THE NIGHT BEFORE.

THE time was the night before the marriage. The place was Sir Patrick's
house in Kent.

The lawyers had kept their word. The settlements had been forwarded, and
had been signed two days since.

With the exception of the surgeon and one of the three young gentlemen
from the University, who had engagements elsewhere, the visitors at
Windygates had emigrated southward to be present at the marriage.
Besides these gentlemen, there were some ladies among the guests invited
by Sir Patrick--all of them family connections, and three of them
appointed to the position of Blanche's bridesmaids. Add one or two
neighbors to be invited to the breakfast--and the wedding-party would be
complete.

There was nothing architecturally remarkable about Sir Patrick's
house. Ham Farm possessed neither the splendor of Windygates nor the
picturesque antiquarian attraction of Swanhaven. It was a perfectly
commonplace English country seat, surrounded by perfectly commonplace
English scenery. Snug monotony welcomed you when you went in, and snug
monotony met you again when you turned to the window and looked out.

The animation and variety wanting at Ham Farm were far from being
supplied by the company in the house. It was remembered, at an
after-period, that a duller wedding-party had never been assembled
together.

Sir Patrick, having no early associations with the place, openly
admitted that his residence in Kent preyed on his spirits, and that he
would have infinitely preferred a room at the inn in the village. The
effort to sustain his customary vivacity was not encouraged by persons
and circumstances about him. Lady Lundie's fidelity to the memory of the
late Sir Thomas, on the scene of his last illness and death, persisted
in asserting itself, under an ostentation of concealment which tried
even the trained temper of Sir Patrick himself. Blanche, still depressed
by her private anxieties about Anne, was in no condition of mind to
look gayly at the last memorable days of her maiden life. Arnold,
sacrificed--by express stipulation on the part of Lady Lundie--to the
prurient delicacy which forbids the bridegroom, before marriage, to
sleep in the same house with the bride, found himself ruthlessly shut
out from Sir Patrick's hospitality, and exiled every night to a bedroom
at the inn. He accepted his solitary doom with a resignation which
extended its sobering influence to his customary flow of spirits. As for
the ladie