"I shall try to get off for a few days and pay you a visit," Ralston said. "Louis will be going back to college, and next year we shall have him in Washington. And you will be up often this winter? Mrs. Jettson seems deserted by both of her sisters. She is so fond of young people."
"We shall be delighted to see you. You will have an admiring audience from father down."
"Thank you. You can never know what a comfort you have been to me. And these few days have quite restored me to myself. Have I been a very foolish, love-stricken swain?"
"Oh, I do not think you have been foolish at all! I was afraid you would grow hard and cynical, and I don't like people who are classing everybody in the same category and looking on the worst side."
She was very young, but she had a charm that touched his heart. Did he half envy Roger Carrington? But, then, he would be madly jealous of anyone who lavished her smiles in that fashion. One or two choice friends might be admissible. He was safe, for he would never be so easily caught again by any woman. Friendship was all he desired, and in the years to come she would resemble Mrs. Jettson, no doubt, who was very proud of her husband, and fond of him too. He liked women who were proud of their husbands. For wifely devotion had not gone out of fashion.
There was a gay and busy autumn for Jaqueline. Betty Fairfax had a great wedding that befitted the old mansion where she had reigned a queen for more years than usually fell to the lot of a handsome Virginian girl. She had seen two younger sisters married and made much merriment over it, and now she was going to be the wife of the newly elected Governor of one of the more southern States. Consequently there was a grand time all through the county, and there were six bridesmaids to wait upon my lady, one of them being Jaqueline.
So there was a week to be spent with Betty, Miss Elizabeth Fairfax, as she was called now.
"And what a shame your cousin's affairs should have come to naught!" Betty declared. "To give up a fine young soldier, and then to have her second lover come to grief. It is a case of the two stools, and one coming to the floor. If I had not heard of your engagement, Jaqueline, I should have asked him to stand with you. If I had known him better I should have invited him, anyhow. There are several guests coming from Washington."
