ht, friends. Is that you, Jane?"

Jane appeared, bearing in a cup of cocoa for Beatrice.

"Jane, show these ladies out."

They all went. They hated to go, but they went, for the mantle of
innocence and ignorance in which Mrs. Meadowsweet was so securely
wrapped gave her a certain dignity which they could not resist. Jane
shut the door on them, and they stood still outside the house, and
wrangled, and talked, and worked themselves into a perfect rage of
excitement and curiosity and longing. "Well, well, all surmises would
soon be at rest. Who would win, Beatrice or Josephine? Who would be
to-morrow's bride."

"Mother," said Beatrice, when the ladies had left--she looked into her
old mother's face. There was an expression in her eyes which made Mrs.
Meadowsweet cry out:

"Bee, you have got a hunger at your heart. Oh, child, you want your
mammy--I never saw that look in your eyes since long, long ago, when you
were a little tot, and wanted your mammy more than anything else in all
the wide world."

"I want her now," said Beatrice.

She put her arms about her mother, and wept on her shoulder.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE MORNING OF THE WEDDING.

Beatrice had seen Mr. Ingram. She had gone to him, but not to stay.

"You must go to Mrs. Bertram's," she said; "she has a trouble on her
mind. Get her to tell it to you. She will be better afterwards. She
fears much. I guess a little of what she fears. She does not know that
by to-morrow night all her anxieties will be over."

"And the wedding is really to take place in the morning, Beatrice?"

"Really and truly. I will be present as bride's-maid, not as bride."

Beatrice went home, and Mr. Ingram hastened to the Manor.

There was much confusion there. Mrs. Bertram was very ill; she would not
see her daughters, she would allow no doctor to be summoned. Mabel was
crying in the drawing-room. Catherine was pacing up and down the
corridor outside her mother's room.

The Rector came. Bertram saw him for a few moments alone; then he went
into Mrs. Bertram's room. He stayed with her for some hours; it was long
past midnight when he left her. Catherine and Mabel had gone to bed, but
Bertram met the Rector outside his mother's door.

"Come home with me," said Mr. Ingram; "I have a message to give you. I
have something to say."

"How is my mother, sir?"

"She is better,--better than she has been for years--she will sleep
now--she has carried a heavy burden, but confe