admits to
herself, "if nothing had been said."

Gertrude and the professor are going to Mexico, and will not be back
for some time. Everybody is planning for summer. Laura talks of a run
over to Europe; the Vandervoorts take Newport as a matter of course,
and send thither carriages and horses. Mrs. Latimer spends a few days
at Grandon Park, and ends by taking the cottage with Denise, after she
has had a luncheon within its charmed precincts. Madame lingers and is
undecided, then what she considers a very fortunate incident settles
her at Grandon Park, with a lovely cottage, horses, and an elderly half
invalid for companion.

About the middle of May, Marcia Grandon makes her grand _coup de
grace_. She fancies she has had it all her own way, that she has
planned; but some one behind was gently manipulating the cords of his
puppet. There have been delicious stolen interviews, notes, and the
peculiar half-intrigue, half-deception Marcia so loves. Violet has
remarked an odd change in her; Mrs. Grandon has been a good deal
occupied, and has grown accustomed to her daughter's vagaries, so no
one has paid any special heed. Marcia has ordered a _trousseau_ in the
city, and one fine morning goes down in her airiest manner, and in
pearl silk is made Mrs. Wilmarth. From thence they send out cards, and
Marcia writes to her mother, to Laura, who comes in haste, and is both
angry and incredulous; angry that Jasper Wilmarth should have been
brought into the family, when she had done it the honor to connect it
with the Vandervoorts and Delancys.

Marcia is quite resplendent in silk and lace, and does look blissfully
content.

"What an awful fool you have made of yourself!" is the tender
salutation, since Mr. Wilmarth is not present. "What you ever could see
in _that_ man passes my comprehension! He may do for business, but if
_I_ understand rightly, Floyd is not over-fond of him. I suppose that
was why you married on the sly?"

"I married to please myself," says Marcia, bridling, "and I dare say
you did the same. I have a husband who is kind and generous and noble,
who loves me and whom I love, and if fate has in some ways treated him
unkindly, he shall learn that there is one woman in the world brave
enough to make it up to him."

She repeats this almost like a lesson learned by rote.

"Bosh," returns Laura, with contemptuous superiority. "I dare say you
thought it would be the last chance!"

"Oh, I have heard of women marr