“To rest, my dear Olivia!” exclaimed Aunt Amelia; but Annie and Mary, after a glance at the white, weary face of the bride, took the old lady gently by the arm and drew her out of the room.
Then Bessie tenderly, but quickly, took off the wedding finery, and, wrapping Olivia in a soft dressing-gown, put a pillow under her head, and drew the curtains over the window.
“Try and sleep, ma’am,” she said, in the loving voice of a sister rather than a servant. “I will wake you——”
“Sleep!” said Olivia, in a voice of despair, but she turned her head from the light and closed her eyes.
Meanwhile the guests of the gentler sex were drinking tea in the drawing-room or flirting with some of the young fellows upon the terrace. Bartley Bradstone moved from one group to the other restlessly, for a few minutes, then, after glancing at his watch for the third or fourth time in a quarter of an hour, he went up to the squire.
“I’ll just run over to The Maples,” he said, with eyes that carefully avoided the squire’s. “I—I—there are one or two things I have forgotten. It will not take me long.”
“Let me send for them,” said the squire, going toward the bell. “It is a pity you should trouble.”
“No, no,” he replied quickly. “I—shall have to go. You—you need not tell Olivia. I shall be back long before she is down.”
“Very well,” said the squire. “Take any carriage you can find.”
“Take mine, pray,” Lord Carfield called after him.