Taken at the Win at the flood.

Otago Witness, Issue 1160, 21 February 1874, Page 23

Taken at the Win at the flood.

A NEW NOVEL.

[JJT THB AUTHOB OP "LADT AUDLEY'S SECRET."]

Chapter XXVIII. THE THRESHOLD OP FATE.

The dinner at Perriam Place was a very quiet business. Mr. Carew and his daughter found the drawing-room empty of human life when they entered it a few moments before seven. That vast apartment, with its massive but somewhat scanty furniture, had a melancholy look in the evening light. The size and grandeur of the room seemed to cry aloud for people to inhabit it. Mr. Carew, who, like all self-indulgent people, was easily affected by external influences, gave a faint shudder as his gaze wandered round the spacious, lofty saloon. " A fine room," he said, "but it looks rather dismal." Sylvia looked about her curiously. She was glad of the opportunity to examine these splendours. On her previous visit it had been first dusk, and then but dimly lighted by solitary lamps and candles, and the two gentlemen had been present. Any inspection of the apartment had been therefore impossible. To-day she was able to take a deliberate survey — and to-day she contemplated-the room with a new feeling. A month hence it would be her very own. She walked up and down the stately chamber slowly, looking at the tall china jars, the wireguarded book cases, the massive sofas, the bare tables.

' ' What curious foreign-looking curtains, ' ' ahe exclaimed, examining the oriental embroidery. "But they are a good deal faded. I think I shall persuade Sir Aubrey to have new ones — amber satin would be the thing for this room." ' ' I hope you will find Sir Aubrey compliant enough to oblige you," answered her father, remembering that interview of last night, in which the baronet had appeared to him by no means pliant. " 0, I am not afraid of that," returned Sylvia, smiling at her own image in the tall narrow glass between the windows. "And when I am Lady Perriam," — she never said " When 1 am married," but always " when lam Lady Perriam" — " I shall give plenty of parties, and this room will look as it ought to look. It's a superb room for parties, isn't it, papa ? " "No doubt. But I don't fancy Sir Aubrey is a party-giving man. People have talked a good deal about his keeping himself shut up here and hardly seeing anybody." "How can you be so stupid papa ? Of course as a bachelor Sir Aubrey would care very little for company, but it will be different when he is married. Do you suppose I mean to be buried alive when I am lady Perriam? It would be much better for me to marry Edmund if there were any chance of that." "Of course not, my love," replied her father hastily. "Pray don't talk of young Standen. It is treason against Sir Aubrey to remember his insignificant existence."

Sylvia sighed. The mere mention of her first lover's name brought a flood of sad memories — memories that were sweet as well as sad. Sh« thought of the summer evenings they had spent together a little while ago. A little while ! It seemed now as she were divided from that too recent past by the space of hah* a life time.

" I feel ten years older since I accepted Sir Aubrey," she thought with another sigh. The inspection of the saloon had no further charm for her. She flung herself into a chair by an open window, and sat there silent, dejected. Her father looked at her with some concern, not for his daughter's feelings, but for his own chances of that promised hundred per annum. " If you are going to give yourself sentimental airs about Edmund Stan den, the sooner you tell Sir Aubrey the state of the case and give up the notion of being Lady Perriam the better," said the school^ master sternly. He felt that it was no time for soft pleading. Before Sylvia could answer him the door opened, and Sir Aubrey came in, followed by his land steward. The baronet crossed the room to greet his betrothed. Mr. Bain walked towards the empty fireplace, at which Mr. Carew had taken his stand.

"My dear Sylvia, I owe you a hundred apologies/ said the baronet, after pressing the little hand which was somewhat coldly offered to him. "I have been detained talking to Bain, my lawyer, and agent ; but as our conversation concerned your future interests I hope you will forgive me."

" There is nothing to forgive, Sir Aubrey," answered Sylvia, and then, in a lower tone she added, " I have to thank you for your kindness in giving papa the money for my trousseau. I know it is not customary, but we are such paupers, and I cannot refuse your gift. " Tears, the tears of wounded pride, were in her eyes, au she apoke. She had heard

so much about trousseaux from Mary Peter, and she knew that it was always the bride's father who provided his daughter's outfit. Her's seemed almost the gift of charity. "My dearest, pray do not mention such a trifle. I hope you had a pleasant drive here." "Very pleasant. How thoughtful it was of you to send the carriage."

