“Maybe I shall come to see you married, and maybe I shall not,” she said to Annie. “I can’t tell how I shall feel. If I do come you may think I have a good deal of inward and spiritual grace. I ought to have something to sustain me, for between you and Jack I have been pounded to a pummice. Even George would be satisfied, if he knew. Poor George! he wasn’t the worst man in the world.”
She was getting up quite a little sentiment for her husband’s memory and talked of him a good deal, especially to Jack, during the last days of her stay in Lovering, and she persisted in wearing her cap and twisting her hair in a fashion which Annie thought horrid. Once at the Springs, however, there was a change. The cap disappeared,—the hair came back to its usual becoming style; there were narrow bands of white at the neck and wrists of her black dresses, and among the guests there was no one half so much admired and sought after as the beautiful Mrs. George Errington of Washington.
Chapter XV.—Author’s Story Continued.
THE TENANT AT THE PLATEAU.
Jack had decided that his marriage should take place some time in October, and soon after Fanny left he made arrangements whereby he could leave his business for a while and join the party in Europe for the winter. Nothing could please Annie better, and she immediately wrote to Fanny asking if she would go with them.
“Not if I know myself,” was her prompt reply, “and you are crazy to ask it. A real honeymoon in Europe, such as your’s and Jack’s will be, must be delightful, but you ought to be alone. Think of me,—Jack’s first love,—stalking along with you! No, thank you. And don’t think I am eating my heart out with disappointment. I am not. I felt stunned at first to find myself so completely stranded, but there is a good deal left for me to enjoy yet. It is something to be admired and complimented and sought after as I am here, even if they are simpletons, or fortune-hunters, who do it. The wedding is the 20th of October, is it? Well, I have decided to come and do the honors, and I am going to bring you a diamond pin and earrings, and make over to you Carl’s present to me three years ago. He meant it for Jack’s wife, and Jack’s wife shall have it. Give him my love, dear old boy. Don’t be jealous. He is a dear old boy, and you are sure to be happy with him. Going on the Celtic, are you? We went on the Celtic, and our stateroom, where Jack’s eyes haunted me so, was No —. Funny if you should get it.”
“Jack,” Annie said, the first time she saw him after the receipt of this letter, “have you engaged our stateroom on the Celtic?”
“Yes.”
“What is the number?”
“No —.”