"Oh, how beautiful you will be to-morrow!"
Then they took the dress off Timéa; and Athalie said, "Now I will try it on; I should like to see how it would suit me."
She required the help of the stays to squeeze her waist into the dress, which gave her splendid figure an even more magnificent "contour." She also put on the wreath and looked at herself in the glass. Timéa sighed deeply, and whispered to Athalie, in tones of undisguised admiration, "How lovely, how lovely you are!"
It might, perhaps, have been time now to make an end of this deception. But no—she must drain the cup. First, because she is so forward; and then, because she is so stupid. She must be punished. So the contemptuous farce was carried on the whole day by all the household. The poor child's head swam with all the congratulations. She listened for Herr Katschuka, and ran away when she saw him coming.
Did he know what was going on? Quite possibly. Did it vex him? Perhaps it did not even vex him. Very likely he knew things of which the laughers did not dream, and awaited the important day with perfect indifference.
On the last morning before the marriage, Athalie said to Timéa, "To-day you must fast entirely. To-morrow is a very solemn day for you. You will be led to the altar, and there first baptized and then married; so you must fast the whole of the day before, in order to go purified to the altar."
Timéa obeyed this direction, and ate not a morsel for the entire day.
It is well known that all these adopted children have excellent appetites. Nature demands its rights; and the love of good things is the only desire which they have a chance of satisfying. But Timéa conquered that appetite. She sat at dinner and supper without touching anything, and yet they had purposely prepared her favorite dishes.
In the anteroom the maids and the cook tried to persuade her to eat secretly the delicacies which they had put aside for her, telling her she might break her fast if no one knew it. She would not be persuaded, and controlled her hunger. She helped to prepare the tarts and jellies for the wedding feast; a mass of tempting and luscious cakes lay before her, but she never touched one. And yet Athalie's example, who also was busy with the preparations for the next day, showed her that it is quite permissible to take a taste when one has a chance. She must keep her fast. She went early to bed, saying she felt chilly. And so she was, and trembled with cold even under her quilt and could not sleep. Athalie heard her teeth chattering, and was cruel enough to whisper in her ear, "To-morrow at this time where will you be?"
How should the poor child sleep, when all the slumbering feeling which at this age lie in the chrysalis stage were being prematurely scared into life?