“Oh, these men, how wicked they be!” she cried half-petulantly, as she gazed at her flushed cheeks in a damp-stained mirror.
“I be handsomer than mistress pale-face down stairs,” she cried, giving her head a toss. “Fie on her! why does she not go and wed with Captain Culverin, and leave me Sir Mark.”
The gown-piece again took her attention, and she folded it in pleats and tucks, and draped herself in it, ending by doubling it over and over, and laying it flat beneath her bed.
“I’ll go see her presents now,” she said; and she descended to Mace’s room to find the jug untouched.
“Perhaps shell never wear these gauds after all,” muttered Janet, as she went to the dressing-table and examined the presents Sir Mark had brought, rich jewels some of them, with laces and ribbons enough for a dozen weddings; but the white satin dress hanging across a chair was the great attraction for Janet, with its puckers and folds, and great stomacher dotted with pearls.
“It be brave!” she cried, as she went down upon her knees to gaze at it, and lay portions of the skirt across her arm, or feel its softness against her cheek.
And so the time glided on till the eve of the wedding, when, pale and dark of eye with want of sleep, Mace felt that the excitement was more than she could bear.
It was very terrible, she told herself, and again and again she asked her conscience whether she was doing wisely in listening to Gil’s prayers. It was an act of disobedience to her father, whom she dearly loved, and yet she felt that she clung to her lover more. But even now she would, in obedience to her father’s wishes, have refused Gil and remained unwed. To be forced, though, to become the wife of one whom she utterly detested she felt was impossible, and she knew that she must go.
She had no one to counsel, none to take her part; and she knelt down and sobbed bitterly as she thought of the mother who had been taken away so long ago.
Then rising from her knees, quite calm and peaceful at heart, she sat down in her sweet-scented old chamber waiting, for she told herself it was inevitable, and that time would soften her father’s anger, and all be happiness once more.