" It will be your own carriage very soon to order whenever you like." That was a consoling thought. Those proud tears were quickly dried. It would be very nice to spend Sir Aubrey's hundred pounds too, although it had been a somewhat humiliating business to accept it. Sylvia meant to devote the next day to shopping. What delight to walk into Ganzlein's and feel that she could buy whatever she pleased, for she could not imagine her fancies soaring beyond the limits of a hundred pounds. "By-the-bye," said Sir Aubrey, when they had talked a little about the weather and about Perriam, which the baronet liked to hear praised, " I must introduce my agent, Mr. Bain, a very useful and estimable person. He takes the entire management of my estate, takes all trouble off my hands ; so that I have nothing to do except receive my rents. Come here, Bain, I want to present you to Miss Carew." Mr. Bain obeyed the summons. He had seen the slim white-robed figure from a distance, and his keen eye had taken in every detail of that graceful form. But Sylvia's face had been turned away from him, and he saw it now for the first time in the clear soft light of the summer evening. He bowed, murmured something indistinct about the honour he derived from the introduction, and then stood silently awaiting his patron's next address. He looked at Sylvia, but that steadfast straightforward look of his told nothing of the man's thoughts. He was thinking that this girl was lovely enough to bewitch a wiser man than Sir Aubrey Perriam, thinking even that he, Shadrach Bain, had never seen real beauty until that night, that all the pretty young women it had been his advantage to behold at divers periods of his existence had been but as images of clay compared to this perfect and deLicate porcelain. This pale, blossom-like loveliness was a style of beauty he had never met with. Those deeply-lustrous hazel eyes were as strange to him as the flora in some newly-disco-vered island in the vast Pacific is strange to the botanist.

But Shadrach Bain was not a man to be deeply moved by beauty, however unfamiliar. He wondered and he admired, bub no flutter of his strong heart paid tribute to Sylvia's power to charm. Had she been his own daughter he could hardly have contemplated her with a more calmly critical eye. He was, however, essentially a practical man — a man who looked at everybody from one point of view, and measured everything by one standard. That standard was self-interest. In his prolonged meditations he had make up his mind that Sylvia must come into the scheme of his life. She might be fit or unfit to fill that square in the geometrical plan of his destiny which he intended her to fill, but if unfit she must be made fit. Upon that point Mr. Bain had no doubt. Mr. Perriam shuffled into the room presently in his old-fashioned dress coat, and short black trousers of antique cut, white stockings and ancient shoes with loosely tied ribbons — looking like an elderly copy of his brother indifferently executed. It was a singular evidence of the unwholesomeness of a sedentary and secluded life that Mordred Perriam looked ten years older than hia elder and more active brother.

The butler announced dinner, and they went to the dining-room, Sylvia on Sir Aubrey's arm, Mordred and Mr. Carew Bide by side, talking of books — or rather Mordred talking — and the schoolmaster pretended to be interested, Shadrach Bain, stalking behind them, silent and alone. The butler planted them out at the long table, far apart, like young trees on a new estate ; so remote from one another that conversation had a forced air. It was like hailing to somebody on the opposite side of a street. Sylvia sat next Sir Aubrey, and as the dinner proceeded he contrived to draw his chair a little nearer hera, so that their talk should be unheard by the rest. Mr. Bain ate his dinner in almost absolute silence. Like a guest at a royal table he waited to be spoken to, and as no one spoke to him he remained discreetly mute. Mordred twaddled on unendingly to Mr. Oarew with his stories of bargains in second-hand books. Sir Aubrey devoted himself exclusively to his future bride. But Mr. Bain ate his dinner, and amused himself with his own thoughts, and wore the aspect of ft contented mind. Now and then he stole a look at Sylvia ; once or twice he smiled to himself — a slow, thoughtful smilo — and that was all. The meal itself was good and ample, but

scrupulously simple — a dinner of the oldfashioned, substantial order, not nearly so grand as the dinners given by Mrs. Toynbee, which Sylvia had heard described by Mary Peter, the village gossip — dinners which were in preparation for days before the festival, and at which Monkhampton confectioners came to assist.

