While this scene was passing on the piazza, Florence sat in her room with her journal open on the table before her.
"The last evening of my free, unfettered existence has drawn on," she wrote. "How wildly shrieks the wind, driving great torrents of rain against my curtained casements! It is fit a night like this should usher in my day of doom. Father seems delighted with the approaching festival, and mother has lost the dread she formerly evinced, which I now think was occasioned by the fear of losing me from her side. Hannah is almost wild with glee. She follows the steps of Rufus closely as his shadow. He hates her, and in this one point our feelings sympathize, but in no other. It is impossible to describe the loathing and abhorrence with which I regard the man who in a few more hours will be my husband. O, heavens! will no power save me from a fate so dreadful as a lifetime passed with him? Alas, no! Our beautiful home is gone, and we are poor, and had been shelterless but for these walls, which opened their doors to take us in. And can I make so poor a return for this friendly generosity, or so ungratefully scorn and reject the means presented to reïnstate my father in wealth and magnificence, as to refuse to perform the act which will repay the kindness and restore to him the elegant home whose loss he so deeply deplores? O, no! I must not be so selfish and ungrateful. Still, it seems a great sacrifice even to insure a father's ease and happiness. I have an increasing dread and horror of this Col. Malcome, which I cannot overcome, despite all his apparent generosity and sympathy in our misfortune, and lavish display of profusion and splendor with which he surrounds this approaching bridal. It seems to me all this munificence goes to serve some fell purpose of his own. His strange power over my easy-natured father excites dark apprehensions in my bosom. But why torture myself with imagined ills, when the dread realities are sufficient to unnerve my soul! Now, amid this piteous wailing of storm and wind, I write the last words on these dear old leaves as Florence Howard, and betake me to my pillow,—but O, not to sleep! The bride of to-morrow will make a sorry figure in her silks and jewels."
CHAPTER XLIV.
"As Heaven is my spirit's trust,
So may its gracious power
Be near to aid and strengthen me
When comes the trial hour."
The hour drew on; the guests assembled, and the minister waited the entrance of the bridal party to perform the solemn ceremony.
The storm drove wildly without the mansion, in strange contrast with the glowing warmth and luxuriance of the apartments within.
Col. Malcome sat on a velvet sofa, in graceful attire, supporting the wasted form of his daughter; who, thin, pale, and white as the garb she wore, leaned her head, all shorn of its beautiful curls, heavily against his shoulder. It was a sad sight to behold that feeble, emaciated figure rising from a bed of disease and pain, to mingle among the festive groups which filled those splendid drawing-rooms.