"Jessie," he stammered, as he started to leave the room, "I'll admit that I'm a wretch, but I trust that you will not think it necessary to repeat this to everybody."
"I have no desire to injure you," she answered, and walking to the window she stood until she heard him leave the house; then her unwonted calmness gave way, and she burst into a flood of tears, sometimes wishing she had spoken more harshly to him, and again regretting that she had been harsh at all.
She might have spared herself this last feeling, for at that moment the man she had discarded was pouring into the ear of Charlotte Reeves words similar to those he had breathed to her not an hour before. And Charlotte, knowing nothing of Nellie,—nothing of Jessie, save that the latter had been a dreaded rival, said yes to him, on condition that her father's consent could be won.
This last was an easy matter; for Mr. Reeves, who scarcely had an identity save that connected with his business, answered that in this thing Charlotte would do as she pleased, just as she did in everything else, adding in a kind of absent way:
"I always intended giving her fifty thousand the day she was married, and after that my duty will be done."
William could scarcely refrain from hugging his prospective father-in-law, but he wisely withheld the hug for the daughter, who, while he was closeted with the father, ran with the news to the grandmother.
The next morning, as Jessie sat at her work, she was surprised at a call from Charlotte, who, seating herself upon the sofa began at once to unfold the object of her visit.
"She was engaged, and Jessie could not guess to whom if she guessed a year."
"William Bellenger," Jessie said at once, her lip curling with scorn, and her cheek growing slightly pale.
"You wicked creature," exclaimed Charlotte, jumping up and giving her a squeeze. "What made you think of him? I always supposed he would marry you, and used to be awful jealous. Yes, it's William. He came in last night and as pa chanced to be home in his room, the whole thing was arranged at once. I wanted so badly to wait till fall, and have a grand affair, but William is in such a hurry, and says it will be so much nicer to be a bride and belle, too, at Newport or Nahant, that I gave it up, and we are to be married the 10th of July, and go right off. Won't it be fun? I'm going to employ every dressmaker in the city, that is, every fashionable one. Father gave me a thousand dollars this morning to begin my shopping with," and the thoughtless light-hearted Charlotte clapped her hands and danced around the room in childish delight.