ormer had been unwilling to go--it had
seemed to her a terrible _mesalliance_, but, woman-like, she had grown
interested in the love-story--she had learned to understand the
passionate love that Lord Arleigh had for his fair-haired bride. A
breath of her own youth swept over her as she watched them.

It might be a _mesalliance_, a bad match, but it was decidedly a case of
true love, of the truest love she had ever witnessed; so that her
dislike to the task before her melted away.

After all, Lord Arleigh had a perfect right to please himself--to do as
he would; if he did not think Madaline's birth placed her greatly
beneath him, no one else need suggest such a thing. From being a violent
opponent of the marriage, Lady Peters became one of its most strenuous
supporters. So they went away to St. Mildred's, where the great tragedy
of Madaline's life was to begin.

On the morning that she went way, the duchess sent for her to her room.
She told her all that she intended doing as regarded the elaborate and
magnificent _trousseau_ preparing for her. Madaline was overwhelmed.

"You are too good to me," she said--"you spoil me. How am I to thank
you?"

"Your wedding-dress--plain, simple, but rich, to suit the occasion--will
be sent to St. Mildred's," said the duchess--"also a handsome traveling
costume; but all the rest of the packages can be sent to Beechgrove. You
will need them only there."

Madaline kissed the hand extended to her.

"I shall never know how to thank you," she said.

A peculiar smile came over the darkly-beautiful face.

"I think you will," returned the duchess "I can imagine what blessings
you will some day invoke on my name."

Then she withdrew her hand suddenly from the touch of the pure sweet
lips.

"Good-by, Madaline," she said; and it was long before the young girl saw
the fair face of the duchess again.

Just as she was quitting the room Philippa placed a packet in her hand.

"You will carefully observe the directions given in this?" she said; and
Madaline promised to do so.

The time at St. Mildred's soon passed. It was a quiet, picturesque
village, standing at the foot of a green hill facing the bay. There was
little to be seen, except the shining sea and the blue sky. An old
church, called St. Mildred's, stood on the hill-top. Few strangers ever
visited the little watering-place. The residents were people who
preferred quiet and beautiful scenery to everything else. There was a
hot