It came to pass Mrs. Phillips had to dismiss them on the plea of exhaustion. Lola apologized profusely. Elise felt guilty, but she asked for no pardon. The young women went out on the broad veranda. Elise offered Lola the hammock; but Mrs. Hazard was unconsciously too intent upon a present purpose to assume such a purposeless attitude. She took a rocking-chair, but she did not rock. As Elise arranged herself in the hammock, her friend bethought herself as to how she should begin her inquiries. She thought best not to display too minute an acquaintance with the situation. Elise had indeed some curiosity to know how Rutledge had come into possession of the letter, and believed that Lola could throw light on that matter. But to ask about it was too much like opening the grave of love: and she recoiled. Looking at her face in repose, Lola was convinced that things had gone wrong. This made her take the more thought for an opening. In the hush before the talk would begin, the boy brought the morning’s paper. Lola, seated nearest the steps, took it from his hand. She did not have to unfold it to read what was of supreme interest. As she read, her eyes danced. Half finished, she glanced from the paper to Elise, whose face was apathy clothed in flesh. Lola sought the paper again, feeling that the spooks were playing a trick upon her. It was very plain reading, however. She crushed the paper in her lap, and studied the profile of the girl in the hammock. "Elise!" she called, still feeling that the spooks had her. Elise slowly turned toward her a listless face,—which, indeed, took on some life at sight of Mrs. Hazard’s excitement. "What is it?" she asked. "Oh, full of all guile and subtlety!" Lola exclaimed with a gasp. "Well, I have never!" Elise looked at her inquiringly. "Listen, miss; while I read you the news." Lola picked up the paper and took time to smooth out its wrinkles. "Don’t be impatient, my lady.... Now. Here is the paragraph. It is part of a special despatch from Greenville, South Carolina. You have no idea where that is, of course; but listen: "Ex-Senator Rutledge spoke last. He had just arrived from Washington, unexpectedly, on a delayed train, and had not had time to brush the coal-dust from his clothes. He made the usual forcible speech with which he has dignified the campaign. At the end of it he said: ’My fellow countrymen, I must be honest and candid with you. At the Spartanburg meeting day before yesterday, in answer to the question of a disreputable dog, I said that I had neither the honour nor the hope to be engaged to the eldest daughter of the late President Phillips. That was the exact truth, my countrymen. To-day I tell you that I do have the happiness to be engaged to Miss Elise Phillips and that we will be married on the last Thursday in next March.’"