Rosa laughed, with a saucy retort, and turned into her chamber.

Mabel entered her brother's, and without speaking, took the seat he

offered. She was to be sentenced, and she must reserve her forces to

sustain the pain without a groan.

"You saw Jenkyns--did you not?" began Mr. Aylett, with the manner of

one at peace with himself, and those of his fellow-men whose

existence he chose to acknowledge.

"I did. He made memoranda of your orders, and said all should be

done as you wished."

"I ordered the masons, this evening, to begin the hall-chimney

to-morrow. While the work is going on, you had better occupy some

other bed-room. I shall hurry it forward, day and night, or it will

not be done in season for us when we return from our bridal-tour.

The carpets must be down, and the paper dry by the fifteenth at

farthest. Clara bought your dresses, and offers to have them made,

if you will send her an accurate measurement. You are about her

height, although not so well-proportioned. Your figure is angular,

where hers is round. She is your senior by several years, yet one

might easily mistake her for a girl of twenty, her complexion is so

fresh. Her twenty-five years show themselves in nothing except her

ease of manner, maturity of thought, and elegance of diction."

He would have sneered at this strain in another as hyperbolical and

fatuous. The absurdity of it in his mouth consisted mainly in the

cool arrogance of the assumption that whatever belonged to him was

above adverse criticism, and would be maligned if it were referred

to without appending an encomium. Much of fervor might and did

mingle in his thoughts of her he was to wed, but none warmed his

enumeration of her perfections. He did nothing con amore, unless it

were exalting the dignity and glory of the Aylett name, and

maintaining his right to support their ancient honors.

Mabel did not respond to his gratuitous praise of the fair and

benevolent Clara. While he was talking, he seemed to recede a great

way from her; his tones to ring hollowly upon her hearing, his form

to grow indistinct. Was he playing with her suspense, or could it be

that he--a being with heart and nerves like hers, had no conception

of the rack on which she waa stretched--no suspicion that every one

of his deliberate sentences was a turn of the screw that redoubled

her torture? The Ayletts were a strong-willed race, and she

repressed all sign of suffering save intense pallor; made this less

palpable by screening her eyes from the lamp-light with a paper she

took from the table, and thereby throwing her features into deep

shadow.




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