Looking first at William, then at Mary, and finally passing her arm around the latter, she whispered, "I know he's told you, and I'm glad, for somehow I couldn't tell you myself." Wisely thinking that his company could be dispensed with, William walked away, leaving the two girls alone.

In her usual frank way, Jenny rattled on, telling Mary how happy she was, and how funny it seemed to be engaged, and how frightened she was when William asked her to marry him.
Fearing that they might be missed, they at last returned to the parlor, where they found Ella seated at the piano, and playing a very spirited polka.

Henry, who boasted that he "could wind her around his little finger," had succeeded in coaxing her into good humor, but not at all desiring her company for the rest of the evening, he asked her to play, as the easiest way to be rid of her.

She played unusually well, but when, at the close of the piece, she looked around for commendation, from the one for whose ear alone she had played, she saw him across the room, so wholly engrossed with her sister that he probably did not even know when the sound of the piano ceased.
Poor Ella; it was with the saddest heartache she had ever known that she returned from a party which had promised her so much pleasure, and which had given her so much pain.

Rose, too, was bitterly disappointed.