Allan looked quite pleased, and scouted my dubious looks; he had
taken a fancy to Miss Ruth, and wanted to see her again. He laughed
when I said regretfully that it was his last evening, and that I
would rather have spent it quietly at home with him. I was shy at the
notion of my first dinner-party; Mr. Lucas' presence would make it a
formal affair.

And then mother fretted a little that I had no evening-dress ready.
I could not wear white, so all my pretty gowns were useless; but I
cheered her up by my assuring her that such things did not matter in
our deep mourning. And when I had dressed myself in my black
cashmere, with soft white ruffles and a little knot of Christmas
roses and ferns which Carrie had arranged in my dress, mother gave a
relieved sigh, and thought I should do nicely, and Allan twisted me
round, and declared I was not half so bad after all, and that, though
I was no beauty, I should pass, with which dubious compliment I was
obliged to content myself.

"I wish you were going in my stead, Carrie," I whispered, as she
wrapped me in mother's warm fleecy shawl, for the night was
piercingly cold.

"I would rather stay with mother," she answered quietly. And then
she kissed me, and told me to be a good child, and not to be
frightened of any one, in her gentle, elder sisterly way. It never
occurred to her to envy me my party or my pleasant position at the
Cedars, or to compare her own uncongenial work with mine. These sorts
of petty jealousies and small oppositions were impossible to her; her
nature was large and slightly raised, and took in wider vistas of