to start for York directly after luncheon, and to come back by
the earliest train next day, and how they two were to be married
to-morrow afternoon.

'It is more wonderful than any dream that I ever dreamt.' exclaimed
Mary. 'But how can it be? I have not even a wedding gown.'

'A fig for wedding gowns! It is Mary I am to wed, not her gown. Were you
clad like patient Grisel I should be content. Besides you have no end of
pretty gowns. And you are to be dressed for travelling, remember; for I
am going to carry you off to Lodore directly we are married, and you
will have to clamber up the rocky bed of the waterfall to see the sun
set behind the Borrowdale hills in your wedding gown. It had better be
one of those neat little tailor gowns which become you so well.'

'I will wear whatever you tell me,' answered Mary. 'I shall always dress
to please you, and not the outside world.'

'Will you, my Griselda. Some day you shall be dressed as Grisel was--

"In a cloth of gold that brighte shone,
With a coroune of many a riche stone."

'Yes, you darling, when you are Lord Chancellor: and till that day comes
I will wear tailor gowns, linsey-wolsey, anything you like,' cried Mary,
laughing.

She ran to her grandmother's room, ineffably content, without a thought
of trousseau or finery; but then Mary Haselden was one of those few
young women for whom life is not a question of fashionable raiment.

'Mary, I am going to send you off upon your honeymoon to-morrow
afternoon,' said Lady Maulevrier, smiling at the bright, happy face
which was bent over her. 'Will you come back and nurse a fretful old
woman when the honeymoon is over?'

'The honeymoon will never be over,' answered Mary, joyously 'Our wedded
life is to be one long honeymoon. But I will come back in a very few
days, and take care of you. I am not going to let you do without me, now
that you have learnt to love me.'

'And will you be content to stay with me when your husband has gone to
London?'

'Yes, but I shall try to prevent his going very often, or staying very
long. I shall try to wind myself into his heart, so that there will be
an aching void there when we are parted.'

Lady Maulevrier proceeded to tell Mary all her arrangements. Three
handsome rooms in the east wing, a bedroom, dressing-room, and boudoir,
were to be made ready for the newly-married, couple. Fraeulein Mueller was
to be dismissed with a retiring pension, in order that Lady Mary and