breathe or speak, and he only begged for a place
to lay her down. Old Marianne Horsman, the quiet one of the family,
took us to her own den, and, with me, insisted on looking well at
Harold's hands and face. What might not that horrid leap have done?
But we convinced ourselves that those fangs had only caught his beard,
where there was a visible gap, but no sign of a wound; and those
riding-gloves had entirely guarded his hands. How blessed the
Providence, for ordinarily he never touched gloves, and common white
kid ones would have availed little. There was scarce time to speak of
it, for the child required all our care, and was only just becoming
calmer, as Harold held her, when the bride and bridegroom came in, she,
red and eager, he, white and shaken, to summon us to the breakfast.
"Don't go!" was her moan, half asleep.

Harold bade me go, and as the bride declared they could not sit down
without him, he answered, "Not yet, thank you, I couldn't." And I
remembered that his prompt deed of daring had been in defiance of a
strong nervous antipathy. There was a spasmodic effort in the smile he
attempted, a twitching in the muscles of his throat; he was as pale as
his browned cheeks could become, and his hand was still so unsteady
that he was forced to resign to me the spoonful of cordial to put into
Dora's mouth.

And at that moment Eustace turned and said, "Have you brought the
nuggets?"

Without speaking Harold put his hand into his pocket, and laid them in
Eustace's hand.

"These? you said they were golden apples; I thought they would be
bigger."

"They are wonderful," said Hippolyta; "no one ever had such a
wedding-gift."

"Not that--a debt," said Harold, hoarsely; but Pippa Horsman came and
summoned them, and I was obliged to follow, answering old Marianne's
entreaties to say what would be good for him by begging for strong
coffee, which she promised and ordered, but in the skurry of the
household, it never came.

The banquet, held in a tent, was meant to be a brilliantly merry one.
The cake had a hunt in sugar all round it, and the appropriate motto,
"Hip, hip, hurrah!" and people tried to be hilarious; but with that
awful shock thrilling on everybody's nerves we only succeeded in being
noisy, though, as we were assured, there was no cause for alarm or
grief. The dog had been tied up on suspicion, and had bitten nothing
but one cat, which it had killed. Yet surely grave thankfulness would
have b