things for a month hence?” he asked; and Mrs. de Vere replied that it would please her very much to do so. “The wedding and traveling-dress after all will be the most we will have to buy there, for if you go abroad on your wedding-tour, Sweetheart can get lots of pretty things in Paris,” she said. “Paris? Oh!” cried the girl, in a rapture of pleasure. “Then you will like to go abroad?” her lover asked, smiling; and she clapped her pretty hands in childish delight, and offered no objections to being married in a month. She said, naïvely, no one would think of falling in love with her for her eyes and curls when she was a married woman, and though Norman smiled at that, he did not contradict her assertion. Then Mrs. de Vere decided that she would call upon the Bentleys at once to express her sympathy in their trouble. Thea need not go, she thought, as the girl had owned frankly to all that had passed between herself and Cameron last night. “They would rather not see you, I know, for it is natural they should feel some little resentment against you,” she said. “But, dear Mrs. de Vere, I am not to blame. I never gave him any encouragement,” opening her blue eyes reproachfully. “The Bentleys will believe the reverse for awhile, of course, but when Cameron gets well they will get over their nonsense, especially as you will be married and gone.” So Mrs. de Vere went alone to Orange Grove, where she had the satisfaction of learning that Cameron’s wound was by no means as serious as supposed, and that if all went well he would be out again in a few weeks. “Miss Faris is playing her part very skillfully, and if Cameron is as fickle as he is reckless, it is likely that she will catch his heart in the rebound. So do not worry yourself, dear, over the fate of this desperate youth,” she said, consolingly, to Thea. CHAPTER XLVI. Thea could not help writing a surreptitious little note of farewell to her dear friend Nellie Bentley: