Lucy Arkell was solicited to be one of the bridesmaids; but Lucy declined. Mildred remembered a wedding which she had declined to attend as bridesmaid. How little, how little did she think that the same cruel pain was swaying the motives of Lucy!
Lucy and her aunt saw but little now of the Arkells. Travice never called; Mr. Arkell, full of trouble, confined himself to his home; and Mrs. Arkell had not entered the house since the rebuff given her by Mrs. Dundyke. Lucy held aloof from them; and Mildred certainly did not go there of her own accord. It therefore came to pass that they heard little news of the doings there, except what might be dropped by chance callers-in.
And now, as if Mildred had really been gifted with prevision, Tom Palmer made an offer of his hand and heart to Lucy. Lucy's response was by no means a dignified one—she burst out crying. Mildred, in surprise, asked what was the matter, and Lucy said she had not thought her old friend Tom could have been so unkind. Unkind! But the result was, that Lucy refused him in the most positive manner, then and for always. Mildred began to think that she could not understand Lucy.
There was a grand party given one night at Mrs. Arkell's, and they went to that. Mildred accepted the invitation without consulting Lucy. The Palmers were there; and Travice treated Tom very cavalierly. In fact, that word is an appropriate one to characterise his general behaviour to everybody throughout the evening. And, so far as anybody saw, he never once went near Miss Fauntleroy, with the exception that he took her into the supper room. Mr. Arkell did not appear until quite late in the evening. It was said he had an engagement. So he had, with men of business; while the revelry was going on in doors, he was in his counting-house, endeavouring to negotiate for a loan of money, in which he was not successful. Little heart had he at ten o'clock to go in and dress himself and enter upon that scene of gaiety. Mildred exchanged but a few sentences with him, but she thought he was in remarkably low spirits.
"Are you not well, William?" she asked.
"I have a headache, Mildred."
It was a day or two after this, and but a few days previous to the completion of the wedding, when unpleasant rumours, touching the solvency of the good old house of George Arkell and Son, reached the ears of Miss Arkell. They were whispered to her by Mr. Palmer, the old friend of the family.
"It is said their names will be in the Gazette the day after to-morrow, unless some foreign help can come to them."
Miss Arkell sat, deeply shocked; and poor Lucy's colour went and came, showing the effect the news had upon her.
"I had no idea that they were in embarrassment," said Mildred.