Is my Amelia anticipating a more cheerful epistle than that with which I saddened her tender heart three days ago? Alas, my dear girl! the expectation is vain. These three days have brought your Sylvia’s affairs into such a coil that she, poor simpleton! can see no way of getting ’em straight again. But to begin at the beginning. Last Saturday, which was the day after my sudden meeting with Mr Fraser at the Gardens, I passed my time in fear and trembling, dreading lest the young gentleman should come to the house and force his way into my presence. For oh, Amelia, remember that Mrs Freyne knows nothing as yet of all my troubles. When she learns of them, I fancy I shall begin to think that until then I had no troubles at all. It seemed, however, that Mr Fraser was so much offended by my words to him the evening before that he would not condescend even to pay his respects to my papa, and I tried to assure myself that he would incommode me no more. We were engaged that night to attend Mrs Hamlin’s assembly, and very early in the evening, before I had thought of going to dress, there came a servant bringing me a chitt from Miss Hamlin to beg that I would come early. This has happened pretty often before, chiefly when Miss Hamlin has devised a new mode of dressing her hair, or has desired to consult me as to the most elegant style of making over a gown. I hurried into my fine clothes, therefore, and started off in my palanqueen at least an hour before my papa and Mrs Freyne. Mrs Hamlin met me in her varanda, and, after saluting me in what I thought a rather conscious manner, carried me to Miss Hamlin’s chamber, begging me in a whisper to do what I could to keep her niece’s spirits up. I could imagine no less than that the tailor had ruined Miss’s new gown in the making, or her iya spilt a bottle of pomatum over it; but on entering I found my friend, not weeping in her wrapper, as I had expected, but standing before the mirror in a gown of light peach-coloured satin, laced with gold at all the seams, the finest I have ever seen.
“Why, miss, a new gown!” said I, “and you’ve never showed it me.”
“It’s never been unpacked,” says she. “What does my Miss Freyne think of it?”
“’Tis fit for a queen,” said I, “or a wedding.”
“Come, miss, you’re sprightly to-night. It is my wedding-gown.”
“La, miss! Are you going to be married? When is it to be?”
“To-night,” says she, as solemn as you please.
“To-night? and you never told me? I take this very unkind in you, miss. Has Sylvia Freyne deserved it at your hands?”
“’Twas not in my power to tell you what I didn’t know myself, miss. No one knows it yet. The bridegroom himself don’t know it.”
“Dear miss, you must have got a touch of the fever,” I said, for I could no longer doubt but her intellects were disordered. “Let me help you take off that gown and assist you to bed, while someone runs for Dr Knox.”