d entered it, banging the door behind her.

Time, which brings all things, brought the eve of Mrs. Tempest's
wedding. The small but perfect _trousseau_, subject of such anxious
thoughts, so much study, was completed. The travelling-dresses were
packed in two large oilskin-covered baskets, ready for the Scottish
tour. The new travelling-bag, with monograms in pink coral on
silver-gilt, a wedding present from Captain Winstanley, occupied the
place of honour in Mrs. Tempest's dressing-room. The wedding-dress, of
cream-coloured brocade and old point-lace, with a bonnet of lace and
water-lilies, was spread upon the sofa. Everything in Mrs. Tempest's
apartment bore witness to the impending change in the lady's life. Most
of all, the swollen eyelids and pale cheeks of the lady, who, on this
vigil of her wedding-day, had given herself up to weeping.

"Oh mum, your eyes will be so red to-morrow," remonstrated Pauline,
coming into the room with another dainty little box, newly-arrived from
the nearest railway-station, and surprising her mistress in tears. "Do
have some red lavender. Or let me make you a cup of tea."

Mrs. Tempest had been sustaining nature with cups of tea all through
the agitating day. It was a kind of drama drinking, and she was as much
a slave of the teapot as the forlorn drunken drab of St. Giles's is a
slave of the gin-bottle.

"Yes, you may get me another cup of tea, Pauline. I feel awfully low
to-night."

"You seem so, mum. I'm sure if I didn't want to marry him, I wouldn't,
if I was you. It's never too late for a woman to change her mind, not
even when she's inside the church. I've known it done. I wouldn't have
him, mum, if you feel your mind turn against him at the last,"
concluded the lady's-maid energetically.

"Not marry him, Pauline, when he is so good and noble, so devoted, so
unselfish!"

Mrs. Tempest might have extended this list of virtues indefinitely, if
her old servant had not pulled her up rather sharply.

"Well, mum, if he's so good and you're so fond of him, why cry?"

"You don't understand, Pauline. At such a time there are many painful
feelings. I have been thinking, naturally, of my dear Edward, the best
and most generous of husbands. Twenty years last June since we were
married. What a child I was, Pauline, knowing nothing of the world. I
had a lovely _trousseau;_ but I daresay if we could see the dresses now
we should think them absolutely ridiculous. And one's ideas of
u