It was a brief ceremony; the clergyman's voice was monotonous; the silence chilling. Julia wept; to her it seemed like a funeral.
The certificate was made out. Jacob signed his name, but so bunglingly that no one could have told what it was. Mr. Leicester did not make the effort. Julia took the pen, her little hand trembled violently, but the name was written quite well enough for a girl of her years.
"Now, sir—now, please, may I go?" she said, addressing Leicester.
"Yes, yes—here is the piece of gold. I trust your employer will find no fault—but first tell me where you live?"
Julia told him where to find her humble abode, and hurried from the room. Her basket of flowers had been left in the chamber above; she ran up to get it, eager to be gone. In her haste she opened the nearest door; it was a bed-room, dimly lighted, and by a low couch knelt the old lady she had seen in the hall. Her hands were clasped, her white face uplifted; there was anguish in her look, but that tearless anguish that can only be felt after the passions are quenched. Julia drew softly back. She found her basket in the next room, and came forth again, bearing it on her arm. She heard Leicester's voice while passing through the hall, and hurried out, dreading that he might attempt to detain her.
Scarcely had the child passed out when Leicester came forth, leading Florence by the hand. He spoke a few words to her in a low voice: "Try and reconcile her, Florence. She never loved me, I know that, but who could resist you? To-morrow, if she proves stubborn, I will take you hence, or, at the worst, in a few days we will be ready for our voyage to Europe."
Florence listened with downcast eyes. "My father, my kind old father! he will not be angry; he must have known how it would end when he gave me to your charge. Still it may offend him to hear that I am married, when he thinks me at school."
"He will not be angry, love," said Leicester, and he thought of the letter announcing old Mr. Craft's death. "But the good lady up stairs; you must win her into a better mood before we meet again; till then, sweet wife, adieu!"
He kissed her hand two or three times—cast a hurried glance up stairs, as if afraid of being seen, and then pressed her, for one instant, to his bosom.
"Sweet wife!" the name rang through and through her young heart like a chime of music. She held her breath, and listened to his footsteps as he left the house, then stole softly up the stairs.