ability which I have certainly
observed in Sir Percival's manner as the wedding-day draws nearer and
nearer? Impossible to say. I know that I have the idea--surely the
wildest idea, under the circumstances, that ever entered a woman's
head?--but try as I may, I cannot trace it back to its source.

This last day has been all confusion and wretchedness. How can I write
about it?--and yet, I must write. Anything is better than brooding
over my own gloomy thoughts.

Kind Mrs. Vesey, whom we have all too much overlooked and forgotten of
late, innocently caused us a sad morning to begin with. She has been,
for months past, secretly making a warm Shetland shawl for her dear
pupil--a most beautiful and surprising piece of work to be done by a
woman at her age and with her habits. The gift was presented this
morning, and poor warm-hearted Laura completely broke down when the
shawl was put proudly on her shoulders by the loving old friend and
guardian of her motherless childhood. I was hardly allowed time to
quiet them both, or even to dry my own eyes, when I was sent for by Mr.
Fairlie, to be favoured with a long recital of his arrangements for the
preservation of his own tranquillity on the wedding-day.

"Dear Laura" was to receive his present--a shabby ring, with her
affectionate uncle's hair for an ornament, instead of a precious stone,
and with a heartless French inscription inside, about congenial
sentiments and eternal friendship--"dear Laura" was to receive this
tender tribute from my hands immediately, so that she might have plenty
of time to recover from the agitation produced by the gift before she
appeared in Mr. Fairlie's presence. "Dear Laura" was to pay him a
little visit that evening, and to be kind enough not to make a scene.
"Dear Laura" was to pay him another little visit in her wedding-dress
the next morning, and to be kind enough, again, not to make a scene.
"Dear Laura" was to look in once more, for the third time, before going
away, but without harrowing his feelings by saying WHEN she was going
away, and without tears--"in the name of pity, in the name of
everything, dear Marian, that is most affectionate and most domestic,
and most delightfully and charmingly self-composed, WITHOUT TEARS!" I
was so exasperated by this miserable selfish trifling, at such a time,
that I should certainly have shocked Mr. Fairlie by some of the hardest
and rudest truths he has ever heard in his life, if the arrival o