[CHAPTER XVI.]
"Oh, Ronald—Ronald!"
"Lina, my little darling!" and Ronald Valchester drew his betrothed into his arms, and pressed a score of fond kisses on the dewy, crimson lips.
It was the day before the wedding, and though Jaquelina had been expecting him all the morning, he had taken her by surprise at last.
After dinner she had gone out into the orchard and sat down beneath her favorite tree, feeling certain that Ronald would seek her there first. But after watching for him vainly for awhile, she fell into a dreamy revery in which he came unseen and unheard at last.
He sat down beside her, letting his arm remain about the slender waist, and with the beauty and silence of nature all about them, they talked of their happiness in meeting again, and of the coming morrow, when they should be united to part no more.
"It seems too blissful to be true," Jaquelina murmured wistfully, looking up in her lover's happy face. "Oh, Ronald, if anything should happen?"
"What could happen, Lina?" said Ronald Valchester, laughing at her fears. "I hope you are not growing nervous and fanciful, little one."
Then he suddenly saw that the bright rose-flush that had come into her face when she met him was dying out, and leaving her pale and wistful-looking.
"Lina, you do not look quite so well as usual," he said, anxiously. "You are paler than I ever saw you, and your eyes have a startled expression now and then. It seems to me that you are slightly nervous. Are you not well?"