So there was a week to be spent with Betty, Miss Elizabeth Fairfax, as she was called now.
"And what a shame your cousin's affairs should have come to naught!" Betty declared. "To give up a fine young soldier, and then to have her second lover come to grief. It is a case of the two stools, and one coming to the floor. If I had not heard of your engagement, Jaqueline, I should have asked him to stand with you. If I had known him better I should have invited him, anyhow. There are several guests coming from Washington."
"If I had only known you cared!" cried Jaqueline.
"You see, I want to make as brave a show as possible," and Betty laughed. "I desire to let my liege-lord see that I have been accustomed to the best, and a good deal of it, so he won't consider me an ignoramus when he is inaugurated Governor later on."
"Then let us have Mr. Ralston!" Jaqueline's eyes were alight with eagerness and amusement. "I will write to Mr. Carrington, and you shall inclose an invitation. I'll send a few lines too, so that he can see it is really meant."
"That's quite delightful of you. Maybe he will find some balm to mend his broken heart among the pretty girls."
"He is not heartbroken now, although he took it very hard at first. Grandpapa was bitterly opposed to it, you know. And Marian is in mourning and goes nowhere, because grandmamma thinks she ought not to be left alone."
"But Mr. Greaves will never recover. Doctor Leets said so."
"Oh, no! No one expects it, I think."
"Well, I suppose the devotion to a lost cause looks very pretty and constant. Only she will not be a widow, more's the pity, for widows soon pick up husbands. Now about the invitation."