That
was a fatal visit for your poor mother's hopes, when her aunt returned
she was armed to the teeth for her combat, it began the day after her
arrival; she had invited herself to come and sit with us as we busied
ourselves around the table in the library, as before; she wheeled her
chair towards the window, and leaning back among its cushions, she
began artfully.
"'Aunt Liddy was asking me what would make a nice wedding present,
girls; she expects to be called upon to make one very soon;' the color
crept into your mother's cheeks, and her brown hair almost touched the
paper she wrote upon. 'I told her I would ask you,' Miss Hartney
added, pointedly, 'as you're likely to know more about modern tastes
than I.'"
"'It depends on the sort of person it is intended for,' I said, very
indifferently, without looking up from my work; 'no two people
appreciate the same gift in exactly the same way.'
"'Well, Aunt Liddy does not know very much about the prospective
bride; the groom is her friend, he is a young student of the
University there,' your mother paused, but did not raise her eyes.
'His name is--Dalton,' Miss Hartney went on with an insinuation of
malicious triumph.
"Cousin Bessie!" I cried, leaning forward with quick eagerness and
interrupting her story, "_Dalton_, did you say?"
"Yes, Ernest Dalton," she answered me quietly. "Ernest Dalton whom you
now know, and who is the cause of your being with me to-day.
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