“A great ways off, you mean,” interrupted Carrie.  “For my part, I see nothing strange in the omission.  It is no worse to leave her out than scores of others who will not be invited.”

“But to come into the house and ask all but her,” said Anna.  “It does not seem right.  She is as good as we are.”

“That’s as people think,” returned Carrie, while John Jr., who was just going out to ride, and had stopped a moment at the door, exclaimed, “Zounds, Cad, I wonder if you fancy yourself better than ’Lena Rivers.  If you do, you are the only one that thinks so.  Why, you can’t begin to compare with her, and it’s a confounded shame that she isn’t invited, and so I shall tell them if I have a good chance.”

“You’ll look smart fishing for an invitation, won’t you?” said Carrie, her fears instantly aroused, but John Jr. was out of her hearing almost before the words were uttered.

Mounting Firelock, he started off for Versailles, falling in with Durward, who was bound for the same place.  After the usual greetings were exchanged, Durward said, “I suppose you are all coming on Thursday night?”

“Yes,” returned John Jr., “I believe the old folks, Cad, and Anna intend doing so.”

“But where’s Miss Rivers?  Doesn’t she honor us with her presence?” asked Durward, in some concern.

John Jr.’s first impulse, as he afterwards said, was “to knock him off from his horse,” but a second thought convinced him there might be some mistake; so he replied that “it was hardly to be supposed Miss Rivers would attend without an invitation—­she wasn’t quite so verdant as that!”

“Without an invitation!” repeated Durward, stopping short in the road. “’Lena not invited!  It isn’t so!  I directed one to her myself, and gave it to Nero, together with the rest which were designed for your family.  He must have lost it.  I’ll ask him the moment I get home, and see that it is all made right.  She must come, any way, for I wouldn’t give——­”

Here he stopped, as if he had said too much, but John Jr. finished the sentence for him.

“Wouldn’t give a picayune for the whole affair without her—­that’s what you mean, and why not say so?  I speak right out about Nellie, and she isn’t one half as handsome as ’Lena.”

“It isn’t ’Lena’s beauty that I admire altogether,” returned Durward.  “I like her for her frankness, and because I think her conduct is actuated by the best of principles; perhaps I am mistaken——­”

“No, you are not,” again interrupted John Jr., “’Lena is just what she seems to be.  There’s no deception in her.  She isn’t one thing to-day and another to-morrow.  Spunky as the old Nick, you know, but still she governs her temper admirably, and between you and me, I know I’m a better man than I should have been had she never come to live with us.  How well I remember the first time I saw her,” he continued, repeating to Durward the particulars of their interview in Lexington, and describing her introduction to his sisters.  “From the moment she refused to tell that lie for me, I liked her,” said he, “and when she dealt me that blow in my face, my admiration was complete.”