Disclose too much!
Disclose too much!—of what?
What is there to disclose?
A heart so ill at ease."
The preparations for the nuptials of Florence Howard with Rufus Malcome were rapidly progressing.
The services of Dilly Danforth were put in active requisition. Day after day her tall, thin form was seen moving to and fro the great mansion, washing windows, polishing grates, and brightening the silver knobs and plates of the mahogany doors. Col. Malcome, in his delight at the approaching marriage of his son, resolved to give a large fête on the occasion, and no pains were spared to render it the most costly and sumptuous affair ever presented to the gaze of the people of Wimbledon. The greatest expense was lavished upon the wedding-banquet, and the young bride's trousseau might have vied in magnificence and profusion with that of a royal princess.
All this display and grandeur was revolting to Florence. It humbled and mortified her proud, independent nature to owe the expensive decoration of her approaching bridal to the generosity of the man she was about to marry.
Col. Malcome appeared in the most fitful spirits as the preparations advanced toward their completion. He paced the piazzas for hours together, with hurried, excited steps, pausing often and muttering indistinctly to himself.
Sometimes he stood before a window in a dejected attitude, and gazed mournfully over the intervening gardens and cottages toward the elegant and stately mansion lately occupied by the Edsons, which stood on a small elevation just across the river, in the midst of beautiful grounds. Then, as he turned suddenly away, his countenance would change from its expression of gloomy regret to one of fierceness and angry revenge.
At length the night, whose morrow was to witness the long-expected ceremony, drew on. Great torrents of rain were flooding the streets and dashing dismally against the casements of the mansion which was, ere long, to blaze in the light of the festive scene.