“There, now, Mamma Hubbard, don’t you go and acknowledge that you are frightened, for I won’t hear it. I have promised to marry Henry Clavering to-day, and I am going to keep my word—if I don’t love him,” she added with bitter emphasis. Then, smiling upon me in a way which caused me to forget everything save the fact that she was going to her bridal, she handed me her veil to fasten. As I was doing this, with very trembling fingers, she said, looking straight at Eleanore:
“You have shown yourself more interested in my fate than I had any reason to expect. Will you continue to display this concern all the way to F——, or may I hope for a few moments of peace in which to dream upon the step which, according to you, is about to hurl upon me such dreadful consequences?”
“If I go with you to F——,” Eleanore returned, “it is as a witness, no more. My sisterly duty is done.”
“Very well, then,” Mary said, dimpling with sudden gayety; “I suppose I shall have to accept the situation. Mamma Hubbard, I am so sorry to disappoint you, but the buggy won’t hold three. If you are good you shall be the first to congratulate me when I come home to-night.” And, almost before I knew it, the two had taken their seats in the buggy that was waiting at the door. “Good-by,” cried Mary, waving her hand from the back; “wish me much joy—of my ride.”
I tried to do so, but the words wouldn’t come. I could only wave my hand in response, and rush sobbing into the house.
Of that day, and its long hours of alternate remorse and anxiety, I cannot trust myself to speak. Let me come at once to the time when, seated alone in my lamp-lighted room, I waited and watched for the token of their return which Mary had promised me. It came in the shape of Mary herself, who, wrapped in her long cloak, and with her beautiful face aglow with blushes, came stealing into the house just as I was beginning to despair.
A strain of wild music from the hotel porch, where they were having a dance, entered with her, producing such a weird effect upon my fancy that I was not at all surprised when, in flinging off her cloak, she displayed garments of bridal white and a head crowned with snowy roses.
“Oh, Mary!” I cried, bursting into tears; “you are then——”
“Mrs. Henry Clavering, at your service. I’m a bride, Auntie.”
“Without a bridal,” I murmured, taking her passionately into my embrace.