Happily, they are only the bride's friends. Sir William and Lady Augusta Treherne cannot come, and Augustus does not care a straw for asking anybody. He says he only wants his Lisa. His Lisa unfortunately requires a few trifles more to constitute her bridal happiness; a wreath, a veil, a breakfast, and six bridesmaids in Indian muslin. Rather cold, for autumn, but which she says she cannot give up on any account, since a wedding day comes but once, and she has been looking forward to her's ever since she was born.
A wedding-day! Probably there are few of us who have not speculated on it a little, as the day which, of all others, is the most decisive in a woman's life. I am not ashamed to confess having occasionally thought of mine. A foolish dream that comes and goes with one's teens; imagined paradise of utterly impossible joy, to be shared with some paragon of equally impossible perfection—I could sit and laugh at it now, if the laughter were not bitterer than tears..
There, after writing this, I went and pulled down my hair, and tied it under my chin to prevent cold—oh! most prudent five-and-twenty—leant my elbow on the window-sill, in the old attitude of fifteen, staring up at the moon and out across the firwoods for a long time. Returning, I have re-lit my candle, and taken once more to my desk, and I say again, O inquisitive moon, that this has been a pleasant day.
It was one of our quiet Rockmount Sundays, which Doctor Urquhart says he enjoys so much. Poor Lisabel's last Sunday but one.
She will be married to-morrow week. We had our indispensable lover to dinner, and Doctor Urquhart also. Papa told me to ask him as we were coming out of the church. In spite of the distance, he often attends our church now—at which papa seems gratified.
I delivered the message, which was not received with as much warmth as I thought it ought to have been, considering that it came from an elderly gentleman, who does not often pay a younger man than himself the compliment of liking his society. I was turning away, saying I concluded he had some better engagement, when Doctor Urquhart replied quickly:—
“No, indeed. That were impossible.”
“Will you come then? Pray don't, if you dislike it.”
For I was vexed at a certain hesitation and uneasiness in his manner, which implied this; when I had been so glad to bring him the invitation and had taken the trouble to cross half the church-yard after him, in order to deliver it; which I certainly would not have done for a person whom everybody liked.
N.B. This may be one of the involuntary reasons for my liking Doctor Urquhart; that papa and I myself are the only two persons of our family who unite in that opinion. Lisabel makes fun of him; Penelope is scarcely civil to him; but that is because Francis, coming down last week for a day, took a violent aversion to him.