Our engagement having received the openly expressed though secretly unwilling sanction of my father, Mr. Carrington comes over every other day to our house, where he of course meets with overpowering sweetness from everybody--Dora excepted. Not that she shows him any demonstrative dislike. If she happens to be in the room when he arrives she is as civil as the occasion calls for, but at the first opportunity she makes her exit, not to return again during his stay, and, if possible, avoids his society altogether. A heavy sense of injury is upon her, impossible to lift. To me she has said little or nothing on the subject. Once, two days after my engagement was made known, happening to find herself alone with me, she said, curiously:--- "Was it your photograph I saw Mr. Carrington kissing that day?" And when I answered "Yes," rather shamefacedly, she turned from me with lowered lids and a curved smile that suggested many thoughts. Like most even-tempered people, Dora, when roused, is singularly obstinate and unforgiving. At times I am a little unhappy, but very seldom. On such occasions the horrible doubt that I am marrying Marmaduke for his money crushes me. Every now and then I catch myself revelling in the thought of what I shall do for Billy and Roly and all of them, when plenty of gold is at my disposal. I try to think how much I like him, how handsome he is, how kind, how good to me, but always at the end of my cogitations I find my thoughts reverting to the grand house in which I am to reign as queen, or to the blue velvet dress I mean to wear as soon as I can afford to buy it. I now glory in an engagement ring that sparkles fairly and gives me much pleasure. I have also an enormous locket, on which the letters P. M. V. are marked out by brilliants. This latter contains an exquisitely painted miniature of my betrothed, and is given to me by him in a manner that betokens doubt of its being acceptable. "I don't suppose you will care for the picture part of it," he says with a laugh and a rather heightened color. But I _do_ care for it, picture and all, and tell him so, to his lasting satisfaction, though it must be confessed I look oftener at the _outside_ of that locket than at any other part of it. Thus by degrees I find myself laden with gifts of all kinds--for the most part costly; and, as trinkets are scarce with us and jewels imaginary, it will be understood that each new ornament added to my store raises me higher in the social scale. So time speeds and Christmas passes and gentle spring grows apace. "Come out," says Billy one morning early in April, thrusting a disheveled head into my room; "come out: it is almost warm." Whereupon I don my hat and sally forth, my Billy in attendance.