Bonnibel's wedding-day dawned cloudless, fair and beautiful. The sun shone, the flowers bloomed, the birds sang. Nothing was wanting to complete the charm of the day.

Nothing? Ah! yes. The most important thing of all—the light and happy heart that should beat in the breast of a bride was lacking there.

She was beautiful "in gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls," but she looked like a statue carved in marble. No warmth or color tinged the strange pallor of her face and lips, no light of love shone in the violet eyes that drooped beneath the sweeping lashes. She spoke and moved like a soundless automaton.

Bonnibel had pleaded for a private marriage, but Colonel Carlyle had set his heart on a marriage at church, with all the paraphernalia of a fashionable wedding. He wanted to show the whole world what a peerless prize he was winning. He had urged the point with the persistency and almost obstinacy that is characteristic of age, and Bonnibel had yielded recklessly. She told herself that it did not matter what they did with her. Her heart was broken and her life was ruined.

She was not in a position to dictate terms. Wretched, dejected, friendless; what mattered this crowning humiliation of being decked in satin and pearls and orange flowers, and paraded before all eyes as a beautiful slave that an old man had bought with his gold.

Well, it was over. She had gone to the church with him, the wide portals had opened to receive her, the wedding march had pealed over her head, the beautiful bridesmaids had gone with her to the altar in their gala dresses, and carrying little baskets of flowers on their arms, and she had spoken the words that made her the bride of Colonel Carlyle. The fashionable world had flocked to witness the pageant, and nodded approval and congratulated both. And now?

Now the wedding breakfast was over, the "dear five hundred friends" had departed, and Mrs. Carlyle stood arrayed in her traveling dress.

Long Branch was to be the first destination of the wedded pair—they had made no further arrangements yet. Mrs. Arnold and Felise had promised to join them there in a few days by the groom's express invitation.

Felise had behaved so decorously after being thrown overboard[Pg 59] by her fickle suitor that the colonel felt that it behooved him to show his appreciation of her conduct by every delicate attention that was possible under the circumstances.

He had, therefore, insisted on their company at Long Branch while he and the bride remained there, and the two ladies had promised to join them there in a day or two at farthest.

Nothing but the coldest civilities had passed between the outraged Bonnibel and the mother and daughter since the day when Mrs. Arnold had cruelly insulted and threatened the helpless girl.

Bonnibel had kept her room almost entirely after that day, acquainting her uncle's wife with her acceptance of Colonel Carlyle by a brief note sent by Lucy, though she might have spared herself the trouble, for Mrs. Arnold and her daughter had both been witnesses of the colonel's happiness.

The bride-elect had been threatened by an avalanche of milliners and dressmakers at first, but she had resolutely declined to have anything to do with the details of her bridal outfit.

She had suffered a fashionable modiste to take her measure once, and after that Mrs. Arnold was forced to give her carte blanche in the whole matter of taste, expense and arrangement. Bonnibel would dictate nothing in the preparation of those hated garments in which she was to be sacrificed.

It was all over now. She stood in the hallway of the splendid home that had sheltered her childhood, waiting for the carriage that would bear her away on her honey-moon trip. She was leaving that dear home forever; a quick tear sprang to her eyes as the servants crowded around her with their humble, sorrowful adieux.

Lucy was to go with her, but the others, many of whom had been valued domestics in the house for years, she might never see again.

They all loved her, and their farewells and good wishes were the most fervent and heart-felt she had ever received.

Colonel Carlyle, though a little impatient, was pleased at these humble manifestations and distributed gratuities among them with a liberal hand. He wondered a little at the tears that crowded into the blue eyes of his girl-wife. He did not know that she was thinking of the dear uncle with whom she had spent so many hours beneath this roof. Ah, those happy days! How far they lay behind her now in the green land of memory!

"Come, dearest," he said, drawing her small hand through his arm and leading her away, "you must not dim............