“Yes, of course,” said Lucy.  “But what are we to do? the invitations are all out.  Oh dear, dear, was there ever such a wretched piece of business!  Phil, it’s real good in you not to reproach me.”

“’Twould be useless now,” he sighed, “and I think the reproaches of your own conscience must be sufficient.  Not that I would put all the blame on you, though.  A full share of it belongs to me.”

By morning both ladies had recovered some degree of calmness, but Gertrude obstinately refused to leave her room, or to see any one who might call, even her most intimate friend.

“Tell them I’m sick,” she said, “it’ll be true enough, for I have an awful headache.”

It was to her mother who had been urging her to come down to breakfast, that she was speaking.

“Well, I shall send up a cup of tea,” said Mrs. Ross.  “But, what is this?” as the maid entered with a note.  “It’s directed to you, Gertrude.”

“From him, I presume,” Gertrude said, as the girl went out and closed the door.  “Throw it into the fire, mother, or no; I’ll send it back unopened.”

“It is not his hand,” said Mrs. Ross, closely scrutinizing the address.

“Then give it to me, please;” and almost snatching it from her mother’s hand, Gertrude tore it open, and glanced hastily over its contents.

“Yes, I’ll see him! he’ll be here directly; and I must look my best!” she exclaimed, jumping up and beginning to take down her crimps.

“See him?  Gertrude, are you mad?  Your father will never allow it.”

“Mr. Hogg, mother.”

“Oh!”

They exchanged glances and smiles.  Mrs. Ross hurried down to breakfast, not to keep her husband waiting, and Gertrude presently followed in handsome morning toilet, and in apparently quite gay spirits; a trifle pale, but only enough so to make her interesting, her mother said.

Mr. Ross and Philip, Jr., had already gone away to their place of business, Sophie and the younger boys to school, and only Mrs. Ross and Kate were left, the latter of whom had little to say, but regarded her sister with a sort of contemptuous pity.

Gertrude had scarcely finished her meal, when the door-bell rang, and she was summoned to the drawing-room to receive her visitor.

The wedding came off at the appointed time.  There was a change of bridegrooms, that was all; and few could decide whether the invitations had been a ruse, so far as he was concerned—­or if that were not so, how the change had been brought about.

In a long letter to Violet Travilla, Kate Ross gave the details of the whole affair.

A strange, sad story it seemed to Vi and her sister.  They could not in the least understand how Gertrude could feel or act as she had done, and feared she would find, as Kate expressed it, “even a gold lined sty, but a hard bed to lie in, with no love to soften it.”

“Still,” they said to each other, “it was better, a thousand times better, than marrying that dreadful Mr. Larrabee.”