Sylvia admired the handsome old china, with its dark reds and deep purples, and rich gilding— the massive old-fashioned silver, a trifle clumsy, perhaps, but with such a look of long established wealth and state. The room in which they dined was sombre, but its very gloom had an air of grandeur. The full flowing curtains of darkest crimson velvet were in perfect tone with "the oak panelling ; the wide mantelpiece of dark green marble was supported upon clustered columns of white veinless stone, with bases and capitals of red porphyry. This, the handsomest object in the room, relieved the darker hue of the walls and furniture.

The gentlemen, at Sir Aubrey's suggestion, returned to the drawing-room with Sylvia, and then followed one of those evenings which irreverent minds distinguish as " slow." Sir Aubrey natu rally devoted himself to his betrothed. He showed her the various — but not numerous — objects of interest in the saloon ; told her the history of each. How those vases had been sent from India by a certain General Perriam, his great uncle ; how those curtains had been worked by Hindoos who squatted on the floor of the corridor outside of his great aunt's apartments in Calcutta, and who were paid so many pice a day for their labours. He took Sylvia to the library and showed her that apartment, a treasury of learning which hardly wore the most attractive shape. Here indeed, the severer muses seemed to frown forbidingly upon the young student. The lightest book on yonder massive, carved oak shelves was Spencer's Fairy Queen, and even that work of fancy was rendered outwardly repulsive by its dingy binding. Sir Aubrey showed Sylvia the table at which he was wont to write letters and transact his business with Mr. Bain— an old office desk, covered with well worn leather.

"The library is not so pretty as the drawing-room," said Sylvia. "No," replied the baronet, "a library is for use. One does not expect prettiness in a library." "Are the books very nice?" Sylvia asked, timidly. It was too dark for her to read the titles, and she thought those dingy volumes might possibly belie their outward show.

"Well, I don't quite know a young lady's idea of niceness in books. You like the Sorrows of Werther, by the way, a flimsy, sentimental piece of nonsense, which took the world by storm in my father's time. There's nothing here of the Werther kind — in point of fact, no works of fiction. There's a fine edition of Holinshed yonder, Froissart's Chronicles, the Mort d' Arthur, sermons, from Latimer down to South and Barrow ; Milton's Prose Works ; Rollin, Hume, and all the best historians."

" Macauley and Carlyle ? " asked Sylvia, thinking there might be something readable in thab way. She liked history as interpreted by those brilliant and diverse pens. "No. There has been nothing added within the last fifty years. It was my grandfather who completed the library." "As if a library could ever be complete," thought Sylvia. It was pleasant to imagine the changes she would make in this gloomy temple of the learned dead. New curtains of bright glowing hue, instead of those black-green velvet, which age and dust had darkened to the colour of the trunks of moss-grown trees ; a new carpet to replace that worn and faded Turkey, where every shade had worn to one neutrality of tint ; new tables ; stands for engravings ; new chairs — roomy, luxurious, — covered with crimson morocco, and decorated with crest and monogram in gold. She had seen the luxuries of life, were it but in the upholsteref's window at Monkhampton.

They went back to the saloon, after making the circuit of the lower room, the hall, the music-room, long disused, a spacious empty chamber whose walls gave back sonoroua echoes, the breakfast parlour, the late Lady Perriam's morningroom.

"I'll show you my brother's rooms another day," said Sir Aubrey. " They are on the upper floor. There's not much to admire in them except the number of his books."

In the saloon they found Mr. Carew yawning over his empty tea cup ; Mordred furtively devouring the catalogue of a forth coming auction in last Saturday's Athermxvm ; Mr. Bain meditative — altogether a silent party. "You seem rather dull," said the baronet blandly, "I must get a piano by and by. It's a pity we haven't one, for Miss Carew might have given us some music." Miss Oarew looked about the room, and

thought how many things it wanted b«sides a piano to make it thoroughly pleasant. That grand old world air was very well in its way, but Sylvia longed for modern luxury as well as antique stateliness. It was agreeable to contemplate an apartment which reminded one of the Spectator, and Pope's Belinda; but one could not quite ignore the strides which modern invention had made in the art of comfort.

