"Oh, no!" cried the fair girl, shrinking back from the strange gleam that shone from the woman's eyes, as she made this remark, while her thoughts flew, with the speed of light and with a yearning so intense that it turned her white as snow, to Royal Bryant, the man to whom, all unasked, she had given her heart.
Then, as if some instinct had accused her of unmaidenly presumption, a flush, that was like the rosy dawn upon the eastern sky, suffused her fair face, neck, and bosom.
"Ha! ha! not if you could marry the man of your choice?" queried madam, with a gleam of malice in her dark eyes and a strange note of triumph in her silvery laugh that again caused her companion to regard her curiously.
"Oh! please do not jest about it in this light way—marriage is too sacred to be treated with levity," said Edith, in a tremulous tone. "But where is the mask?" she added, glancing anxiously toward the bed. "You know you said the face of the bride was not to be seen."
"Here it is," responded madam, snatching the dainty thing from the bed. "See! it goes on under the veil, like this"—and she dextrously slipped the silver-fringed piece of gauze beneath the edge of the veil and fastened the chain under the orange-wreath behind.
The fringe fell just to Edith's chin, thus effectually concealing her features, while it was not thick enough to prevent her seeing, distinctly, everything about her.
A few other details were attended to, and then Mrs. Goddard hurriedly said:
"Come, now, we must hasten," and she gathered up the voluminous train and laid it carefully over Edith's arm. "We shall have to go the back way, through the billiard-room, because no one must see you until you appear upon the stage."
The carriage-house adjoined the mansion, and was connected with it by a door, at the end of a hall, that opened into a large room over it which had been devoted to billiards.
In the rear of this there was a stairway, which led down to the first floor and behind the stage; thus Madam and Edith were enabled to reach the dressing-room without being seen by any one, and just as the orchestra were playing the closing bars of the last selection before the raising of the curtain.