arations began, and if Carrie had never
before felt a pang of envy, she did now, when she saw the elegant
trousseau which Mr. Graham ordered for his daughter. But all such
feelings must be concealed, and almost every day she rode over to
Woodlawn, admiring this, going into ecstasies over that, and
patronizingly giving her advice on all subjects, while all the time
her heart was swelling with bitter disappointment. Having always
felt so sure of securing Durward, she had invariably treated other
gentlemen with such cool indifference that she was a favorite with
but few, and as she considered these few her inferiors, she had more
than once feared lest John Jr.'s prediction concerning the
_lettering_ on her tombstone should prove true!

"Anything but that," said she, dashing away her tears, as she thought
how 'Lena had supplanted her in the affections of the only person she
could ever love,

"Old Marster Atherton done want to see you in the parlor," said
Corinda, putting her head in at the door.

Since his unfortunate affair with Anna, the captain had avoided Maple
Grove, but feeling lonely at Sunnyside, he had come over this morning
to call. Finding Mrs. Livingstone absent, he had asked for Carrie,
who was so unusually gracious that he wondered he had never before
discovered how greatly superior to her sister she was! All his
favorite pieces were sung to him, and then, with the patience of a
martyr, the young lady seated herself at the backgammon board,
playing game after game, until she could scarcely tell her men from
his. On his way home the captain fell into a curious train of
reflections, while Carrie, when asked by Corinda, if "old marster was
done gone," sharply reprimanded the girl, telling her "it was very
impolite to call anybody _old_, particularly one so young as Captain
Atherton!"

The next day the captain came again, and the next, and the next,
until at last his former intimacy at Maple Grove seemed to be
re-established. And all this time no one had an inkling of the true
state of things, not even John Jr., who never dreamed it possible for
his haughty sister, to grace Sunnyside as its mistress. "But
stranger things than that had happened and were happening every day,"
Carrie reasoned, as she sat alone in her room, revolving the
propriety of answering "Yes" to a note which the captain had that
morning placed in her hand at parting. She looked at herself in the
mirror. Her face was very fair, an