"Some one has sent me a bridal-gift," she laughed.
"Don't stop to examine it now, my dear," said Mrs. Valchester. "We have no time to lose. Sit down here by me, and let us tie the pansies into pretty little bunches."
Jaquelina sat down obediently, and Mrs. Valchester said:
"I will tell you a secret, Lina. Ronald went to New York last week and purchased an exquisite set of jewelry—diamonds and large, pale pearls—for your bridal-gift. Do you like jewels?"
"Very much," said Lina; "but I have never possessed any except mamma's few trinkets and the engagement-ring that Ronald gave me."
"Ronald does not mean to give you the jewels till after the wedding," said Ronald's adoring mother. "He has a poetic fancy for you to wear just the same things you wore when he first met you. Of course, that would never do in a fashionable place, but here in the country it does not matter so much to give him his way. Ronald is very fanciful and poetic. He is about to publish a volume of poems. I am sure they must succeed. Some of them are quite Byronic."
So Ronald's fond mother rambled on to his bride-elect, while with her own white, jeweled fingers she adjusted the beautiful veil on the girl's graceful head; confining it with knots of velvety white pansies.
When she said, quite proudly: "You are finished, and you make a really beautiful bride, my dear," Lina's heart gave a throb of rapture at the praise of her betrothed's mother.
"I may open the package now?" she said, timidly, to the stately old lady in her silver-gray silk and real laces and soft puffs of gray hair.
"Yes," replied Mrs. Valchester, "for I suppose you are impatient to see what token of kindness one of your friends has sent to you."