"Or she may have refused him," said Mrs. Freeman.
"What is Miss Thorne's version?" said Aunt Sophia. "I shall stand by that whatever it is. Considering the extent of that young woman's information, I am perpetually surprised by its accuracy."
"Ada thinks Lily never let it come to a proposal, but probably let Jack see from the beginning that it would be useless, and that is why they were on such friendly terms."
"Well!" said Aunt Sophia, "I am always glad to think better of my fellow-creatures. I always thought Jack Allston a fool for marrying as he did if he could have had Lily, and now I only think him half a one, since he couldn't. I am only afraid the folly is on poor Lily's side. However, we must all fulfil our destiny, and I always said she was born to become the heroine of a domestic drama, at least."
"Oh, here's Bob!" said Emmeline, as her elder brother's entrance broke in upon the conversation. "Bob, who do you think is engaged?"
"You have lost your chance of telling, Emmie," replied the young man, with a careful carelessness of manner; "I have just had the pleasure of walking from the village with Ada Thorne."
"Really, it is too bad of Ada," said Emmeline, as she adjusted her hat at the glass. "She will not leave me one person to tell by to-morrow. Bessie, I think as long as we are going to five o'clock tea at the Pattersons', and I have all my things on, I will set out now and make some calls on the way. You might dress and come after me. I will be at Nina Turner's. Mamma and Aunt Sophy can"—but her voice was an indistinct buzz in her brother's ears, as he stood looking blankly out of the window at the bright crocus tufts. He had never had any intention of proposing to Lily Carey himself, and he knew that if he had she would never have accepted him, yet somehow a shadow had crept over the day that was so bright before.
Lily Carey was at that time a very conspicuous figure in Boston society; that is, in the little circle of young people who went to all the "best" balls and assemblies. She was also well known in some that were less select, for the Careys had too assured a position to be exclusive, and were too good-natured to be fashionable, so that she knew the whole world and the whole world knew her. To be exact, she was acquainted with about one five-hundredth part of the inhabitants of Boston and vicinity, was known by sight to about twice as many, and by name to as many more, with acquaintance also in such other cities and villages as had sufficiently advanced in civilisation to have a "set" which knew the Boston "set." She stood out prominently from the usual dead level of monotonous prettiness which is the rule in American ballrooms and gives piquant plainness so many advantages. Her nymph-like figure, dressed very likely in a last-year's gown of no particular fashion—for the Careys were of that Boston monde which systematically under-dresses—made the other girls look small and pinched and doll-like; her towering head, crowned with a great careless roll of her bright chestnut hair, made theirs look like barbers' dummies; and her brilliant colouring made one half of them show dull and dingy, the other faded and washed out. These advantages were not always appreciated as such—by no means; unusual beauty, like unusual genius, may fly over the heads of the uneducated; and it was the current opinion among the young ladies who only knew her by sight, and their admirers, that "Miss Carey had no style." Among her own acquaintance she reigned supreme. To have been in love with Lily Carey was regarded by every youth of quality as a necessary part of the curriculum of Harvard University; so much so that it was not at all detrimental to their future matrimonial prospects. Her old lovers, like her left-over partners, were always at the service of her whole coterie of adoring intimate friends. If she had no new ideas, these not being such common articles as is usually supposed, no one could more cleverly seize upon and deftly adapt some stray old one. She could write plays when none could be found to suit, and act half the parts, and coach the other actors; she made her mother give new kinds of parties, where all the new-old dances and games were brought to life again; and she set the little fleeting fashions of the day that never get into the fashion-books, to which, indeed, her dress might happen or not to correspond; but the exact angle at which she set on her hat, and the exact knot in which she tied her sash, and the exact spot where she stuck the rose in her bosom, were subjects of painstaking study, and objects of generally unsuccessful imitation to the rest of womankind.
Why Lily Carey at one and twenty was not married, or even engaged, was a mystery; but for four years she had been supposed by that whole world of which we have spoken to be destined for Jack Allston. Jack was young, handsome, rich, of good family, and so rising in his profession, the law, that no one could suppose he lacked brains, though in general matters they were not so evident. For four years he had skated with Lily, danced with her, sung with her, ridden, if not driven, with her, sent her flowers, and scarcely paid a single attention of the sort to any other girl; and Lily had danced, sung, ridden, skated with him, at least twice as often as with any other man. Jack had had the entrée of the Carey house, where old family friendship had admitted him from boyhood, almost as if he were another son, and was made far more useful than sons generally allow themselves to be made. He came to all parties early and stayed late, danced with all the wall-flowers and waited upon all the grandmothers and aunts, and prompted and drew up the curtain, and took all the "super" parts at their theatricals. He was "Jack" to all of them, from Papa Carey down to Muriel of four years old. The Carey family, if hints were dropped, disclaimed so smilingly that everyone was convinced that they knew all about it, and that Mrs. Carey, a most careful mother, who spent so much time in acting chaperon to her girls that she saw but little of them, would never have allowed it to go so far unless there were something in it. Why this something was not announced was a mystery. At first many reasons were assigned by those who must have reasons for other people's actions, all very sufficient: Lily too young, Jack not through the law-school, the Allstons in mourning, etc., etc.; but as one after another exhibited its futility, and new ones were less readily discovered, the subject was discussed in less amiable mood by tantalised expectants, and the ominous sentence was even murmured, "If they are not engaged they ought to be."
On October 17, 1887, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé stock was quoted at 90½, and the engagement of Mr. John Somerset Allston to Miss Julia Henrietta Bradstreet Noble was announced with all the formality of which Boston is capable on such occasions. It can hardly be said which piece of news created the greater sensation; but many a paterfamilias who had dragged himself home sick at heart from State Street found his family so engrossed in their own private morsel of intelligence that his, with all its consequences of no new bonnets and no Bar Harbor next summer, was robbed of its sting. All was done according to the most established etiquette. Jack Allston had told all the men at his lunch club, and a hundred notes from Miss Noble to her friends and relatives, which she had sat up late for the two preceding nights to write, had been received by the morning post. Jack had sat up later than she had, but only one single note had been the product of his vigils.