The Three Brides | Page 5

at the head of the table in contented
self-possession, her little slender figure as upright as a perfect spine
could make it.

Very different was the bride on Raymond's right hand. She was of
middle height, soft, round, and plump, carrying her head a little
tenderly on one side with a delightful degagee kind of ease, and air of
vivacious indolence. Her complexion was creamy and colourless, her
nose rather retrousse, her lips full and parting in a delicious roguish
smile, answering to the sleepily twinkling eyes, whose irides seemed to
shade so imperceptibly into the palest gray, that there was no telling
where the pupils ended, especially as the lids were habitually half
closed, as if weighed down by the black length of their borders. The
habit of arching up one or other of the eyebrows, in surprise or
interrogation, gave a drollery to the otherwise nonchalant sweetness of
the countenance. The mass of raven black hair was only adorned by a
crimson ribbon, beneath which it had been thrust into a net, with a long
thing that had once been a curl on the shoulder of the white tumbled
bodice worn over a gray skirt which looked as if it had done solitary
duty for the five weeks since the marriage, and was but slightly relieved
by a crimson sash.
Rosamond made some apology when she saw Cecil's dainty equipment.
"Dressed, you correct little thing! You put me to shame; but I had no
notion which box my evening things are in, and it would have been
serious to irritate the whole concern."
"And she was some time with Anne," added Julius.
"Ah! with my good will Anne should not have been here!" rejoined
Rosamond. "Didn't I meet old Mrs. Nurse at your threshold, with an
invitation from Mrs. Poynsett to dine with her in her room, and didn't
we find the bird flown at the first stroke of the gong?"
"Oh, I am very well!" repeated Anne.
Yet she was far more colourless than Julius, for her complexion was
not only faded by sickness, but was naturally of the whitest blonde tint;
the simple coils of her hair "lint white," and her eyes of the lightest tint
of pure blue. The features were of Scottish type, all the more so from
being exaggerated by recent illness; but they were handsome enough to
show that she must have been a bonnie lassie when her good looks

were unimpaired. Her figure far surpassed in height that of both the
other ladies, and was very slender, bending with languor and fatigue in
spite of her strenuous attempts to straighten it. She was clad in a
perfectly plain, almost quaker-looking light dove-coloured silk dress,
fitting closely, and unrelieved by any ribbon or ornament of any
description, so that her whole appearance suggested nothing but the
words "washed out."
It was clear that to let her alone was merciful, and there was no lack of
mutual communications among the rest. Frank and Charlie gave their
account of the condition of the game.
"Do you let your tenants shoot rabbits?" exclaimed Cecil, as if
scandalized. "We never do at Dunstone."
"It prevents an immense amount of discontent and ill-will and
underhand work," said Raymond.
"My father never will listen to any nonsense about rabbits," proceeded
Cecil. "If you once begin there is no end to it, they are sure to encroach.
He just sends them a basket of game at the beginning and end of the
season."
"By the bye," said Raymond, "I hope ours have all been sent out as
usual."
"I can answer for a splendid one at our wedding breakfast," said
Rosamond. "The mess-man who came to help was lost in admiration.
Did you breakfast on ortolans, Cecil?"
"Or on nightingales' tongues?" added Charlie.
"You might as well say fatted dormice and snails," said Frank. "One
would think the event had been eighteen hundred years ago."
"Poor Frank! he's stuffed so hard that it is bursting out at all his pores!"
exclaimed Charlie.

"Ah! you have the advantage of your elder, Master Charles!" said
Raymond, with a paternal sound of approbation.
"Till next time," said Frank. "Now, thank goodness, mine is once for
all!"
The conversation drifted away to Venice and the homeward journey,
which Raymond and Cecil seemed to have spent in unremitting sight-
seeing. The quantities of mountains, cathedrals, and pictures they had
inspected was quite appalling.
"How hard you must have worked!" exclaimed Rosamond. "Had you
never a day's rest out of the thirty?"
"Had we, Cecil? I believe not," said Raymond.
"Sundays?" gasped Anne's low voice at his elbow.
"Indeed," triumphantly returned Cecil, "between English service and
High Mass, and Benediction, and the public gardens, and listening to
the band, we had not a single blank Sunday."
Anne started