discussed in the _parlor_, was worn in fancy in the _kitchen_.

Dream on Dora Deane, dream on--but guard this, your last
imagining, most carefully from the proud Eugenia, who would scarce
deem you worthy to take upon your lips the name of Mrs. Hastings,
much less to be even in fancy the mistress of Rose Hill.




CHAPTER VI.

MR. AND MRS. HASTINGS.


In blissful ignorance of the gossip which his movements were
exciting in Dunwood, Mr. Hastings in the city went quietly on with
the preparations for his removal, purchasing and storing away in
divers baskets, boxes and bags, many luxuries which he knew he
could not readily procure in the country, and which would be sadly
missed by his young girl-wife, who sat all day in her mother's
parlor, bemoaning her fate in being thus doomed to a life in the
"horribly vulgar country." She had forgotten that "she could live
anywhere with _him_," for the Ella Hastings of to-day is the
Ella Gray of little more than a year ago, the same who had
listened to the sad story of _Dora Deane_, without ever
thinking that some day in the future she should meet the little
girl who made such an impression upon her husband.

Howard Hastings was not the only man who, with a grand theory as