The Rector of St. Marks

Very extensive preparations were making at Prospect Hill for the

double wedding to occur on the 15th. After much debate and

consultation, Fanny had decided to take the doctor then; and thus she,

too, shared largely in the general interest and excitement which

pervaded everything.

Both brides elect seemed very happy, but in a very different way; for,

while Fanny was quiet and undemonstrative, Lucy seemed wild with joy,

and danced gayly about the house--now in the kitchen, where the cake

was making; now in the chamber where the plain sewing was done, and

then flitting to her own room in quest of Valencia, who was sent on

divers errands, the little lady thinking that, now the time was so

near, it would be proper for her to remain indoors and not show

herself in public quite as freely as she had been in the habit of

doing.

So she remained at home, while they missed her in the back streets and

bylanes, the Widow Hobbs, who was still an invalid, pining for a sight

of her bright face, and only half compensated for its absence by the

charities which Valencia brought; the smart waiting-maid putting on

innumerable airs and making Mrs. Hobbs feel keenly how greatly she

thought herself demeaned by coming to such a heathenish place as that.

The Hanoverians, too, missed her in the street, but for this they

made ample amends by discussing the doings at Prospect Hill and

commenting upon the bridal trousseau which was sent up from New York

the very week before Christmas, thus affording a most fruitful theme

for conversation for the women and girls engaged in trimming the

church.

There were dresses of every conceivable fabric, they said, but none

were quite so grand as the wedding-dress itself--the heavy white

silk which could "stand alone," and trailed "a full half-yard behind."

It was also whispered round that, not content with seeing the effect

of her bridal robes as they lay upon the bed, Miss Lucy Harcourt had

actually tried them on--wreath, veil and all--and stood before the

glass until Miss Fanny had laughed at her for being so vain and

foolish, and said she was a pretty specimen for a sober clergyman's

wife.

For all this gossip the villagers were indebted mostly to Miss

Valencia Le Barre, who, ever since her arrival at Prospect Hill, had

been growing somewhat disenchanted with the young mistress she had

expected to rule even more completely than she had ruled Mrs.

Meredith. But in this she was mistaken, and it did not improve her

never very amiable temper to find that she could not with safety

appropriate more than half her mistress' handkerchiefs, collars,

cuffs, and gloves, to say nothing of perfumery, and pomades, and, as

this was a new state of things with Valencia, she chafed at the

administration under which she had so willingly put herself, and told

things of her mistress which no sensible servant would ever have

reported. And Lucy gave her plenty to tell.