fact, or, as I had
anticipated, he forgets his promise, for he never appears, and I do not
see him again till Sunday. By Sunday my cheeks are no longer _raw_; the
furniture has stopped cracking--seeing that no one paid any attention to
it, it wisely left off--and the ghosts await a fitter opportunity to
pounce.

I have heard from Sir Roger--a cheerful note, dated Southampton. If _he_
is cheerful, I may surely allow myself to be so too. I therefore no
longer compunctiously strangle any stray smiles that visit my
countenance. I have taken several drives with Barbara in my new
pony-carriage--it is a curious sensation being able to order it without
being subject to fathers veto--and we have skirted our own park, and
have peeped through his close wooden palings at Mr. Musgrave's, have
strained our eyes and stretched our necks to catch a glimpse of his old
gray house, nestling low down among its elms. (Was there ever an abbey
that did not live in a hollow?) With bated breath, lest the groom behind
should overhear me, I have slightly sketched to Barbara the outline of
an idea for establishing her in that weather-worn old pile--an idea
which I think was born in my mind as long ago as the first evening that
I saw its owner at the Linkesches Bad, and heard that he _had_ an abbey,
and that it was over against my future home.

Barbara does not altogether deny the desirability of the arrangement;
she is not, however, so sanguine as I as to its feasibility, and she
positively declines to consent to enter actively into it until she has
seen him. This will be on Sunday. To Sunday, therefore, I look forward
with pious haste.

Well, it is Sunday now--the Sunday of my first appearance as a bride at
Tempest church. A bride without her bridegroom! A pang of mortification
and pain shoots through me, as this thought traverses my soul. I look at
myself dissatisfiedly in the glass. Alas! I am no credit to his taste.
If, for this once. I could but look taller, personabler, _older_!

"They will all say that he has made a fool of himself," I say, half
aloud.

It is a sultry day, without wind or freshness, and with a great deal of
sun; but in spite of this, I put on a silk gown, rich and heavy, as
looking more _married_ than the cobweb muslins in which I have hitherto
met the summer heat. On my head I place a sedately feathered bonnet,
which would not have misbecome mother. I meet Algy and Barbara in my
boudoir. They are already dressed. I ex