Mrs. Carroll was lovely in pale-mauve crape embroidered with violets, a relic of past splendors, remodelled for the occasion in spite of doubts on her part, and her beautiful old amethysts.  Anna had urged it.

“I shall wear my cream lace, which no one here has ever seen, and I think, Amy, you had better wear that embroidered mauve crape,” she said.

“But, Anna,” said Mrs. Carroll, “doesn’t it seem as if Ina’s mother ought not to wear an old gown at the dear child’s wedding?  I would as lief, as far as I am concerned, but is it doing the right thing?”

“Why not?” asked Anna, rather tartly.  Lately her temper was growing a little uncertain.  Sometimes she felt as if she had been beset all her life by swarms of gnats.  “No one here has ever seen the dress,” said she.  “And what in the world could you have prettier, if you were to get a new one?”

“Oh, this Banbridge dressmaker is really making charming things,” said Mrs. Carroll, rather eagerly.  She had a childish fondness for new clothes.  “She would make me a beautiful dress, so far as that goes, Anna, dear.”

“She has all she can do with Ina’s things.”

“I reckon she could squeeze in one for me, Anna.  Don’t you think so?”

“Then there is the extra expense,” said Anna.

“But she does not hesitate in the least to trust us,” said Mrs. Carroll.  “But maybe you are right, Anna.  That embroidered mauve is lovely, and perfectly fresh, and it is very warm to fuss over another, and then my amethysts look charming with that.”

Therefore, Mrs. Carroll wore the mauve and the amethysts, and was by many considered handsomer than either of her daughters.  There had been some discussion about giving the amethysts to Ina for a wedding-gift, but finally a set of wonderful carved corals, which she had always loved and never been allowed to wear, were decided upon.  Anna had given a pearl brooch, which had come down from her paternal grandmother, and Carroll had presented her with a large and evidently valuable pearl ring which had excited some wonder in the family.

“Why, Arthur, where did you get it?” his wife had cried, involuntarily; and he had laughed and refused to tell her.

Ina herself, while she received the ring with the greatest delight, was secretly a little troubled.  “I am afraid poor papa ought not to have given me such a present as this,” she said to Charlotte, when the two girls were in their room that night.  As she spoke she was holding the pearl to the lamp-light and watching the beautiful pink lights.  It was a tinted pearl.

“It is a little different, because you are going away, and papa will never buy you things again,” said Charlotte.  “I should not worry, dear.”  For the few days before her marriage, Charlotte had gotten a habit of treating her sister with the most painstaking consideration for her nerves and her feelings, as if she were an invalid.  She was herself greatly troubled at the thought that her father had overtasked his resources to purchase such a valuable thing, but she would not for worlds have intimated such a thing to Ina.