From that day forth it was understood at Upcombe that Dolly Barton

was informally engaged to Walter Brydges. Their betrothal would be

announced in the "Morning Post"--"We learn that a marriage has been

arranged," and so forth--as soon as the chosen bride had returned

to town, and communicated the great news in person to her mother.

For reasons of her own, Dolly preferred this delay; she didn't wish

to write on the subject to Herminia. Would mamma go and spoil it

all? she wondered. It would be just like her.

The remaining week of her stay at the rectory was a golden dream of

delight to Dolly. Beyond even the natural ecstasy of first love,

Advertisement..

the natural triumph of a brilliant engagement, what visions of

untold splendor danced hourly, day and night, before her dazzled

eyes! What masques of magnificence! county balls, garden parties!

It was heaven to Dolly. She was going to be grander than her

grandest daydream.

Walter took her across one afternoon to Combe Mary, and introduced

her in due form to his mother and his step-father, who found the

pink-and-white girl "so very young," but saw no other grave fault

in her. He even escorted her over the ancestral home of the

masters of Combe Mary, in which they were both to live, and which

the young squire had left vacant of set purpose till he found a

wife to his mind to fill it. 'Twas the ideal crystallized. Rooks

cawed from the high elms; ivy clambered to the gables; the tower of

the village church closed the vista through the avenue. The cup of

Dolly's happiness was full to the brim. She was to dwell in a

manor-house with livery servants of her own, and to dress for

dinner every night of her existence.

On the very last evening of her stay in Dorsetshire, Walter came

round to see her. Mrs. Compson and the girls managed to keep

discreetly out of the young people's way; the rector was in his

study preparing his Sunday sermon, which arduous intellectual

effort was supposed to engage his close attention for five hours or

so weekly. Not a mouse interrupted. So Dolly and her lover had

the field to themselves from eight to ten in the rectory drawing-room.

From the first moment of Walter's entry, Dolly was dimly aware,

womanlike, of something amiss, something altered in his manner.

Not, indeed, that her lover was less affectionate or less tender

than usual,--if anything he seemed rather more so; but his talk was

embarrassed, pre-occupied, spasmodic. He spoke by fits and starts,

and seemed to hold back something. Dolly taxed him with it at

last. Walter tried to put it off upon her approaching departure.

But he was an honest young man, and so bad an actor that Dolly,

with her keen feminine intuitions, at once detected him. "It's

more than that," she said, all regret, leaning forward with a

quick-gathering moisture in her eye, for she really loved him.

"It's more than that, Walter. You've heard something somewhere

that you don't want to tell me."




Most Popular