It was a long evening. Devoted as Sir Aubrey was he had not very much to say to his betrothed. The eyes which delighted him inspired to eloquence of speech. What he did say to her was chiefly about himself. Of books he knew little, save the work of Addiaon, Pope, Swift, Voltaire, and a few more of the same period. Of men he still knew less. So he told Sylvia mild little anecdotes of his blameless youth, his revered mother, his admirable father, and now and then brought forth some inane little joke which had been handed down from father to son like an heirloom.

Sylvia listened — smiled even at the jokelets, — but thought with a bitter pang of Edmund's swift flowing talk— a good deal of its nonsense, perhaps, but always eloquent nonsense— talk about poets, playwrights, romancers ; talk which sparkled often with the brightness of ideas which were not all borrowed ; talk which was vigorous with the force and passion of youth. 1 ' 1 shall never hear him again. I shall never walk with him in the dear old lanes at sunset," she said to herself, " but then I shall be Lady Perriam. I shall be mistress of this grand old house. " Splendid as Perriam Place might be, its future mistress was very glad to get away from it on this particular evening. She gave a sigh of relief as the carriage door was shut, and the slow steady old horses began their jog-trot progress. "Sir Aubrey is very kind, papa," she said, as if apologising for the sigh ; "but rather dull. At least he was rather dull to-night." " Not half so dull as his brother. Ive been bored to death by those tedious stories about second - hand books. I thought you seemed very well amused with Sir Aubrey. I heard you laugh ever so many times." " One is obliged to laugh when people tell one anecdotes. But that kind ef laughing is very fatiguing. I feel as tired as if I'd been teaching all day in the Sunday school. I wonder whether good society is always fatiguing ? " Mr. Carew didn't answer this speculative inquiry. He remembered society that had known no weariness. Those snug little dinners in the Kilbura Villa— those gay summer evenings in the shrubberied garden, when he and his guests took their coffee outside the jasmine-shrouded verandah, by the light of the midsummer stars ; that inexhaustable talk of men and horses, and art and music ; and for the centre of the picture the fair face of his pretty wife, the cynosure of all other eyes, if not of his own lodestar. This sooiety, for which James Carew had sacrificed honor and honesty, if not altogether " good " had at least never been dull. Sylvia nestled into the padded corner of the oomfortable old carriage, and thought of her shopping at Monkhampton to-mor-row. She had taken the bank notes from her father, and reluctantly relinquished one ten pound note to that parent when he pleaded his poverty and embarrassments.

" A hundred pounds is not much towards such a trousseau as I ought to have, papa," she said somewhat dolefully. "It seems rather hard that you should want to take any of it away." "It seems harder that you should gurdge your father a trifle out of such a windfall, " answered the schoolmaster bitterly. ' ' What do you want with a heap of fine clothes? Sir Aubrey will give you anything you ask for when you are his wife."

There was that other claimant, the wretched woman in Bell-alley, Fetter-lane, Sylvia did not quite forget that still strongeroalluponadaughter's benevolence. "I'll send her five pounds from Monkhampton to-morrow," she said to herself ; "when I am Lady Perriam I can often send her money. * * * *

Before starting for Monkhampton Sylvia took Mary Peter, the dressmaker, in some measure into her confidence. She told this useful friend of her speedy marriage, but as she said nothing about the bridegroom Miss Peter naturally concluded that Edmund Standen was that happy man. Sylvia wanted the dressmaker's aid in the choice of fabrics, the adjustment of quantities, and there was a pleasant sensation in going to Monkhampton in a fly from the inn, attended by Mary Poter. The driving from shop to shop was like a triumphal progress, and it was a new rapture to be able to choose the prettiest things — those perfect boots which Sylvia had gazed at with enviovui sigha in the leading bootmaker's neatly* arranged window— the lustrous ailka, the

