“Yes, it is, too,” Ina said, laughing easily. “Charlotte, honey, I really think my things are going to do very well. I really think so. That tan canvas is a beauty, and so is the red foulard. She is really a very good dressmaker.”
“I think so too, dear,” Charlotte agreed. “I like the wedding-gown, too.”
“Yes, so do I; it is very pretty, though that does not so much matter.”
“Why, Ina Carroll!”
Ina laughed mischievously. “Now I have shocked you, dear. Of course it matters in one way, but I shall never wear it again after the ceremony; and you know I don't care much about the Banbridge people, and they will be the only ones to see me in it, and only that once.”
“But, Ina, he—your—Major Arms.”
Ina laughed again. “Oh, well, he thinks me perfectly beautiful anyway,” said she, in the tone of one to whom love was as dross because of the superabundance of it.
“Ina,” said Charlotte, with a solemn and timidly reflective air, “I don't believe you think half as much of him as you would if he didn't think so much of you.”
“Yes, I do think just as much,” said Ina, “but things always seem worth rather more when they are in a showcase and marked more than one can ever pay.” Then she started, and exclaimed: “Good gracious, there he is now!” She flushed all over her face and neck; then she turned pale and cast a half-wild look around her as if she wanted to run somewhere.
Indeed, at that moment the Carroll carriage drew up beside them, and on the back seat sat Captain Carroll and a very handsome man apparently about his own age, although at first glance he looked older because of snow-white hair and mustache. He was as tall as Carroll, and thinner, and less punctiliously attired, although he wore his somewhat slouching clothes with a certain careless assurance of being the master of them which Carroll, with all his elegance, did not excel.