"Yes," replied Miss Anstruther, looking him straight in the eyes, "an awful blow. And you feel it far more than Hilda," she soliloquized, as she walked back to her own home.
CHAPTER VI.
THE EVE OF THE WEDDING.
Where shall I find a white rose blowing?
Out in the garden where all sweets be.
But out in my garden the snow was snowing
And never a white rose opened for me,
Naught but snow and a wind were blowing
And snowing.
—Christina G. Rossetti.
Notwithstanding Mildred Anstruther's inward prognostications, there came no hitch to Hilda Merton's engagement. Quentyns behaved as the best and most honorable of men. He was all that was tender and loving to Hilda, and he immediately took that position toward Mr. Merton which a son might have held. Quentyns was a good business man, and in the catastrophe which overwhelmed the Rectory, he proved himself invaluable.
On one point, however, he was very firm. His marriage with Hilda must not be delayed. No persuasive speeches on her part, no longing looks out of Judy's hungry eyes, no murmurs on the part of Aunt Marjorie, would induce him to put off the time of the wedding by a single day.
He used great tact in this matter, for Quentyns was the soul of tact, and it quite seemed to the family, and even to Hilda herself, that she had suggested the eighth of January as the most suitable day in the whole year for a wedding—it seemed to the whole family, and even to Hilda herself, that she was the one who desired to go, whereas in her heart of hearts, in that innermost heart which she scarcely ventured to probe at all just now, she would have gladly shared Aunt Marjorie's discomforts and sat by her father's side while he composed those sermons which were to teach his flock, with a sure note of truth running through them, that the blessed man is the man whom the Lord God chasteneth.
The wedding-day was fixed, and notwithstanding poverty and its attendant shadows, preparations for the great event went on merrily enough.
A check for Hilda's trousseau was sent to her by a rich aunt in India, and the pleasant excitement which even the quietest wedding always causes began to pervade the Rectory.