"Anyway it was unlucky for you. We have a superstition in these parts, Miss Ellen, that if a maid takes off a ring from her own finger to serve at a pinch for a bride, she will never be a wife herself. I wouldn't have risked it, miss."
Ellen laughed gaily, Jelly's dismay was so real and her face so grave. But there was no time for more. Richard held out his arm to her; and Oliver Rane was already taking out his bride. Close up against the door stood Mr. North's carriage, into which stepped the bride and bridegroom.
"My shawl! where's the shawl?" asked Bessy, looking round.
She had sat down upon it; and laughed gaily when Oliver drew it out. This shawl--a thin cashmere of quiet colours--was intended to be thrown on ere they reached the station. Her silk dress covered with that, and a black lace veil substituted for the white one on her bonnet, the most susceptible maid or matron who might happen to be travelling, would never take her for a bride.
Arthur Bohun deliberately flung an old white satin slipper after the carriage--it struck the old coachman's head, and the spectators shouted cheerily. Richard was going to the works. He placed Ellen in the carriage that had brought her.
"Will you pardon me, if I depute Captain Bohun to see you safely home instead of myself, Miss Adair? It is a very busy day at the works, and I must go there. Arthur, will you take charge of this young lady?"
What Ellen answered, she scarcely knew. Captain Bohun entered the carriage. The situation was wholly unexpected: and if their hearts beat a little faster in the tumult of the moment's happiness, Richard at least was unconscious of it.
"It is the first wedding I ever was at," began Ellen, feeling that she must talk to cover the embarrassment of the position. Both were feeling it: and moved as far apart from each other as if they had quarrelled: she in one corner, he in the further one opposite. "Of course it had been arranged that I should go home with Mrs. Cumberland."
"Is she ill?"
"Dr. Rane thinks it is only nervousness: he said so as we came along. I had to come with him alone. I am sure the people we passed on the road, who had not heard about Bessy thought it was I who was going to be married to him, they stared so into the carriage."