Better be alone than
mismated."
"This is to shut the cage after the bird has flown," I thought, sadly;
but I thanked her, and promised to profit by her good counsel.
We were fast friends ever after, and, when she went away to her distant
Western home, Carry Ormsby bore some memorials of her summer friend away
with her, in the shape of books, plate, and jewels, such as her simple
means could have ill afforded. I felt that I could not have devised any
means more sure to gratify her worthy uncle, to whom such gifts had been
dross. He was a widower--the father of sons--indifferent to show, and,
besides that, unwilling to incur obligations from any one, such as gifts
entail on some minds.
There are persons made to give and others to receive, and neither can do
the work of the other gracefully. He and I were both of the same order,
so we accorded perfectly.
The autumn and winter passed very quietly. In Mrs. Stanbury and Laura I
again found my chief consolation. George Gaston was in the South, for
his health, on his own decayed plantation, with his uncle, who took
charge of it. But, in the spring, as Dr. Pemberton had stated, they were
all to go to Europe for some years. Laura would be married in Paris, if
at all. Every thing depended on some investigations Mr. Gerald Stanbury
was to make in person as to the character and position of her betrothed.
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