"But I am afraid I cannot—I never took part in a play in my life," objected Edith, who instinctively shrank from becoming so conspicuous before such a multitude of people.
"Nonsense! there is but very little for you to do," said madam, "you have simply to walk into the church, upon the arm of the supposed bride's father. You will be masked, and no one will see your face until after all is over, and you have not a word to say, except to repeat the marriage service after the clergyman."
Edith shivered, and her face had grown very pale. She did not like the idea at all; it was exceedingly repugnant to her.
"I wish you could find some one else," she said, appealingly.
"There is no time," said madam.
"Oh! but it seems almost like sacrilege to me, to stand before such an audience and repeat words so solemn and significant, when they will mean nothing, when the whole thing will be but a farce," Edith tremulously remarked.
A strange expression swept over madam's face at this objection.
"You are absurdly conscientious, Edith," she coldly observed. "There is not another girl in the house upon whom I can call—they are all too large or too small, and the bridal costume would not fit one of them. Pray, pray, Miss Allen, pocket your scruples, for once, and help me out of this terrible predicament—the whole affair will be ruined by this awkward contretemps if you do not, and I, who have promised so much to my friends, shall become the laughing-stock of every one present."
Still the fair girl hesitated.
Some unaccountable influence seemed to be holding her back, and yet she felt that it would be very ungenerous, very disobliging of her, to allow Mrs. Goddard to be so humiliated before her hundreds of guests, when this apparently slight concession upon her part would smooth everything over so nicely.