“A very small slice of this sponge cake, if you please, auntie.”

“How young Mr. Travilla looks,” remarked Lottie, “younger I think, than he did four years ago.  Happiness, I presume; it’s said to have that effect.  I believe I was vexed when I first heard you were engaged to him, because I thought he was too old; but really he doesn’t look so; a man should be considerably older than his wife, that she may find it easier to look up to him; and he know the better how to take care of her.”

“I would not have him a day younger, except that he would like to be nearer my age, or different in any way from what he is,” Elsie said, her eyes involuntarily turning in Mr. Travilla’s direction.

They met the ardent gaze of his.  Both smiled, and rising he crossed the room and joined them.  They had a half hour of lively chat together, then Mrs. King rose to take leave.

Mr. Travilla moved away to speak to the doctor, and Lottie seized the opportunity to whisper to her friend, “He’s just splendid, Elsie!  I don’t wonder you look so happy, or that he secured your hand and heart after they had been refused to dukes and lords.  You see Aunt Wealthy has been telling me all about your conquests in Europe,” she added, in answer to Elsie’s look of surprise.

“I am, indeed, very happy, Lottie,” Elsie replied in the same low tone; “I know Mr. Travilla so thoroughly, and have not more perfect confidence in papa’s goodness and love to me, than in his.  It is a very restful thing to have such a friend.”

Dr. King’s circumstances had greatly improved in the last four years, so that he was quite able to give Lottie the pleasure of accepting Elsie’s invitation, and at once gave his cordial consent.  Mrs. King at first objected that the two weeks of our friends’ intended stay in Lansdale would not give sufficient time for the necessary additions to Lottie’s wardrobe; but this difficulty was overcome by a suggestion from Elsie.  She would spend two or three weeks in Philadelphia, attending to the purchasing and making up of her trousseau, she said, and Lottie’s dresses could be bought and made at the same time and place.

The two weeks allotted to Lansdale of course passed very rapidly; especially to Harry, to whom the society of these new-found relatives was a great pleasure, and who on their departure would be left behind, with only Phillis for his housekeeper.

The latter received so many charges from Aunt Wealthy in regard to careful attention to “Mr. Harry’s” health and comfort, that at length she grew indignant, and protested that she loved “Mr. Harry as if he was her own child—­didn’t she nuss him when he was a little feller? and there was no ‘casion for missus to worry an’ fret as if she was leavin’ him to a stranger.”

It was not for want of a cordial invitation to both the Oaks and Ion that Harry was left behind; but business required his presence at home, and he could only promise himself a week’s holiday at the time of the wedding.