"She is, I should tell you, also entitled to all our sympathy. She has suffered a great disappointment in her affections. She was engaged to be married to the late lamented Governor of the State, when, as you know, he was suddenly struck down with apoplexy, and died a few days before the day appointed for the wedding."
"Oh, indeed!" breathed Miss Crane, in a low, eager voice, losing all her stiffness and turning to glance at the interesting widowed bride elect.
"Yes. And you will find her a most interesting young person—devoted to good works, one of the excellent of the earth. When she was here, two or three years ago—in the same season that she was engaged to our honored and lamented Governor—she was quite famous for her charities."
"Oh, indeed!" again aspirated Miss Crane, glancing at Mrs. Grey.
"I am sure that you will be mutually pleased with each other, and, as she has declared her intention to make Richmond her permanent residence, I should not wonder if she also should make your pleasant house her permanent home," added the lady.
"Much honored, I'm sure," said Miss Crane, with a mixture of hauteur and complacency that was as perplexing as it was amusing.
"And now, if you please, we will rejoin your sister and Mrs. Grey," said the rector's lady, rising and leading the way to the front windows, near which the other two ladies were sitting.
The end of all this was that the Misses Crane engaged to take Mrs. Grey as a permanent boarder, only asking a few days to prepare the first floor front for her occupation.
No arrangement could have pleased Mary Grey better than this, for she wished to remain at the hotel a few days longer to receive the calls of her old friends, who would naturally expect to find her there, as she had given that address on the cards that she had left for them.
So it was finally arranged that Mrs. Grey should remove from the hotel to the Misses Cranes' on the Monday of the next week.