With the lapse of years, Anna, too, had greatly improved.  The extreme delicacy of her figure was gone, and though her complexion was as white and pure as marble, it denoted perfect health.  With John Jr. she was still the favorite sister, the one whom he loved the best.  “Carrie was too stiff and proud,” he said, and though when he met her in New Haven, after a year’s absence, his greeting was kind and brotherly, he soon turned from her to Anna and Nellie, utterly neglecting Mabel, who turned away to her chamber to cry, because no one cared for her.

Frequently had his mother reminded him of the importance of securing a wealthy bride, always finishing her discourse by speaking of Mr. Douglass’ small income, and enlarging upon the immense wealth of Mabel Ross, whose very name had become disagreeable to John Jr.  At one time his father had hoped he, too, would enter college, but the young man derided the idea of his ever making a scholar, saying, however, more in sport than in earnest, that “he was willing to enter a store, or learn a trade, so that in case he was ever obliged to earn his own living, he would have some means of doing it;” but to this his mother would not listen.  He was her “darling boy,” and “his hands, soft and white as those of a girl, should never become hardened and embrowned by labor!” So, while his sisters were away at school, he was at home, hunting, fishing, riding, teasing his grandmother, tormenting the servants, and shocking his mother by threatening to make love to his cousin ’Lena, to whom he was at once a pest and a comfort, and who now claims a share of our attention.

When it was decided to send Carrie and Anna to New Haven, Mr. Livingstone proposed that ’Lena should also accompany them, but this plan Mrs. Livingstone opposed with all her force, declaring that her money should never be spent in educating the “beggarly relatives” of her husband, who in this, as in numerous other matters, was forced to yield the point.  As Mr. Everett’s services were now no longer needed, he accepted the offer of a situation in the family of General Fontaine, a high-bred, southern gentleman, whose plantation was distant but half a mile from “Maple Grove;” and as he there taught a regular school, having under his charge several of the daughters of the neighboring planters, it was decided that ’Lena also should continue under his instruction.

Thus while Carrie and Anna were going through the daily routine of a fashionable boarding-school, ’Lena was storing her mind with useful knowledge, and though her accomplishments were not quite so showy as those of her cousins, they had in them the ring of the pure metal.  Although her charms were as yet but partially developed, she was a creature of rare loveliness, and many who saw her for the first time, marveled that aught so beautiful could be real.  She had never seen Durward Bellmont since that remarkable Christmas week, but many a time had her cheeks flushed with a feeling which she could not define, as she read Anna’s accounts of the flattering attentions which he paid to Carrie, who, when at home, still treated her with haughty contempt or cool indifference.