would turn out better than she feared.

It was Mabel's wish that 'Lena and Anna should be her bridesmaids,
Durward and Malcolm officiating as groomsmen, and as Mr. Bellmont was
away, she wrote to him requesting his attendance, but saying she had
not yet mentioned the subject to 'Lena. Painful as was the task of
being thus associated with 'Lena, Durward felt that to refuse might
occasion much remark, so he wrote to Mabel that "he would comply with
her request, provided Miss Rivers were willing."

"Of course she's willing," said Mabel to herself, at the same time
running with the letter to 'Lena, who, to her utter astonishment, not
only refused outright, but also declined giving any particular reason
for her doing so. "Carrie will suit him much better than I," said
she, but unfortunately, Carrie, who chanced to be present, half
hidden in the recess of a window, indignantly declined "going
Jack-at-a-pinch" with any one, so Mabel was obliged to content
herself with Anna and Mr. Everett.

But here a new difficulty arose, for Mrs. Livingstone declared that
the latter should not be invited, and Anna, in a fit of anger,
insisted that if _he_ were not good enough to be present, neither was
she, and she should accordingly remain in her own room. Poor Mabel
burst into tears, and when, a few moments afterward, John Jr.
appeared, asking what ailed her, she hid her face in his bosom and
sobbed like a child. Then, frightened at her own temerity, for he
gave her no answering caress, she lifted up her head, while with a
quizzical expression John Jr. said, "So-ho, Meb, seems to me you've
taken to crying on my jacket a little in advance. But what's the
matter?"

In a few words Mabel told him how everything went wrong, how neither
'Lena, Carrie, nor Anna would be her bridesmaids, and how Anna
wouldn't see her married because Malcolm was not invited.

"I can manage that," said John Jr. "Mr. Everett _shall_ be invited,
so just shut up crying, for if there's anything I detest, it's a
woman's sniveling;" and he walked off thinking he had begun just as
he meant to hold out.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE BRIDAL.

'Twas Mabel's wedding night, and in one of the upper rooms of Mr.
Livingstone's house she stood awaiting the summons to the parlor.
They had arrayed her for the bridal; Mrs. Livingstone, Carrie, 'Lena,
Anna, and the seamstress, all had had something to do with her
toilet, and now they had left her for a time with him who wa