Our two friends having drained the bitten, had got to the bottom of the
cup, and neither knew that no sooner were the sweets swallowed, than
it was to be replenished with a doubly-bitter dose. Neither of them
dismounted till they reached the house of Leoline, and there Sir Norman
secured his horse, and looked up at it with a beating heart. Not that
it was very unusual for his heart to beat, seeing it never did anything
else; but on that occasion its motion was so mush accelerated, that any
doctor feeling his pulse might have justly set him down as a bad case
of heart-disease. A small, bright ray of light streamed like a beacon
of hope from an upper window, and the lover looked at it as a clouded
mariner might at the shining of the North Star.
"Are you coming in, Ormiston?" he inquired, feeling, for the first time
in his life, almost bashful. "It seems to me it would only be right, you
know."
"I don't mind going in and introducing` you," said Ormiston; "but after
you have been delivered over, you may fight poor own battles, and take
care of yourself. Come on."
The door was unfastened, and Ormiston sprang upstairs with the air of a
man-quite at home, followed more decorously by Sir Norman. The door
of the lady's room stood ajar, as he had left it, and in answer to his
"tapping at the chamber-door," a sweet feminine voice called "come in."
Ormiston promptly obeyed, and the next instant they were in the room,
and in the presence of the dead bride. Certainly she did not look dead,
but very much alive, just then, as she sat in an easy-chair, drawn up
before the dressing-table, on which stood the solitary lamp that illumed
the chamber. In one hand she held a small mirror, or, as it was then
called, a "sprunking-glass," in which she was contemplating her own
beauty, with as much satisfaction as any other pretty girl might justly
do. She had changed her drenched dress during Ormiston's absence, and
now sat arrayed in a swelling amplitude of rose-colored satin, her dark
hair clasped and bound by a circle of milk-white pearls, and her pale,
beautiful face looking ten degrees more beautiful than ever, in contrast
with the bright rose-silk, shining dark hair, and rich white jewels. She
rose up as they entered, and came forward with the same glow on her face
and the same light in her eyes that one of them had seen before, and
stood with drooping eyelashes, lovely as a vision in the centre of the
room.
"You see I have lost no time in obeying your ladyship's commands," began
Ormiston, bowing low. "Mistress Leoline, allow me to present Sir Norman
Kingsley."
Sir Norman Kingsley bent almost as profoundly before the lady as
the lord high chancellor had done before Queen Miranda; and the lady
courtesied, in return, until her pink-satin skirt ballooned out all over
the floor. It was quite an affecting tableau. And so Ormiston felt, as
he stood eyeing it with preternatural gravity.