to ring in happier days for Charlotte. “Ah, when she has her first baby,” the Ralston mothers chorused....

{24}

“Chatty!” Delia exclaimed, pushing back her chair as she saw her cousin’s image reflected in the glass over her shoulder.

Charlotte Lovell had paused in the{25} doorway. “They told me you were here—so I ran up.”

{25}

“Of course, darling. How handsome you do look in your poplin! I always said you needed rich materials. I’m so thankful to see you out of grey cashmere.” Delia, lifting her hands, removed the white bonnet from her dark polished head, and shook it gently to make the crystals glitter.

“I hope you like it? It’s for your wedding,” she laughed.

Charlotte Lovell stood motionless. In her mother’s old dove-coloured poplin, freshly banded with narrow rows of crimson velvet ribbon, an ermine tippet crossed on her bosom, and a new beaver bonnet with a falling feather, she had already something of the assurance and majesty of a married woman.

“And you know your hair certainly is{26} darker, darling,” Delia added, still hopefully surveying her.

{26}

“Darker? It’s grey,” Charlotte suddenly broke out in her deep voice. She pushed back one of the pommaded bands that framed her face, and showed a white lock on her temple. “You needn’t save up your bonnet; I’m not going to be married,” she added, with a smile that showed her small white teeth in a fleeting glare.

Delia had just enough presence of mind to lay down the bonnet, marabout-up, before she flung herself on her cousin.

“Not going to be married? Charlotte, are you perfectly crazy?”

“Why is it crazy to do what I think right?”

“But people said you were going to marry him the year you came out. And no one understood what happened then.{27} And now—how can it possibly be right? You simply can’t!” Delia incoherently cried.

{27}

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