both hands, and forcing me to execute an uncouth war-dance, in
unwilling celebration of my approaching nuptials.

"I hope that there will be lots of almonds in the cake!" says Bobby,
gluttonously.

CHAPTER VII.

The week's reprieve has ended; my Judgment Day has come. Never, never,
surely, did seven days race so madly past, tumbling over each other's
heels. Even Sunday--Sunday, which mostly contains at least forty-eight
hours--has gone like a flash. Morning service, afternoon service, good
looks, sermon to the servants, supper, they all run into one another
like dissolving views. For the first time in my life, my sleep is
broken. I fall asleep in a fever of irresolution. I awake in one. I walk
about in one. I feed the jackdaw in one. I box Bobby's ears in one. My
appetite (oh, portent!) flags. In intense excitement, who can eat yards
of bread-and-butter, pounds of oatmeal-porridge, as has ever been my
bucolic habit? Shall I marry Sir Roger, or shall I not? The birds, the
crowing cocks, the church-bells, the gong for dinner, the old pony
whinnying in the park, they all seem to say this. It seems written on
the sailing clouds, on the pages of every book that I open. Armies of
_pros_ wage battle against legions of _cons_, and every day the issue of
the fight seems even more and more doubtful.

The morning of the day has arrived, and I am still undecided. I dress in
a perfect storm of doubts and questionings. I put on my gown, without
the faintest idea of whether it is inside out, or the reverse. I go
slowly down-stairs, every banister marked by a fresh decision. I open
the dining-room door. Father's voice is the first thing that I hear;
father's voice, raised and rasping. He is standing up, and has a letter
in his hand; from the engaging blue of its color, and the harmony of its
shape, too evidently a bill.

"I regret to have to hurt your feelings," he is saying, in that awful
civil voice, at which we all--small and great--quake, "but the next time
that _this_ occurs" (pointing to the bill), "I must request you to find
accommodation for yourself elsewhere, as really my poor house is not a
fit place for a young gentleman with such princely views on the subject
of expenditure."

The object of this pleasant harangue is Algy, who, also standing, with
his face very white, his lips very much compressed, and his eyes
flashing with a furious light, is fronting his parent on the hearth-rug.

Behind the tea-urn, mot