soft lace,-the delicate embroidery. -.Sylvia was surprised to find how speedily her bank notes melted away when she chose the best and choicest articles of Mr. Ganzlein's emporium. Mary Peter kept whispering to her that she must have twenty yards of this, and seventeen of that, and ten yards of the broad Brussels lace for a trimming, and three or four pieces of Madeira work for the under linen which Miss Peter was to put in hand for her. She found that seventy pounds were a mere nothing to spend at Mr. Ganzlein s, and that she must restrict her purchases to three or four dresses at the most. That thick corded silk of pearliest white which she selected, after much deliberation, for the wedding dress, would do for a dinner dress afterwards, Mary told her, and would dye after that. "Dye," exclaimed Sylvia, forgetting her previous reticence, " Do you suppose I shall ever wear dyed silks 1" " Well, I don't know why you shouldn t, Sylvia. Rich people wear them. I made up a dyed moire antique for Mrs. Toynbee last spring, and it looked very rich, but was just a little streaky by daylight. You might have your wedding dress dyed a lovely blue next year.' 5 Sylvia chose a dove-colovired silk— the real dove-color — and a delicate gray. She remembered Sir Aubrey's charge abotit simplicity, and she fancied these subdued tints could scarcely fail to please him. She bought a good deal of lace, some linen fine enough for a Princess of the blood royal, a morning dress or two of \ plain white cambric, a black silk mantle, and a warm shawl for travelling, and found that these purchases absorbed the whole of her sixty pounds. Ten more pounds were expended at the fashionable bootmaker's aforementioned, and at the chief perfumer and hairdresser's establishment, where Sylvia chose brushes and combs fit for the future Lady Perriam. ' ' I haven't even money enough left for a dressing bag," said Sylvia dolefully, when she looked into her almost empty purse, which had seemed full to plethora a little while ago. " I dare say Mr. Standen will give you one," returned Miss Peter, " they generally do." They meaning the hapless bridegroom species. Sylvia gave a little start at the sound of that too familiar name. The thought of Edmund would come ever and anon to dash her sense of triumph, nay, to make all things bitterness to her. The two young women drove home merrily enough notwithstanding. They discussed the making of the dresses, and Sylvia gave her orders with the air of an empress. She begged that Mary would be very particular as to the neatness of the work, and the style must be elegant in its simplicity. There were to be none of the trillings, and crossway bands, and puffings, and fringes, and tassels, and gimps which Mrs. Toynbee delighted in.^ ] " I can afford to dispense with trimming," Sylvia remarked grandly. " You will put off all other work, of course, for a wedding order," she said to her satellite at parting, but remember you must tell no one whose wedding dresses you are making. I don't wantpeopleto know anything about my marriage till it's over !" ' ' I suppose it's to be directly he comes back from Demerara V hazarded Mary. " Never mind when it is to be. Mind I want my dresses in three weeks from today. " ' " I believe it's a moral impossible," answered Mary, who had vague ideas about certain substantives, and said impossible for impossibility ; " but if it's in human natiiro to get through so much work in that time I'll do it." Sylvia thought of the dressmaker's bill. She had but one ten pound note left and five pounds out of that she had intended for her mother ; but she now decided on keeping the money for Mary Peter. It would not do to enter her new stage of existence in debt to a village dressmaker. She would send Mrs. Crawford money after her marriage. Thus it happened that the lodger in Bell-alley profited nothing by Sir Aubrey's hundred pounds. ' ' Before nightfall a great many people in Monkhampton had heard of Miss Oarew's purchases at Ganzlein's. The schoolmaster's daughter was very well known in the shop, though her outlay heretofore had been most meagre— a yard or two of ribbon, a cheap muslin dress, a pair of gloves, and so on. That expenditure of seventy pounds had made the grave Ganzlein himself open his eyes to the widest extent as he stood at his desk in a dark corner of the shop, counting out Miss Carew's money. Ho talked of the circumstance at dinner in the bosom of his family, opining that her marriage with Edmund Standen was to take place very soon ; and there was a good deal said by Mrs. and the Miss Gauzleins about Mr. Standen's foolish infatuation.

"Young Standen must have given her the money she laid out to day," observed the draper. " She couldn't have got it from her father." " Eveiybody'a mad about that girl, I

think,". retumed.MrfU .Ganzlein.. „ '* I was told only yesterday that Sir Aubrey had taken notice of her and her father, and had them up at the Place."

Chapter XXIX. IRREVOCABLE.

The swift days went past. Very swift they seemed to Sylvia, and yet very slow. She had chosen her own fate, yet she felt in a manner doomed. There were times when she felt as helpless as the luckless sailor clasped in the pulpy embrace of that sea-monster Avhose gelatinous arras are stretched out of the sea to draw the victim to his death. The sea-monster was Fate.

