were indebted mostly to Miss
Valencia Le Barre, who, ever since her arrival at Prospect Hill, had
been growing somewhat disenchanted with the young mistress she had
expected to rule even more completely than she had ruled Mrs.
Meredith. But in this she was mistaken, and it did not improve her
never very amiable temper to find that she could not with safety
appropriate more than half her mistress' handkerchiefs, collars,
cuffs, and gloves, to say nothing of perfumery, and pomades, and, as
this was a new state of things with Valencia, she chafed at the
administration under which she had so willingly put herself, and told
things of her mistress which no sensible servant would ever have
reported. And Lucy gave her plenty to tell.

Frank and outspoken as a child, she acted as she felt, and did try on
the bridal dress, screaming with pleased delight when Valencia
fastened the veil and let its fleecy folds fall gracefully around her.

"I wonder what Arthur will think, I do so wish he was here," she had
said, ordering a hand-glass brought that she might see herself from
behind and know just how much her dress did trail, and how it looked
beneath the costly veil.

She was very beautiful in her bridal robes, and she kept them on till
Fanny began to chide her for her vanity, and, even then, she lingered
before the mirror, as if loath to take them off.

"I don't believe in presentiments," she said to Fanny; "but, do you
know, it seems to me just as if I should never wear this again," and
she smoothed thoughtfully the folds of the heavy silk she had just
laid upon the bed. "I don't know what can happen to prevent it, unless
Arthur should die. He was so pale last Sunday and seemed so weak that
I shuddered every time I looked at him. I mean to drive round there
this afternoon," she continued. "I suppose it is too cold for him to
venture as far as here, and he has no carriage, either."

She went to the parsonage that afternoon, and the women in the church
saw her as she drove by, the gorgeous colors of her carriage blanket
flashing in the wintry sunshine just as the diamonds flashed upon the
hand she waved gayly towards them.

There was a little too much of the lady patroness about her quite to
suit the plain Hanoverians, especially those who were neither high
enough or low enough to be honored with her notice, and they returned
to their wreathmaking and gossip, wondering under their breath if it
would not, on the whole, have b