"Nobody will care to look at me after you stand aside, Lucy. Keep the best wine until the last. My only chance of getting an approving glance lies in going in before you attract and fix the public gaze."
She had her way. A limited number of select friends were admitted to behold "the ceremony;" yet the parlors were comfortably filled, excepting in the magical semicircle described by an invisible line, in the center of which stood the clergyman in his robes.
Still dull and calm, Sarah went through the brief role that fell to her share. "Behaved charmingly," was the unanimous verdict of the beholders, and surprised other people, as well as the complimentary bridesmaid, by her thoroughbred air and Parisian toilette. Without the pause of a second, so perfect was the drill of the performers, the wedded pair stepped aside, and made way for the second happy couple. Lucy's solicitude on the score of her complexion was needless. As the solemn words were commenced, a rosy blush flickered up to its appointed resting-place—another and another—until, when Philip released her to the congratulatory throng, she was the most enchanting type of a radiant Hebe that poet ever sang, or painter burned to immortalize on canvas.
Philip stood beside her and sustained his portion of the hand-shaking and felicitations until the press diminished, then stepped hastily over to where Hammond and his bride were undergoing a similar martyrdom. Until this moment Sarah had not looked at, or spoken to him—had never met him face to face since their parting in the summer at Aunt Sarah's. Now, not aware who it was that approached her, she raised her eyes with the serious dignity with which she had received all other salutations, and met his downward gaze—full of warm and honest feeling.
"Sister!" he said, and in brotherly fondness he bent towards her, and left a kiss upon her mouth.
A hot glow, the lurid red of offended modesty or self-convicted guilt, overspread her face; the lips parted, quivered, and closed tightly, after an ineffectual effort to articulate; the room swam around her, and Mr. Hammond caught her just in time to save her from falling. It was Nature's vengeful reaction for the long and unnatural strain upon her energies. She did not faint entirely away, although several moments elapsed before she regained perfect consciousness of her situation and surrounding objects. She had been placed in an easy-chair; her head rested against her father's shoulder, and on the other side stood Lewis, almost as pale as herself, holding a glass of wine to her lips. Around her were grouped her mother, Lucy, and Philip. The guests had withdrawn politely to the background, and maintained a respectful silence.
"What have I betrayed?" was her first coherent reflection; and, with an instinctive perception of the quarter where such disclosures would do most harm, her eye turned with a sort of appealing terror to Lewis. His heart leaped at the movement, revealing, as he fancied it did, dependence upon his strength, recognition of his right to be with and nearest to her.
"You are better," he said, with a moved tenderness he could not and cared not to restrain.
The words, the manner, were an inexpressible relief to her fears, and trying to return his smile, she would have arisen but for her father's interposition.
"Sit still," he advised. "Mrs. Hunt, Lucy, Mr. Benson, will you entertain our friends? She will be all right in a little while, Mr. Hammond."