ver and many
friends; and now _en route_ for the World's Fair, to enjoy it in her
lover's society. Happy girl! the only little speck upon her fair
horizon when she penned that letter was the fact that her dearest
friend and schoolmate was not quite so happy.

And June Jenrys? The two letters taken together had told me this: She
was an orphan, and wealthy, left in her teens to the guardianship of
an aunt, her father's widowed sister, a woman of fashion _par
excellence_. During her niece's minority this lady had tyrannized all
she would, and now, Miss Jenrys having recently come of age, she yet
tyrannized all she could. The aunt was eager to mate her niece to a
man of her own selection and a heavy purse. The niece until recently
had looked with some favour upon a young man, handsome enough--even
Miss O'Neil admitted that--and a gentleman beyond question, but with
no visible fortune. A short time before--but I will let Miss Jenrys
tell this much of her own story, quoting from the fourth page of her
letter:

'I did not mean it so, really, Hilda dear, although it has seemed so
to you. You see, I expected to meet you in Boston ere this, and that
is so much better than writing; and now I must write after all, and
instead of its being from me in Boston to you in New York, it is from
me here in the "White City"--such a city, Hilda!--to you in Boston,
and at Nellie Trent's.

'Well, you must know this, that it was just after Aunt Charl had
"washed her hands of me," matrimonially speaking, for the--well, for
the last time; and I was feeling very high and mighty, and Aunt Charl
quite subdued, for her, that we gave a reception, the last before
Lent. Of course he was there, and I had made up my mind that day that
I would be honest with my own heart in spite of Aunt Charl. "I'm sure
he cares for me," I said to myself, and--well, I knew I liked him a
little. I knew he only waited for the opportunity to speak, and while
I would have died rather than help him make it, I said, "If he does
find the chance--if he does speak, or when he does--well!"

'I shall never forget that night! Aunt was good enough to say that I
was looking my very best. I am sure I felt so. But of course aunt
spoiled it all--her pretty speech, I mean.

'"June," she wheedled, "that handsome Maurice Voisin will be here, and
I happen to know that he admires you very much. Charlie Wiltby says he
is no end of a swell in Paris, and that he is really a rich man, who
pr