She was very beautiful in her bridal robes, and she kept them on till
Fanny began to chide her for her vanity, and, even then, she lingered
before the mirror, as if loath to take them off.
"I don't believe in presentiments," she said to Fanny; "but, do you
know, it seems to me just as if I should never wear this again," and
she smoothed thoughtfully the folds of the heavy silk she had just
laid upon the bed. "I don't know what can happen to prevent it, unless
Arthur should die. He was so pale last Sunday and seemed so weak that
I shuddered every time I looked at him. I mean to drive round there
this afternoon," she continued. "I suppose it is too cold for him to
venture as far as here, and he has no carriage, either."
She went to the parsonage that afternoon, and the women in the church
saw her as she drove by, the gorgeous colors of her carriage blanket
flashing in the wintry sunshine just as the diamonds flashed upon the
hand she waved gayly towards them.
There was a little too much of the lady patroness about her quite to
suit the plain Hanoverians, especially those who were neither high
enough or low enough to be honored with her notice, and they returned
to their wreathmaking and gossip, wondering under their breath if it
would not, on the whole, have been just as well if their clergyman had
married Anna Ruthven instead of this fine city girl with her Parisian
manners.
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