“I have but little influence over Louisa,” said the trembling girl, “but all that I have shall be exerted in your behalf.”
“Louisa!—your sister!—I really do not comprehend you, Kate.”
A momentary feeling of wounded pride aroused Kate, and mastered her coming weakness. She rose from her seat; “Did you not ask me to be your advocate with my sister?” asked she, while her cheek and lip grew white as ashes.
“My advocate with your sister!” exclaimed Clarence; “no indeed: Kate! my own dearest Kate! it was with your own sweet self I wanted an advocate, and hoped to find my strongest one in your heart.”
Kate grew dizzy and faint; a mist gathered before her eyes, and when it cleared away she was sitting on the sofa, with a strong arm lovingly twined about her waist, and on the soft white hand which lay in the grasp of Clarence glittered the betrothal ring, though how or when it was placed there she never clearly could remember.
“How strangely Clarence Ferrers disappeared from the ball to-night,” exclaimed Mrs. Lorimer, as she puffed her way up to her room at two o’clock in the morning.
“I was not sorry he went, mamma, for it gave Frank the chance he has so long wanted. He offered himself last night, while we were in the midst of that last polka; and I referred him to papa,” said Louisa, as she turned toward her own room.
“Well, I only hope you have not been too hasty,” said the mother, too sleepy just then to care much about the matter.
The next morning Mr. Lorimer was visited in his private office by the young and handsome Frank Dormer. He was an only child; his father was prepared to “come down” handsomely with the cash, and Mr. Lorimer gave a ready assent to the proposition of the enamored youth. He had scarcely finished his after-dinner nap, on the same day, when Clarence Ferrers sought an interview. Matters were soon arranged with a man who was “worth half a million,” and Mr. Lorimer chuckled and rubbed his hands with infinite glee, as he reminded his wife of her prediction that “Kate was a predestinate old maid.”