wonder of her conquest, were dazzling beyond description.

Spring was coming early this year, slipping in on light bright feet. And
in the House of Heth there was felt a vernal exuberance, indeed:
permeating papa even, extending to the very servants. Mr. Heth had
received the news of the great event with profound satisfaction,
asserting unequivocally that Canning was the finest young man he had
ever seen. And yet, unlike mamma, his joy was tempered with a certain
genuine emotion at the prospect of so soon losing the apple of his eye.

"You know the old rhyme, Cally," said he, pinching her little
ear--"'Your son's your son all his life, but your daughter's your
daughter _till_ she becomes a wife.'... Don't let it be that way, my
dear. You're all the son your old father's got...."

As to mamma, her feet remained in the clouds, but her head grew
increasingly practical. She had been rather opposed to postponing the
announcement, being ever one for the bird in the hand; but she had
yielded with good grace, and within the hour was efficiently planning
the "biggest" wedding, and the costliest wedding-reception, ever given
in that town. By the second day she was giving intelligent thought to
the trousseau--every stitch should be bought in Paris, except a few of
the plainer things, in New York--and had finally decided that the
refreshments at the reception should be "by Sherry." People should
remember that reception so long as they all did live.

"All the Canning connection shall come," she cried,--"rely on me to get
them here,--and all the most fashionable and exclusive people in the
State. Every last one of them," said she, "except Mary Page."