served her silence. When the second
letter came, she thought he had the intention of experimenting with
her; a test, she concluded, was unendurable, not to be submitted to.
Should she test him, and proclaim the engagement she meditated? it
would be a relief to do something. She could not reach him with a
letter, for he had gone on a mackerel voyage beyond the limits of the
post-office. She decided differently according to the light she had.
Unlike Osgood, she was chained to the place she was in. She was alone,
too; her mother was occupied with neuralgia, and her father was out of
town half his time, on mysterious agencies which referred to canals.
The newspaper reporters at Albany were well acquainted with Mr. Tree's
name while they were putting into short-hand the doings of the
Legislature. Mrs. Formica had no suspicion that Lily was the cause of
Osgood's disappearance; she would not have regretted his absence so
much on these grounds, for a match with Lily was not desirable.

Within a month Lily's engagement to Mr. Barclay Dodge was announced.
He was a young man of fortune, whose father owed his rise in the world
to corn starch, and who had made himself known by spending large sums
of money on pictures, landscapes mostly, which had been indorsed by
the public in exhibitions.

Mr. Barclay Dodge was happy; he had for more than two years followed
Lily through all vicissitudes attendant upon the career of a young
girl in society. From an exhilaration the pursuit had become a
desperation. He had never suspected any man of being his rival, and
accounted for the acquaintance between Lily and Osgood by believing
that Lily was related to the Formica family. How she managed so
suddenly to convince Barclay Dodge that it was safe for him to propose
is a mystery which none but a disappointed, contrary woman may
reveal. He had the usual penetration of his sex in regard to such
mysteries; he was a man of sense and experience, but he was in love,
and when a man is in love he only analyzes himself, and all that he
learns is, that his love must be gratified.

In the whirl of his attentions, and the congratulations of her
friends, the time passed quickly; not so quickly, however, as to avert
the plan by which the Fates were to bring her to a knowledge of
herself.

Barclay proposed an immediate marriage. Lily declined the proposal
with so much vehemence that he dared not insist. He pulled his
mustache in rage after he left her, and