be," answered Nellie, "if I were sure you did not
care."

"Care! for whom?" returned Maude. "For J.C. De Vere? Every particle
of love for him has died out, and I am now inclined to think I never
entertained for him more than a girlish fancy, while he certainly
did not truly care for me."

This answer was very quieting to Nellie's conscience, and in
unusually good spirits she abandoned herself to the excitement which
usually precedes a wedding. Mrs. Kennedy, too, entered heart and
soul into the matter, and arming herself with the plea, that "it was
his only daughter, who would probably never be married again," she
coaxed her husband into all manner of extravagances, and by the 1st
of March few would have recognized the interior of the house, so
changed was it by furniture and repairs. Handsome damask curtains
shaded the parlor windows, which were further improved by large
heavy panes of glass. Matty's piano had been removed to Maude's
chamber, and its place supplied by a new and costly instrument,
which the crafty woman made her husband believe was intended by Mrs.
Kelsey, who selected it, as a bridal present for her niece. The
furnace was in splendid order, keeping the whole house, as Hannah
said, "hotter than an oven," while the disturbed doctor lamented
daily over the amount of fuel it consumed, and nightly counted the
contents of his purse or reckoned up how much he was probably worth.
But neither his remonstrances nor yet his frequent groans had any
effect upon his wife. Although she had no love for Nellie, she was
determined upon a splendid wedding, one which would make folks talk
for months, and when her liege lord complained of the confusion, she
suggested to him a furnished room in the garret, where it would be
very quiet for him to reckon up the bill, which from time to time
she brought him.

"Might as well gin in at oncet," John said to him one day, when he
borrowed ten dollars for the payment of an oyster bill. "I tell you
she's got more besom in her than both them t'other ones."

The doctor probably thought so too, for he became comparatively
submissive, though he visited often the sunken graves, where he
found a mournful solace in reading, "Katy, wife of Dr. Kennedy, aged
twenty-nine,"--"Matty, second wife of Dr. Kennedy, aged thirty," and
once he was absolutely guilty of wondering how the words, "Maude,
third wife of Dr. Kennedy, aged forty-one," would look. But he
repented him of the wicked thought