"His wife! his!" said Julia, recoiling a step, "oh! how can you—how can you!"
A crimson flush shot over that pale forehead, and Florence drew up her form to its full height.
"Will you help me—will you stay?"
"I dare not say no!" answered the child; "I would not, if I dare."
Again the door-bell rang. "Hush!" said Florence, breathlessly; "it is the clergyman; that is a strange voice, and he—Leicester—admits him. How happy I thought to be at this hour; but I am chilly, chilly as death; oh, help me, child!"
She had been making an effort to arrange her hair, but her hands trembled, and at length fell helplessly down. She really seemed shivering with cold.
"Sit down, sit down in this easy-chair, and let me try," said Julia, shaking off the chill that had settled on her spirits, and wheeling a large chair, draped with white dimity, toward the toilet. Lights were burning in tall candlesticks on each side of a swing mirror, whose frame of filagreed and frosted silver gleamed ghastly and cold on the pale face of the bride.
"How white I am; will nothing give me a color?" cried the young creature, starting up from the chair. "Warmth—that is what I want! My dress—let us put on that first; then I can muffle myself in something while you curl my hair."
She took up a robe of costly Brussels lace. "Isn't it beautiful?" she said, with a smile, shaking out the soft folds. "He sent it." She then threw off her dressing-gown, and arrayed herself in the bridal robe; the exertion seemed to animate her; a bright bloom rose to her cheek, and her motions became nervous with excitement.
"Some orange blossoms to loop up the skirt in front," she said, after Julia had fastened the dress; "here, just here!" and she gathered up some folds of the soft lace in her hand, watching the child as she fell upon one knee to perform the task. Florence was trembling from head to foot with the wild, eager excitement that had succeeded the chill of which she had complained, and could do nothing for herself. When the buds were all in place, she sunk into the easy-chair, huddling her snowy arms and bosom in a rose-colored opera cloak; for, though her cheeks were burning, cold shivers now and then seemed to ripple through her veins. The soft trimming of swan's down, which she pressed to her bosom with both hands, seemed devoid of all warmth one moment, and the next she flung it aside glowing with over-heat. There was something more than agitation in all this, but it gave unearthly splendor to her beauty.