“Oh, you’re to be groom, and Miss Richards the bride. She is the only one in the room who is dressed all in white, as a bride should be, and this green arch is just the place for the ceremony to be performed.”
Lord Carrol felt anything but comfortable over this arrangement. He glanced at Josephine to see how she would take it. But she stood with downcast eyes, looking the picture of lovely confusion, a beautiful color in her face, while he noticed that the hand which held her fan trembled visibly.
“Lord Henderson said he would play parson and pronounce the banns,” the merry child rattled on, “and he is so portly he will make a first-rate one. Now, Archie, you and Miss Richards go into the anteroom yonder, so as to come in like a real bridal party. Wait, there is that lovely lace shawl of Lady Orton’s; she will lend it, I know, for a vail, and it will be just the thing. Now don’t stand there like a pair of bashful lovers, for it is only play, you know,” she added, saucily, “but do as I tell you, and I will arrange everything, then bring the vail;” and giving her two victims a gentle push, the excited girl whisked away to another part of the hall.
“Well, Miss Richards, Miss Shelton intends to have everything her own way, and I do not see but what we shall be obliged to help her carry out her plans.” Lord Carrol said, trying to speak lightly, and to make the best of a very—to him—disagreeable situation.
“You certainly do resemble a bride in your dress,” he added, “more than any one else in the room, and, if agreeable to you, we will assist in the little piece of folly just to please the child.”
Little piece of folly!
If he could but have known of the tumult that was raging within her at the mere thought of such a ceremony in connection with him, he would not have called it that—it would have been sacrilege!
She was trembling like a leaf, and she knew that that marriage service, though but the meaningless freak of a wild girl, would seem as solemn to her as if he were really to make her his wife.
That was “folly” without doubt, but she loved him so that she could not help the feeling.
He offered her his arm, and they retired to the anteroom together, and Lord Carrol could not help perceiving the strange thrill which pervaded the girl’s whole frame as her hand came in contact with his arm.