“As the gospel. Ask her yourself. She doesn’t seem ashamed of the match, but presents the girl to any one that comes up. Disgusting, isn’t it. As if she had not trouble enough to get into society herself, without that.” In his anxiety Ivon had turned toward the drawing-room, which Mrs. Lambert had just left. At the door he met the gentleman who had placed her in the carriage. “Ah! I have discovered you at last,” he said, addressing Miss Spicer. “Mrs. Lambert has gone home. She desired me to say that the carriage would be sent back for you.” “The idea!” exclaimed that young lady, casting a significant glance at Ivon. “Does she expect us to ride home alone? People will say that we are engaged.” “Very naturally,” answered the gentleman; at which Miss Spicer struck him with her fan, exclaiming again, “The idea!” The gentleman passed on, laughing pleasantly. Ivon and his companion entered the great drawing-room. “There they stand now! Does that look like an engagement?” cried the young lady. “Watch their faces, see her eyes. What an artful way she has of lifting them—practises at the counter, I suppose. Do you believe me now?” Miss Spicer used her own eyes as she spoke, and saw that Ivon was deadly pale. Still, she had no mercy on him. “There! See how he bends over her! What expression! What tender interest one can read in his face! No wonder she looks at him so earnestly. He is the handsomest man I have seen this year, spite of a few grey hairs. Rich, too, or will be; for the Carters mean to give them everything. Isn’t she in a good run of luck?” Ivon did not answer, but led his companion to the mistress of the house, and went through the ceremony of leave-taking quietly, and as if nothing had happened; but his face was colorless, and the hand which touched Eva’s in parting, was cold as stone. “Why, one would think the girl had rejected you, by the color of your face,” said Miss Spicer, as Ivon went with her from the room. He answered her very quietly, “She has rejected me!” CHAPTER XLIV. CLOSING THE SHUTTERS. Jared Boyce had a taste for society, and managed to enjoy a good deal of it from the side-walk and park-benches wherein he could get an hour or two in the day-time, or close the grocery early enough to witness the outgoings or incomings of a fashionable party at night. Of course, this great entertainment at the Carters had been the excitement of the week in that corner store. Innumerable were the errands Boyce had run to milliners, thread needle stores, and apothecaries, in behalf of his mistress, who was so completely absorbed in her preparations, that she generally forgot to count the change brought back from these little excursions—a circumstance out of which he had made considerable profit.