y back, with the condition that we
left Ellan for London on the day of our marriage.

After the party from Castle Raa had gone, leaving some of their family
lace and pearls behind for the bride to wear at her wedding, and after
Aunt Bridget had hoped that "that woman" (meaning Lady Margaret) didn't
intend to live at the Castle after my marriage, because such a thing
would not fit in with her plans "at all, at all," I mentioned the
arrangements for the honeymoon, whereupon Betsy Beauty, to whom Italy
was paradise, and London glimmered in an atmosphere of vermillion and
gold, cried out as usual:

"What a lucky, lucky girl you are!"

But the excitement which had hitherto buoyed me up was partly dispelled
by this time, and I was beginning to feel some doubt of it.

TWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER

As my wedding-day approached and time ran short, the air of joy which
had pervaded our house was driven out by an atmosphere of irritation. We
were all living on our nerves. The smiles that used to be at everybody's
service gave place to frowns, and, in Aunt Bridget's case, to angry
words which were distributed on all sides and on all occasions.

As a consequence I took refuge in my room, and sat long hours there in
my dressing-gown and slippers, hearing the hubbub that was going on in
the rest of the house, but taking as little part in it as possible. In
this semi-conventual silence and solitude, the excitement which had
swept me along for three weeks subsided rapidly.

I began to think, and above all to feel, and the one thing I felt beyond
everything else was a sense of something wanting.

I remembered the beautiful words of the Pope about marriage as a mystic
relation, a sacred union of souls, a bond of love such as Christ's love
for His Church, and I asked myself if I felt any such love for the man
who was to become my husband.

I knew I did not. I reminded myself that I had had nearly no
conversation with him, that our intercourse had been of the briefest,
that I had seen him only three times altogether, and that I scarcely
knew him at all.

And yet I was going to marry him! In a few days more I should be his
wife, and we should be bound together as long as life should last!

Then I remembered what Father Dan had said about a girl's first love,
her first love-letter, and all the sweet, good things that should come
to her at the time of her marriage.

None of them had come to me. I do not think my thoughts of lov