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 for so long. She brought it out with elaborate casualness, but her eager eyes were shining.

"Joe, I was thinking. A trip abroad wouldn't cost so terribly much if we!"

She was too breathless to finish.

"Mother, I can't. I have to save everything I possibly can, because I'm engaged to be married!"

"What kind of a girl would get engaged in three days?" Kate asked Carrie, beginning to cry again.

"Well, it certainly doesn't sound very modest or ladylike! I know I certainly wouldn't!"

"Still, Joe's a good judge of character, Carrie, I must say that."

"Oh yes, I know"

"He says they're a very fine family, but they haven't any money, so they travel with this very rich lady, sort of as companions. You see, they've lived abroad a great deal since Mr. Thorne was killed by a fall out hunting"

"Oh, my!" said Carrie, much impressed by this creditable, even glamorous death.

"Joe says she has dark hair and light-blue eyes. I said sort of jokingly, though goodness knows, Carrie, I didn't feel much like joking, 'I suppose, of course, she's radiantly beautiful,' and he said, 'Why, yes, of course,' as if it had been in the papers! He says she has beautiful bones."

"Mercy! How gruesome!"