Herbert was not in a very good mood to look over books. He had greeted his prospective fatherin-law very cordially, but had felt a little twinge of conscience, knowing he ought to be honest and outspoken and say to him: “I have asked Louie to be my wife, and she has consented.” He was in a great hurry to get to Louie, and while looking over the books kept wondering if Fred were there with her, or would he give up the call after what had been told him. Fred was there, and Blanche Percy was with him. She had signified a wish to see Louie again, and Fred had asked her to accompany him. But for his knowledge of the engagement he would have preferred going alone, but now it didn’t matter; nothing mattered much, and he wondered why he felt so dull and depressed, scarcely hearing what Blanche was saying to him as they drove to the Grey’s, where they found Louie just as he had found her the previous day, sitting alone on the piazza. She had not been as happy that day as newly engaged girls are wont to be. The secret weighed upon her, and she wondered how she could keep it four years, and why she must keep it at all. She would do a good deal to save Herbert from unpleasant relations with his father, but wouldn’t they be just as unpleasant at the last, when the truth was known? Would four years lessen them at all? She doubted it, and was sorry she had given the promise. Then, in spite of all she could do to prevent it, thoughts of Fred Lansing would obtrude themselves into her mind, with a feeling that he would never have required so hard a thing of her if a hundred fathers had stood in the way. He had said he should call that afternoon, and it was partly in anticipation of his call that she had taken a seat upon the piazza, just where she had met him the day before. There was nothing of the coquette about Louie. She had promised to be Herbert’s wife and would be true to him as steel; but just what her feeling was with regard to Fred Lansing, she did not know. Comparatively he was a stranger, and yet he did not seem so. He had been so kind and thoughtful, and was so wholly a gentleman in every act, and his voice had been so pleasant and winsome when he spoke to her, and his eyes had looked so kindly at her that her pulse throbbed with a delicious kind of exultation whenever she thought of him, and she was glad he was to be her cousin. The possibility that he might have been anything nearer to her did not enter her mind. He was far above her and above Herbert, who was more on her plane and suited her better. Then she wondered why Herbert had not been to see her, and was feeling a little piqued at his neglect, when the White carriage drew up and Miss Percy and Fred alighted.