e it.

"Beastly bad crossing, I'm afraid. Hope you're a good sailor. Must be in
London to-morrow morning, you know."

The band was playing behind us. The leafless trees were beating their
bare boughs in front. The wedding bells were pealing. The storm was
thundering through the running sky. The sea was very loud.

At my father's gate Tommy the Mate, with a serious face, was standing,
cap in hand, under his triumphal arch, which (as well as it could for
the wind that was tearing its flowers and scattering them on the ground)
spelled out the words "God bless the Happy Bride."

When we reached the open door of the house a group of maids were
waiting for us. They were holding on to their white caps and trying to
control their aprons, which were swirling about their black frocks. As I
stepped out of the carriage they addressed me as "My lady" and "Your
ladyship." The seagulls, driven up from the sea, were screaming about
the house.

My husband and I went into the drawing-room, and as we stood together on
the hearthrug I caught a glimpse of my face in the glass over the
mantelpiece. It was deadly white, and had big staring eyes and a look of
faded sunshine. I fixed afresh the pearls about my neck and the diamond
in my hair, which was much disordered.

Almost immediately the other carriages returned, and relatives and
guests began to pour into the room and offer us their congratulations.
First came my cousins, who were too much troubled about their own
bedraggled appearance to pay much attention to mine. Then Aunt Bridget,
holding on to her half-moon bonnet and crying:

"You happy, happy child! But what a wind! There's been nothing like it
since the day you were born."

My father came next, like a gale of wind himself, saying:

"I'm proud of you, gel. Right proud I am. You done well."

Then came Lady Margaret, who kissed me without saying many words, and
finally a large and varied company of gaily-dressed friends and
neighbours, chiefly the "aristocracy" of our island, who lavished many
unnecessary "ladyships" upon me, as if the great name reflected a
certain glory upon themselves.

I remember that as I stood on the hearthrug with my husband, receiving
their rather crude compliments, a vague gaiety came over me, and I
smiled and laughed, although my heart was growing sick, for the effect
of the wedding-service was ebbing away into a cold darkness like that of
a night tide when the moonlight has left it.

It did