Fair’s approaching marriage became known speedily to the working girls, and many of them were pleased with her good fortune, while others were consumed with envy and malice. As for Mrs. Jones, the sensible forewoman, who had declared that no rich man would marry a working girl, she became quite unpopular with the majority, and had many a sly reminder of her false prophecy from one or another of the ambitious ones who hoped to do as well as Fair some day. The lovely Fair bore her honors very meekly, and did not seem elated by the brilliant prospect before her. Indeed, some of the girls decided that her heart was not in the affair, and that it was purely a mercenary match. “I do not believe it,” said another. “I think she is very much in love with him.” “But she is always so serious nowadays--always in a brown study,” said Sadie Allen, who was one of those who declared it was a mercenary match. One of the knowing ones, a girl who had had several love affairs, answered that that was one of the best signs of love. “She is always thinking of her lover, and pays no attention to anything else; that is all,” she declared. “Young ladies, please attend to your work!” put in the forewoman, a little sharply, and the merry girls who had been discussing love and marriage so gayly became mute as their fingers took up their tasks again. It was arranged that Fair should be married at church, and that the newly married pair, with the happy mother, should go at once to the elegant Fifth Avenue residence, where they were to spend a few weeks getting acquainted with their new life; then, leaving Mrs. Fielding in charge of the house, they were to start upon a European tour. “After the ceremony, we will hold a reception at home,” Mr. Lorraine said, adding: “As it is August, and all my fashionable friends are out of town, we will only ask a few people.” “Oh, George!” Fair exclaimed, then looked at him pleadingly. “Well, dearest?” he asked encouragingly, and she faltered: “I should like--like--to invite--some of the working girls to my reception.” He frowned slightly. “But, Fair, you know you will move in a different circle hereafter. And, besides, what would my cousin, Bayard Lorraine, say if he knew that, in addition to the crime of marrying a working girl, I actually invited sewing girls to my wedding reception?” The hot color flew to the creamy, fair cheeks, as it always did when he spoke that name, and Fair exclaimed angrily: “Who cares what he thinks? I hate him, and I wish he had not saved my life, so there!” And, to his consternation, she burst into a babyish fit of crying. CHAPTER VII. THE FATAL WEDDING. But she carried her point, after all, and a few of her companions at the factory--Sadie Allen, Belva Platt, Mrs. Jones, the forewoman, and a few others--were specially invited, and Fair delivered to each a message from Mr. Lorraine to the effect that they would be conveyed in carriages from the church to his residence.