was
trying to talk his mother over, for nothing could be more mortifying
than to be cut by the Sherwoods, who were among the first in Hartford.

Afterward, greatly to my satisfaction, I heard that though,
motherlike, Mrs. Hudson had forgiven her son, Mr. Sherwood ever
treated him with a cool haughtiness, which effectually kept him at a
distance.

Once, indeed, at Mabel's earnest request, Mrs. Gilbert and Nellie were
invited to visit her, and as the former was too feeble to accomplish
the journey, Nellie went alone, staying a long time, and torturing her
sister on her return with a glowing account of the elegantly-furnished
house, of which Adaline had once hoped to be the proud mistress.

For several years after Mabel's departure from Rice Corner nothing
especial occurred in the Gilbert family, except the marriage of
Adaline with a rich bachelor, who must have been many years older than
her father, for he colored his whiskers, wore false teeth and a wig,
besides having, as Nellie declared, a wooden leg! For the truth of
this last I will not vouch, as Nellie's assertion was only founded
upon the fact of her having once looked through the keyhole of his
door, and espied standing by his bed something which looked like a
cork leg, but which might have been a boot! What Adaline saw in him to
like I could never guess. I suppose, however, that she only looked at
his rich gilding, which covered a multitude of defects.

Immediately after the wedding the happy pair started for a two-years'
tour in Europe, where the youthful bride so enraged her bald-headed
lord by flirting with a mustached Frenchman that in a fit of anger the
old man picked up his goods, chattels, and wife, and returned to New
York within three months of his leaving it!

CHAPTER VI.

POOR, POOR NELLIE.

And now, in the closing chapter of this brief sketch of the Gilberts,
I come to the saddest part--the fate of poor Nellie, the dearest
playmate my childhood ever knew, she whom the lapse of years ripened
into a graceful, beautiful girl, loved by everybody, even by Tom
Jenkins, whose boyish affection had grown with his growth and
strengthened with his strength.

And now Nellie was the affianced bride of William Raymond, who had
replaced the little cornelian with the engagement ring. At last the
rumor reached Tom Jenkins, awaking him from the sweetest dream he had
ever known. He could not ask Nellie if it were true, so he came to me;
and when I saw