"Here I am, dearest Eliza," said the young lady, who had hitherto kept herself behind her father and the clergyman.
"Oh, my Elza, my dear, dear Elza!" exclaimed Eliza, rapturously; and she encircled her friend's neck with her arms, and imprinted a glowing kiss on her lips.
But she felt that Elza's lips quivered, that she did not return the kiss, nor press the friend to her heart; and it seemed to Eliza as though a cold hand suddenly touched her heart and pressed it rudely and cruelly. She raised her head from Elza's shoulder, and looked her full in the face. It was not until now that she saw how pale Elza was, how red her eyes with weeping, and how forced her smile.
"You are sick, Elza," she said, anxiously.
"No," whispered Elza, "I am not."
"Then you love your Lizzie no longer?" asked Eliza, pressingly.
"Yes, I do," said Elza, in a hollow voice, and with a wondrously mournful smile. "I do love you, and, to prove it, I present you with this wreath. God bless you, dear Lizzie; may He grant you happiness!"
"Elza," cried Eliza, anxiously, "Elza, pray come to me and tell me what it means, what—"
"Hush, Lizzie, hush," said her father, seizing her hand and drawing her forward. "Do you not see that the procession is moving on, and that we must go with it? See, the curate and the castellan are already far ahead, and we must go too."
"But where, father, where?"