'Marian--my dear Marian--what do you think?' was her first eager beginning, then changing into 'How--how late you are--where have you been! I really thought you had been out with Elliot,' and she laughed.
'I only fell in with him at the gate. I have been to Beacon Hill.'
'Have you indeed? O I wish you had come with mamma! So Elliot has been provoking, and told you,' she added, stopping there, and looking significant.
Marian glanced at Fanny, and shook her head. She was very glad she had such a protector, to give her time to collect her thoughts, but this was not easy, for Clara went rattling on in an eager discursive way about all sorts of things, the archery, the dancing, the partners, the dresses, hardly knowing what she said, nor Marian either, fidgeting about, trying to expedite the dressing, and looking most impatient, till at last Marian, anxious to know what had really taken place, pitying her eagerness, and willing to have it over, hurried the fastening of her dress, and arranging of her lace, and told Fanny to leave them.
'O Marian! Marian! what a shame of Elliot to have told you all about it. Did you expect it?'
'He only half told me,' replied Marian, 'but make haste, Clara, let me hear. Is Caroline really engaged?'
'Yes--yes--O yes! and every one is so delighted, Lady Julia, and Julia and Louisa, and all!'
'And she has accepted him?'
'O yes to be sure--at least--yes, only you know it is too soon to settle when they will be married. What a charming wedding it will be, won't it, Marian?--you and I find Julia and Louisa, and their cousins will be bridesmaids O! how delightful it will be. And then I shall come out.'
'But Clara, Clara, don't be wild, do tell me all about it.'
'Ah! you see you missed something by not coming to stay there as we did. And to tell you a great secret, Marian, Louisa says she really believes that it was you that her brother thought of, when he first accepted Elliot's invitation to come and stay here.'
'Nonsense,' said Marian, though her colour would rise.
'And he had not seen Caroline then, Louisa says,' proceeded Clara, but there she got into an inextricable confusion, and was not speedy in stammering out of it, having suddenly remembered that it was no great compliment to tell Marian that Louisa had said how glad they all were that it was not Miss Arundel. Marian cut the hesitation short by saying, 'You have not told me when it was settled, or how you heard it.'
'It was settled last night after you were gone--in the conservatory-- such a pretty place for a love affair, as Louisa says--at least I mean he asked her, but I don't think she gave him any real regular answer-- no, certainly she did not.'
'Did you know of it that evening?'
'O yes, Louisa and I had great fun in watching him all day, and all the day before, we saw it all quite plain.'
'But did Caroline tell you that night?'
'Yes, of course she did. She could not have kept it from me, you know, for I began to laugh at her the minute we came up, and asked her if she had not been delightfully employed, and you should have seen what a colour she grew directly.'
'And what did she say?' asked Marian very anxiously, almost hoping it might prove that Caroline's acceptance might have been taken for granted without having been really given.
'I don't exactly remember what she said, she was very grave and said it was no laughing matter, or something of that kind, and she walked up and down and begged me to be quiet and let her think.'