The letter to Demerara was gone now ; it was hastening over the wide . blue sea. How happy Sylvia would have been had she been sailing yonder over the wide ocean, instead of that false, deceitful letter, the letter in which she surrendered her love, with tears, for his own sake. He would return — too soon, come when he would, — to find her another man's wife. O ! bitter awakening from his brief dream of woman's fidelity ! Sylvia paid no more visits to Perriam Place during the brief period of her betrothal. Sir Aubrey would have liked her to be there often, but many such visits would have set people talking ; and he wanted to stave off all gossip and wonderment till after his marriage. He made all the necessary arrangements as secretly as if he had been chief conspirator in a new gunpowder plot ; procured the license ; and executed that deed of settlement one morning in Mr. Bain's office, where Sylvia, in her white bonnet and pale muslin dress, looked like a hothouse plant that some wind had blown there.

The days went by, the long summer evenings dwindled. The July moon shrank and waned. August was very near. Then came the first week of August. The reapers were abroad in the land. The frightened corncrake knew not whither to betake himself. The heavy wains rolled homeward in the shortening twilight. Sylvia's wedding day was at hand. Sir Aubrey spent all his evenings in the schoolhouse parlor, which was perhaps a more cheerful apartment for the occupation of three people than that too spacious saloon at Perriam. He came under cover of dusk for the most part, being so anxious to preserve the secret of his wooing, came to sit opposite his betrothed, while she beguiled the evening with some trifling fancy work, and to discourse mildly, as he had discoursed at Perriam, repeating himself a livtle now and then. He was rather fond of talking politics, and as his opinions were of the good old Tory school, hardly modified since the days of Chatham and North, and Mr. Carew, likemostdisappointed men, was a virulent Radical, there was plenty of room for argument between these two politicians. Sylvia wondered that people could talk so much, and get so angry about things which seemed really to matter very little to anybody outside the House of Commons. The world seemed to go on pretty much the same whether Conservatives or Liberals were dominant, and rates and taxes were just as hard to pay whether one Chancellor of the Exchequer or another dipped his fingers into the purses of the people. Mary Peter brought the dresses home one by one, and their simple magnificence almost astonished the enraptured possessor. . " I think that's heavenly," exclaimed Mary, as she held up the dove-colored silk in the little cottage bedchamber, and shook out its lustrous fold with the mantua maker s skilled hand. "It pays you well, Sylvia, though you did give ten and six a yard for it. I haven't made up many richer silks, not even for Mrs. Standen— your mother-in, law that is to be," added Mary, jocosely. There was hardly any room for all the finery in Sylvia's small bedroom. Her riches were almost embarrassing. The dresses lay about covered with clean linen, like bodies laid out in an hospital. " You've got new trunks to put them in, I hope," said Mary. " There's nothing I like to see bettor than handsome portmanteaus, when a bride's going off for the wedding trip." Sylvia sighed despairingly. "I haven't a box belonging to me, she said ; " I've never travelled anywhere like other people." " Then, I dare say Mr. Standen will give you a couple of handsome trunks. You've only to drop an 'int when he comes back."

"I hate hints," returned Sylvia; "I must ask him to give me some boxes." She had made the request to Sir Aubrey that evening whon he inquired if she were ready for the wedding journey— only three days now remained before the appointed date. Mr. Vancourt the vicar had received notice of the marriage— all arrangements were made. "My dresses are quite ready, Sir Aubrey," she replied, " but I have no boxes to put them in." " You'd better order a couple of fairsized portmanteaus at Falthorpe's. Don't

have.them,too,.krge,L t they'r.e..a M ttuisance •in travelling, and the French always 'charge for luggage." " I am sorry that I spent all my money before I thought of the trunks," said Sylvia, blushing deeply. It was hard to beg even of her betrothed, though she thought of him in the future as a person who would give her everything she desired, whose purse she could draw upon with perfect freedem. Sir Aubrey stared at her somewhat blankly. "Oh, you have spent that hundred pounds," he said, taken off his guard by an announcement which considerably surprised him, in his happy ignorance of feminine costliness. ' ' I fear you've been buying a good deal of unnecessary finery." ♦ ' I hope not, Sir Aubrey. I have tried to choose things to please you," the girl answered quickly, tears of humiliation starting to her eyes. " My dearest, pray don't think that I'm vexed with you," cried the baronet, melted by that tearful look in those lovely eyes. " The money was yours to do what you liked with. I'll order your portmanteaus to-morrow morning." He had as yet given her but one present besides that utilitarian offering of bank notes. His single gift was an old-fashioned diamond hoop-ring of his mother's ; the diamonds set in time-darkened silver, and encircling the finger. This was, doubtless, but an earnest of the splendours he would heap upon her by-and-bye. The wedding day arrived — a misty August morning ; the hills and woods aronnd Hedingham were shrouded in light summer vapour, which melted slowly before the might of the day-god. Sylvia heard the cheery voices of the reapers in the barley field yonder, and envied them their careless liberty. They were not going to be married. It was not the most awful day in their lives. They were not going to set a solemn seal upon their destinies, binding them to an unknown master for all time to come.

