That gentleman regarded the stain of the damp gravel on the lady's skirt through his eye-glass with deep but helpless anxiety. "It's a pity for the pretty frock!" he said with much seriousness. And the group gathered round and gazed in dismay, as if they expected it to disappear of itself—until Mrs. Hudson bustled up. "It will rub off; it will not make any mark. If one of you gentlemen will lend me a handkerchief," she said. And Algy and Harry and Dick Bolsover, not to speak of Lady Mariamne herself, watched with great gravity while the gravel was swept off. "I make no doubt," said the Rector's wife, "that I have the pleasure of speaking to Lady Mariamne: and I don't doubt that black is the fashion and your dress is beautiful: but if you would just throw on a white shawl for the sake of the wedding—it's so unlucky to come in black——"
"A white shawl!" said Lady Mariamne in dismay.
"The Jew in a white shawl!" echoed the others with a burst of laughter which rang into the church itself and made Phil before the altar, alone and very anxious, ask himself what was up.
"It's China crape, I assure you, and very nice," Mrs. Hudson said.
Lady Mariamne gave the good Samaritan a stony stare, and took Algy's arm and sailed into the church before the Rector's wife, without a word said; while all the women from the village looked at each other and said, "Well, I never!" under their breath.
"Let me give you my arm, Mrs. Hudson," said Harry Compton, "and please pardon me that I did not introduce my sister to you. She is dreadfully shy, don't you know, and never does speak to anyone when she has not been introduced."
"My observation was a very simple one," said Mrs. Hudson, very angry, yet pleased to lean upon an Honourable arm.
"My dear lady!" cried the good-natured Harry, "the Jew never wore a shawl in her life——"
And all this time the organ had been pealing, the white vision passing up the aisle, the simple villagers chanting forth their song about the breath that breathed o'er Eden. Alas! Eden had not much to do with it, except perhaps in the trembling heart of the white maiden roused out of her virginal dream by the jarring voices of the new life. The laughter outside was a dreadful offence to all the people, great and small, who had collected to see Elinor married.
"What could you expect? It's that woman whom they call the Jew," whispered Lady Huntingtower to her next neighbour.