"'It is true, mademoiselle, is it not?' I asked of her. 'I may congratulate you?'
"'I am engaged to be married to Mr. Almer,' she said, 'if that is what you mean.'
"'You will have a good man for your husband, mademoiselle,' I said; 'you will be very happy.'
"But here was something in her manner that made me hope the approaching change in her condition would not make her proud. It was cold and distant--different from the way she had hitherto behaved to me.
"So the old house was gay again; improvements and alterations were made, and very soon we were thronged with visitors, who came and went, and laughed and danced, as though life were a perpetual holiday.
"But Mdlle. Beatrice was not as light-hearted as before; she moved about more slowly, and with a certain sadness. It was noticed by many. I thought, perhaps, that the contemplation of the change in her life made her more serious, or that she had not yet recovered the shock of her father's death. The old lady was in her glory, ordering here and ordering there, and giving herself such airs that one might have supposed it was she who was going to get married, and not her daughter.
"Mr. Almer gave Mdlle. Beatrice no cause for disquiet; he was entirely and most completely devoted to her, and I am sure that no other woman in the world ever had a more faithful lover. He watched her every step, and followed her about with his eyes in a way that would have made any ordinary woman proud. As for presents, he did not know how to do enough for the beautiful girl who was soon to be his wife. I never saw such beautiful jewelry as he had made for her, and he seemed to be continually studying what to do to give her pleasure. If ever a woman ought to have been happy, she ought to have been."
CHAPTER IV
[HUSBAND AND WIFE]
"Well, they were married, and the day was never forgotten in the village. Mr. Almer made everybody merry, the children, the grown-up people, the poor, and the well-to-do. New dresses, ribbons, flags, flowers, music and feasting from morning to night--there was never seen anything like it. The bride, in her white dress and veil, was as beautiful as an angel, and Mr. Almer's face had a light in it such as I had never seen before--it shone with pride, and joy, and happiness.