ing in the private parlour
of an hotel in the company of the Marquis of Walderhurst--it would
require too many pages to describe.

Her first realisation of the day brought with it the physical
consciousness that her heart was thumping--steadily thumping, which is
quite a different matter from the ordinary beating--at the realisation
of what had come at last. An event which a year ago the wildest dream
could not have depicted for her was to-day an actual fact; a fortune
such as she would have thought of with awe if it had befallen another
woman, had befallen her unpretending self. She passed her hand over her
forehead and gasped as she thought of it.

"I hope I shall be able to get accustomed to it and not be a--a
disappointment," she said. "Oh!" with a great rising wave of a blush,
"how good of him! How can I _ever_--"

She lived through the events of the day in a sort of dream within a
dream. When Jane Cupp brought her tea, she found herself involuntarily
making a mental effort to try to look as if she was really awake. Jane,
who was an emotional creature, was inwardly so shaken by her feelings
that she herself had stood outside the door a few moments biting her
lips to keep them from trembling, before she dared entirely trust
herself to come in. Her hand was far from steady as she set down the
tray.

"Good morning, Jane," Emily said, by way of trying the sound of her
voice.

"Good morning, miss," Jane answered. "It's a beautiful morning, miss. I
hope--you are very well?"

And then the day had begun.

Afterwards it marched on with solemn thrill and stately movement through
hours of wondrous preparation for an imposing function, through the
splendid gravity of the function itself, accompanied by brilliant crowds
collected and looking on in a fashionable church, and motley crowds
collected to look on outside the edifice, the latter pushing and
jostling each other and commenting in more or less respectful if excited
undertones, but throughout devouring with awe-struck or envious eyes.
Great people whom Emily had only known through the frequent mention of
their names in newspapers or through their relationship or intimacy with
her patrons, came to congratulate her in her role of bride. She seemed
to be for hours the centre of a surging, changing crowd, and her one
thought was to bear herself with an outward semblance of composure. No
one but herself could know that she was saying internally over and over
again, t