was one smaller and more elegant
than the rest, and as if it were more precious, too, it was the first
which Durward took from the floor.

"See, Carrie, he gives you the preference," whispered one of the
young ladies on the right, and Carrie Livingstone for she it was,
felt a thrill of gratified pride, when she saw how carefully he
guarded the bouquet, which during all the exercises she had made her
especial care, calling attention to it in so many different ways that
hardly any one who saw it in Durward's possession, could fail of
knowing from what source it same.

But then everybody said they were engaged--so what did it matter?
Everybody but John Jr., who was John Jr. still, and who while openly
denying the engagement, teasingly hinted "that 'twas no fault of
Cad's."

For the last three years, Carrie, Nellie, Mabel, and Anna had been
inmates of the seminary in New Haven, and as they were now considered
sufficiently accomplished to enter at once upon all the gayeties of
fashionable life, John Jr. had come on "to see the elephant," as he
said, and to accompany them home. Carrie had fulfilled the promise
of her girlhood, and even her brother acknowledged that she was
handsome in spite of her _nose_, which like everybody's else, still
continued to be the most prominent feature of her face. She was
proud, too, as well as beautiful, and throughout the city she was
known as the "haughty southern belle," admired by some and disliked
by many. Among the students she was not half so popular as her
unpretending sister, whose laughing blue eyes and sunny brown hair
were often toasted, together with the classical brow and dignified
bearing of Nellie Douglass, who had lost some of the hoydenish
propensities of her girlhood, and who was now a graceful, elegant
creature just merging into nineteen--the pride of her widowed father,
and the idol still of John Jr., whose boyish preference had ripened
into a kind of love such as only he could feel.

With poor Mabel Ross it had fared worse, her plain face and dumpy
little figure never receiving the least attention except from Durward
Bellmont, who pitying her lonely condition, frequently left more
congenial society for the sake of entertaining her. Of any one else
Carrie would have been jealous, but feeling sure that Mabel had no
attraction save her wealth, and knowing that Durward did not care for
that, she occasionally suffered him to leave her side, always feeling
amply repaid