Only on the very threshold of doom did Sylvia pause to consider what she was doing. She dressed herself in the white silk wedding gown unassisted, and wondered at her own beauty as she saw herself in the glass. That shining, pearly fabric, so trying to lesser loveliness, _ became her as its petals become the lilly. Btit at this last moment she felt that her wedding-dress was too fine for her wedding. There were to be no bridesmaids, no guests, no breakfast. She was to walk from the garden to the church on her father's arm, unseen, unadmired, to meet Sir Aubrey and Mr. Bain in the vestry, and directly the ceremony was over she was to put on her travelling dress and drive off to Monkhampton station with her elderly husband. It was not such a wedding as her dreams had shadowed forth when she was betrothed to Edmund Standen. In those vague, girlish visions she had pictured her wedding all gaiety and brightness, her villiage friends looking on admiringly, the school children strewing her path with flowers. "This lovely dress is quite thrown away," she thought with a discontented sigh. ' ' No one will see it but papa, and Sir Aubrey and the steward. I might just as well have kept the money it cost ; only it would seem so strange to be married in colours. "

Her father made some remarks of a disparaging kind when she went down stairs in her radiant toilet.

' ' You'd better have been married in your travelling dress," he said; "that white thing's quite out of place for a private wedding. Sir Aubrey wanted to drive straight oft' from the churchyard gate." Sylvia pouted, and reflected with some self-gratulation that her father would hardly presume to question her actions when she was Lady Perriam. "1 shan't be ten minutes changing my dress," she answered, "and Sir Aubrey must wait." , " Must wait, must he ! These are early days to talk of must." " Do you think I'm going to be dictated to like a little child when I am married ?" Sylvia asked haughtily. "I think you will have to behave a little more amiably to Sir Aubrey than you have behaved to me," answered her father.

" I shall not have to cook his dinners at any rate," retorted Sylvia. And in this Christian frame of mind father and daughter repaired^ arm in arm, to the parish church. Sir Aubrey and Mr. Bain were already in the vestry. The bridegroom gave a little start at sight of the bride's white robes. He had expected to see her dressed ready for their journey ; but he could not complain when she looked so lovely. He uttered an admiring exclamation, and raised her hand to his lips with that stately gallantry which so well became him. Mr. Vancourt was ready for them, and his countenance gave no indication of the surprise which must have reigned within him at this singular union. He performed the ceremony with an agree-

able, briskness, . and Sir'.] Aubrey.. found himself a married man sooner than he 'could have believed, possible. Mrl Bain was very attentive to the ceremony, and curiously watchful of the bride, in his ijuiet way. Sylvia's manner was emotionless in the extreme, emotionless almost to apathy. There are awful moments in life when the feelings seem benumbed. Sylvia felt nothing but a vague sense of wonder. How had this thing come to pass so speedily ? ' ' Let me be the first to salute Lady Perriam," said Mr. Bain, when they had returned to the vestry ; and before anyone could protest against such an enormity he had pressed his lips against Sylvia's fair forehead, the first kiss that had rested there since Edmund's despairing farewell. The bride drew back, indignant at the affront. "It is the privilege of a best man," apologised Mr. Bain. " Pray pardon me for having taken so great a liberty, Lady Perriam." "Yes, my love," said Sir Aubrey, putting aside the absurdity of the business with an easy laugh, "it is Bain's privilege I believe. You mustn't be angry with him. But he might have waited for the second place." And Sir Aubrey set the husband's first kiss on the lips of the bride. It seemed a preposterous thing that another man— his lawyer and steward — should have kissed her first.

(To be continued.)