engaged."
"Oh, Maggie," said Carrie, "why not see her? I would if I were you."
"Rachel can ask her up here if you wish it," answered Mag, "but I shall leave the room."
"Faith, an' what shall I do?" asked Rachel, who was fresh from "swate Ireland" and felt puzzled to know why a "silk frock and smart bonnet" should not always be welcome. "Ask her up," answered Kate. "I've never seen her nearer than across the church and have some curiosity—"
A moment after Rachel thrust her head in at the parlor door, saying, "If you please, ma'am, Miss Marget is engaged, and does not want to see you, but Miss Carrie says you may come up there."
"Very well," said Lenora; and tripping after the servant girl, she was soon in Carrie's room.
After retailing nearly all the gossip of which she was mistress, she suddenly turned to Carrie, and said, "Did you know that your father was going to be married?"
"My father going to be married!" said Carrie, opening her blue eyes in astonishment. "My father going to be married! To whom pray?"
"To a lady from the East—one whom he used to know and flirt with when he was in college!" was Lenora's grave reply.
"What is her name?" asked Kate.
"Her name? Let me see—Miss—Blackwell—Blackmer—Blackheart. It sounds the most like Blackheart."
"What a queer name," said Kate; "but tell us what opportunity has Mr. Hamilton had of renewing his early acquaintance with the lady."
"Don't you know he's been East this winter?" asked Lenora.
"Yes, as far as Albany," answered Carrie.
"Well," continued Lenora, "'twas during his Eastern trip that the matter was settled; but pray don't repeat it from me, except it be to Maggie, who I dare say, will feel glad to be relieved of her heavy responsibilities—but as I live, Carrie, you are crying! What is the matter?"
But Carrie made no answer, and for a time wept on in silence. She could not endure the thought that another would so soon take the place of her lost mother in the household and in the affections of her father. There was, besides, something exceedingly annoying in the manner of her who communicated the intelligence, and secretly Carrie felt glad that the dreaded "Miss Blackheart" had, of course, no Lenora to bring with her!
"Do you know all this to be true?" asked Kate.
"Perfectly true," said Lenora. "We have friends living in the vicinity of the lady, and there can be no mistake, except, indeed, in the name, which I am not sure is right!"
Then hastily kissing Carrie, the little hussy went away, very well satisfied with her afternoon's call. As soon as she was out of hearing Margaret entered her sister's room, and on noticing Carrie's flushed cheek and red eyes, inquired the cause. Immediately Kate told her what Lenora had said, but instead of weeping, as Carrie had done, she betrayed no emotion whatever.
"Why, Maggie, ain't you sorry?" asked Carrie.
"No, I am glad," returned Mag. "I've seen all along that sooner or later father would make himself ridiculous, and I'd rather he'd marry forty women from the East, than one woman not far from here whom I know."
All that afternoon Mag tripped with unwonted gaiety about the house. A weight was lifted from her heart, for in her estimation any one whom her father would marry was preferable to Mrs. Carter.
Oh, how the widow scolded the daughter, and how the daughter laughed at the widow, when she related the particulars of her call.
"Lenora, what could have possessed you to tell such a lie?" said Mrs. Carter.
"Not so fast, mother mine," answered Lenora. "'Twasn't a lie. Mr. Hamilton is engaged to a lady from the East. He did flirt with her in his younger days; and, pray, didn't he have to come East when be called to inquire after his beloved classmates, and ended by getting checkmated! Besides, I think you ought to thank me for turning the channel of gossip in another direction, for now you will be saved from all impertinent questions and remarks."
This mode of reasoning failed to convince the widow, who felt quite willing that people should know of her flattering prospects; and when a few days after Mrs. Dr. Otis told her that Mrs. Kimball said that Polly Larkins said that her hired girl told her that Mrs. Kirby's hired girl told her that she overheard Miss Kate telling her mother that Lenora Carter said that Mr. Hamilton was going to be married to her mother's intimate friend, Mrs. Carter would have denied the whole and probably divulged her own secret, had not Lenora, who chanced to be present, declared, with the coolest effrontery, that 'twas all true—that her mother had promised to stand up with them, and so folks would find it to be if they did not die of curiosity before autumn!
"Lenora, child, how can you talk so?" asked the distressed lady, as the door closed upon her visitor.
Lenora went off into fits of explosive laughter, bounding up and down like an india-rubber ball, and at last condescended to say, "I know what I'm about. Do you want Mag Hamilton breaking up the match, as she surely would do, between this and autumn, if she knew it?"
"And what can she do?" asked Mrs. Carter.
"Why," returned Lenora, "can't she write to the place you came from, if, indeed, such a spot can be found?—for I believe you sometimes book yourself from one town and sometimes from another. But depend upon it you had better take my advice and keep still, and in the dénouement which follows, I alone shall be blamed for a slight stretch of truth which you can easily excuse as 'one of dear Lenora's silly, childish freaks!'"
Upon second thoughts, Mrs. Carter concluded to follow her daughter's advice, and the next time Mr. Hamilton called, she laughingly told the story which Lenora had set afloat, saying, by way of excuse, that the dear girl did not like to hear her mother joked on the subject of matrimony, and had turned the attention of people another way.
Mr. Hamilton hardly relished this, and half wished, mayhap, as, indeed, gentlemen generally do in similar circumstances, that the little "objection" in the shape of Lenora had never had existence, or at least had never called the widow mother!
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