'Have you no fires lighted? Nothing ready?' he asked, angrily, of Genefer.
'No, Master John. It be bad luck to wed in snow and storm: snow cools love and wind blows it away. I reckoned you knew that well enough, and would have put it off till the sun shone.'
A cold reception. The hall dark; only a little turf smouldering on the hearth, giving out neither light nor heat.
Mirelle came in. She did not look round; she was stupefied. It was all one to her. She had not expected much, and was not disappointed.
Genefer put the lanthorn on the table and proceeded to light a couple of wax candles. Herring divested Mirelle of her dark wraps.
Then the old woman looked at her. In the large gloomy hall Mirelle stood like a spectral figure, illumined by the candles, the white veil hanging; over her shoulders and back.
'Lord of mercy bless us!' exclaimed Genefer, starting back. 'It be the same—the same! O God!—the same I dreamed! The Snow Bride.'
She looked at her with dismay, then raised her hands and said, 'That ever I should have seen the day! O Master John! Master John! But the Lord sends strong delusions on them whom He will bring to naught.'
'Go at once, Jenny, and get supper ready. Heap up wood on the hearth. Is there a fire upstairs?'
'I don't know whether there be—there was, to dry the rooms; but there be nothing ready. It be a thousand pities you cannot get it all undone, and, if it must be done, do it another day, when the sun shines and the air be plum' (warm).