magine that," said Ina, feebly. As she spoke she held up
her hand, and a great diamond flashed rose and green and white.

"No, I don't imagine it. I have not seen it once like that. You ought
to be ashamed of yourself. You must go straight back down-stairs.
People when they are engaged always sit up alone together. You are
not doing right coming up here with me."

"What are you scolding me for? Who said I was not going back?"
returned Ina, with resentful shame.

"You know you were not."

"I was."

"Well, good-night, honey," said Charlotte, in a softer tone.

"Good-night."

Charlotte kissed her sister, and saw her leave the room and go down
to her lover with a curious mixture of pity and awe and wrath and
wistful affection. It almost seemed to her that Ina was happy,
although afraid and ashamed to be, and it made her seem like a
stranger to the maiden ignorance of her own heart.

Chapter XVII

There was a good deal of talk in Banbridge when Ina Carroll's
wedding-invitations were out. There were not many issued. When it
came to making out the list, the number of persons who, from what the
family considered as a reasonable point of view, were possible, was
exceedingly small.

"Of course we cannot ask such and such a one," Mrs. Carroll would
say, and the others would acquiesce simply, with no thought of the
possibility of anything else.

"There's that young man who goes on the train every morning with
papa," said Charlotte. "His name is Veazie--Francis Veazie. He has
called here. They live on Elm Street. His father is that nice-looking
old gentleman who walks past here every day, on his way to the mail,
a little lame."

"Charlotte, dear," said Ina, "don't you remember that somebody told
us that that young man was a floor-walker in one of the department
stores?"

"Oh, sure enough," said Charlotte, "I do remember, dear."

"There are really very few indeed in a place like Banbridge whom it
is possible to invite to a wedding," said Mrs. Carroll.

Banbridge itself shared her opinion. Those who were bidden to the
wedding acquiesced in their selectedness and worthiness; those who
were not bidden, with a very few exceptions of unduly aspiring souls,
acquiesced calmly in their own ineligibility. Banbridge, for a
village in the heart of a republic, had a curious rigidity of
establishment and content as to its social conditions. For the most
part those who were not invited would have been embarrassed and eve