The future stretched before her eyes in a haze of bliss—the realization of all the golden gleams she had been weaving to-day on the airy foundation of a bow and smile, and the gift of a bunch of red roses!
Silly, happy little Berry! How quickly her dream was to be shattered!
Mrs. Vining, draining her teacup, and setting it back in its saucer, now continued blandly:
“To-day my employer—Widower Wilson, you know—was talking to me about this very lawn fête that the Montagues are giving up at the hall to-night, and he said it was to announce Miss Rosalind’s betrothal to Senator Bonair’s handsome son, the one that rode with her this morning, Berry. And he went on to say—what do you think, my dear?” triumphantly.
“I don’t know, I’m sure,” Berry answered, with a sudden paling cheek, while she said to herself, in dismay:
“Oh, no, no, no, he is not engaged to her—he cannot be! He loves me—me only!—and he will surely come and tell me so!”
“He said, my dear, that he was hoping to have a lawn fête, too, very soon, to announce his engagement to the sweetest and prettiest girl in New Market, if she would have him, and he wanted her mother to ask her to-night if she would. Now can you guess?” smiling broadly.
“N-no, mamma!” faltered Berry.
“Why, then, you are very stupid, indeed, to-night, and I never found you so before! Well, then, it’s you, child, you, poor little Berry Vining, he wants to marry, when he might aspire almost to the highest. What a match for you, dearie! Aren’t you proud and glad?”
Berry, stamping her little foot, cried out petulantly: