There was an awkward silence for a moment after she had ceased speaking; then Lady Sherbrooke said, in tones of grave reproof:
“Minnie, my dear, what a wild child you are; but you must learn to be more thoughtful of the feelings of others.”
“Why, what have I done?” she asked, with great, round, innocent eyes, yet a guilty flush rose to her cheeks.
“I am very glad if you enjoyed the ball,” her ladyship continued, still gravely; “but I regret that you should have proposed turning so serious a subject as marriage into mockery, and I am very sorry—yes, deeply displeased, that any one, in writing an account of our gathering here, should have given that farce such an appearance of reality, for it might make it very awkward, not only for my son, but also for some of our guests,” she concluded, with glance at Josephine’s downcast face.
Little Miss Shelton was very uneasy during this reproof, but she rallied, and said, lightly:
“But, dear Lady Sherbrooke, it was all done so nicely; and everything was so lovely that it almost seemed like a real wedding. I wish we could have a real wedding. Won’t somebody get married, please, and give me an invitation? I haven’t been to one since I was a little girl in short clothes.”
And the elf looked around her so roguishly, and with such an expression of mock distress on her pretty face, that the company broke into an indulgent laugh, and then the subject was for the time dropped.
But Josephine, watching her opportunity when some of the guests were leaving, and people generally were occupied saying farewell, sought and found that paper, and slipped it unobserved into her pocket.
In one of the rooms of a beautiful suite of apartments looking out upon St. James square, a young girl sat by a window, looking out upon the passers-by in the street below.