ken an air of routine and commonplace to Elinor. It had
come to be only the common day, not the glory and freshness of the
morning. She felt herself, as she had never done before, on the edge of
a world unknown, where everything would be new to her, where--it was
possible--that which awaited her might not be unmixed happiness, might
even be the reverse. It is seldom that a girl on the eve of marriage
either thinks this or acknowledges to herself that she thinks it. Elinor
did so involuntarily, without thinking upon her thought. Perhaps it
would not be unmixed happiness. Strange clouds seemed to hang upon the
horizon, ready to roll up in tragic darkness and gloom. Oh, no, not
tragic, only commonplace, she said to herself; opaqueness, not
blackness. But yet it was ominous and lowering, that distant sky.

CHAPTER XIV.

The days of the last week hurried along like the grains of sand out of
an hour-glass when they are nearly gone. It is true that almost
everything was done--a few little bits of stitching, a few things still
to be "got up" alone remaining, a handkerchief to mark with Elinor's
name, a bit of lace to arrange, just enough to keep up a possibility
of something to do for Mrs. Dennistoun in the blank of all other
possibilities--for to interest herself or to occupy herself about
anything that should be wanted beyond that awful limit of the
wedding-day was of course out of the question. Life seemed to stop there
for the mother, as it was virtually to begin for the child; though
indeed to Elinor also, notwithstanding her love, it was visible more in
the light of a point at which all the known and certain ended, and where
the unknown and almost inconceivable began. The curious thing was that
this barrier which was placed across life for them both, got somehow
between them in those last days which should have been the most tender
climax of their intercourse. They had a thousand things to say to each
other, but they said very little. In the evening after dinner, whether
they went out into the garden together to watch the setting of the young
moon, or whether they sat together in that room which had witnessed all
Elinor's commencements of life, free to talk as no one else in the world
could ever talk to either of them, they said very little to each other,
and what they said was of the most commonplace kind. "It is a lovely
night; how clear one can see the road on the other side of the combe!"
"And what a bright s