g--what is her name?--O, Geraldine--Geraldine Loring bought some
lace of her. She heard her say it was for the gown she was going to wear
at the horse-show. They had her picture in the paper just after the
horse-show, and it was all over lace, I saw it. It cost a whole lot. I
forget how many dollars a yard. But there was something the matter with
the dook. She didn't marry him, after all. In her picture she was driving
four horses. Don't you remember it, grandma? She sat up tall and high on a
seat, holding a whole lot of ribbons and whips and things. She has an
elegant figger. I guess mebbe the dook wasn't rich enough. She hasn't been
engaged to anybody else, and I shouldn't wonder now but she'd take George
Benedict back. He was so awful stuck on her!"

Lizzie rattled on, and the grandmother read more society notes, but
Elizabeth heard no more. Her hear had suddenly frozen, and dropped down
like lead into her being. She felt as if she never would be able to raise
it again. The lady! Surely she had forgotten the lady. But Geraldine
Loring! Of all women! Could it be possible? Geraldine Loring was
almost--well, fast, at least, as nearly so as one who was really of a fine
old family, and still held her own in society, could be. She was beautiful
as a picture; but her face, to Elizabeth's mind, was lacking in fine
feeling and intellect. A great pity went out from her heart to the man
whose fate was in that doll-girl's hands. True, she had heard that Miss
Loring's family were unquestionable, and she knew her mother was a most
charming woman. Perhaps she had misjudged her. She must have done so if he
cared for her, for it could not be otherwise.

The joy had gone out of the morning when Elizabeth went home. She went up
to her Grandmother Bailey at once, and after she had read her letters for
her, and performed the little services that were her habit, she said:

"Grandmother, I'm expecting a man to call upon me to-day. I thought I had
better tell you."

"A man!" said Madam Bailey, alarmed at once. She wanted to look over and
portion out the right man when the time came. "What man?"

"Why, a man I met in Montana," said Elizabeth, wondering how much she
ought to tell.

"A man you met in Montana! Horrors!" exclaimed the now thoroughly aroused
grandmother. "Not that dreadful creature you ran away from?"

"O no!" said Elizabeth, smiling. "Not that man. A man who was very kind to
me, and whom I like very much."

So much the w