Kind and affectionate as she tried to be toward ’Lena, Mrs. Graham had not yet fully conquered her olden prejudice, and had the matter been left wholly with herself, she would, perhaps, have chosen for her son a bride in whose veins no plebeian blood was flowing; but she well knew that her objections would have no weight, and she answered, that “she should not oppose him.”
“Then it is settled,” said he, “and four weeks from to-night I shall claim ’Lena for my own.”
“No, not so soon after grandma’s death,” ’Lena said, and Durward replied:
“If grandma could speak, she would tell you not to wait!” but ’Lena was decided, and the most she would promise was, that in the spring she would think about it!
“Six months,” said Durward, “I’ll never wait so long!” but he forbore pressing her further on the subject, knowing that he should have her in the house with him, which would in a great measure relieve the tedium of waiting.
During the autumn, his devotion to ’Lena furnished Carrie with a subject for many ill-natured remarks concerning newly-engaged people.
“I declare,” said she, one evening after the departure of Durward, ’Lena, and Nellie, who had been spending the day at Maple Grove, “I’m perfectly disgusted, and if this is a specimen, I hope I shall never be engaged.”
“Don’t give yourself a moment’s uneasiness,” retorted John Jr., “I’ve not the least idea that such a calamity will ever befall you, and years hence my grandchildren will read on some gravestone, ‘Sacred to the memory of Miss Caroline Livingstone, aged 70. In single blessedness she lived—and in the same did die!’”
“You think you are cunning, don’t you,” returned Carrie, more angry than she was willing to admit.
She had received the news of Durward’s engagement much better than could have been expected, and after a little she took to quoting and cousining ’Lena, while John Jr. seldom let an opportunity pass of hinting at the very recent date Of her admiration for Miss Graham.