Ninas Letter

After a week or two had passed, Arthur went occasionally to
Collingwood, where Richard greeted him most cordially, urging him
to come more frequently and wondering why he always seemed in so
much haste to get away. On the occasion of these visits Edith
usually kept out of the way, avoiding him so studiously that
Richard began to fear she might perhaps dislike him, and he
resolved to ask her the first good opportunity.

But Edith avoided him, too, never coming now to sit with him alone; somebody must
always be present when she was with him, else had her bursting
heart betrayed the secret telling so fearfully upon her. Oh, how
hateful to her were the preparations for her bridal, which had
commenced on a most magnificent scale, for Richard, after waiting
so long, would have a grand wedding, and that all who chose might
witness the ceremony, it was to be performed in the church, from
which the guests would accompany him back to Collingwood.

All Shannondale was interested, and the most extravagant stories
were set afloat, not only concerning the trouseau of the bride,
but the bride herself. What ailed her? What made her so cold, so
white, so proudly reserved, so like a walking ghost? She, who had
been so full of vigorous life, so merry, so light-hearted. Could
it be the mourning for sweet little Nina, or was it--?

And here the knot of gossippers, at the corner of the streets, or
in the stores, or in the parlors at home, would draw more closely
together as they whispered, "Does she love Richard Harrington as she ought? Is not her heart
given rather to the younger, handsomer St. Claire?"