ough." He gave
Keith a shrewd glance which, however, that young man did not see.

Not long afterwards Gordon received an invitation to Norman's wedding.
He was to marry Miss Caldwell.

When Gordon read the account of the wedding, with the church "banked
with flowers," and the bridal couple preceded by choristers, chanting,
he was as interested as if it had been his brother's marriage. He tried
to picture Alice Yorke in her bridesmaid's dress, "with the old lace
draped over it and the rosebuds festooned about her."

He glanced around his little room with grim amusement as he thought of
the difference it might make to him if he had what Mrs. Yorke had called
"an establishment." He would yet be Keith of Elphinstone.

One fact related disturbed him. Ferdy Wickersham was one of the ushers,
and it was stated that he and Miss Yorke made a handsome couple.

Norman had long ago forgotten Ferdy's unfriendly action at college, and
wishing to bury all animosities and start his new life at peace with the
whole world, he invited Ferdy to be one of his ushers, and Ferdy, for
his own reasons, accepted. Ferdy Wickersham was now one of the most
talked-of young men in New York. He had fulfilled the promise of his
youth at least in one way, for he was one of the handsomest men in the
State. Mrs. Wickersham, in whose heart defeat rankled, vowed that she
would never bow so low as to be an usher at that wedding. But her son
was of a deeper nature. He declared that he was "abundantly able to
manage his own affairs."

At the wedding he was one of the gayest of the guests, and he and Miss
Yorke were, as the newspapers stated, undoubtedly the handsomest couple
of all the attendants. No one congratulated Mrs. Wentworth with more
fervid words. To be sure, his eyes sought the bride's with a curious
expression in them; and when he spoke with her apart a little later,
there was an air of cynicism about him that remained in her memory. The
handsomest jewel she received outside of the Wentworth family was from
him. Its centre was a heart set with diamonds.

For a time Louise Wentworth was in the seventh heaven of ecstasy over
her good fortune. Her beautiful house, her carriages, her gowns, her
husband, and all the equipage of her new station filled her heart. She
almost immediately took a position that none other of the young brides
had. She became the fashion. In Norman's devotion she might have quite
forgotten Ferdy Wickersham, had Ferdy been w