Chapter Six.
Destroyed by the Hurricane.
“Our plans may be disjointed,
But we may calmly rest:
What God has once appointed
Is better than our best.”—Frances Ridley Havergal.
The Countess left Clarice prostrate on the ground, sobbing as if her heart would break—Olympias feebly trying to raise and soothe her, Roisia looking half-stunned, and Felicia palpably amused by the scene.
“Thou hadst better get up, child,” said Diana, in a tone divided between constraint and pity. “It will do thee no good to lie there. We shall all have to put up with the same thing in our turn. I haven’t got the man I should have chosen; but I suppose it won’t matter a hundred years hence.”
“I am not so sure of that,” said Roisia, in a low voice.
“Oh, thou art disappointed, I know,” said Diana. “I would hand Fulk over to thee with pleasure, if I could. I don’t want him. But I suppose he will do as well as another, and I shall take care to be mistress. It is something to be married—to anybody.”
“It is everything to be married to the right man,” said Roisia; “but it is something very awful to be married to the wrong one.”
“Oh, one soon gets over that,” was Diana’s answer. “So long as you can have your own way, I don’t see that anything signifies much. I shall not admire myself in my wedding-dress any the less because my squire is not exactly the one I hoped it might be.”