Litchfield enquirer., 1875-07-22
WHOLE NO. 2563.

l nave her hands full, after you are all gone, making up fannels for the destitute ba- bies half mile about us"
 Cheerful prospect for Emily. laughed Valeria. ''How lucky that I brought my maid from the Place, and shan't have to tax Emily's fingers to help me with my toilet in the brides part tonight They are the nimblest little fingers with thim- ble on and have had to take so few stitches in the course of my life that am unhandy as you might suppose Q queen would be with a needle and thread. will give you @ d1amond-pointed gold needle, Emily, as soon as they invent it r
 Though she could use it only as bare bodkin," said young Luttrel.
 We'll, they certainly were superb cha rades, with superb music of Valeria's pro- vision between the acts. Aunt Paget never thought such things any liberties on Valeria's part, and would not have ob- jected if the superb supper at the end had been of Valeria's provision too, when she opened her own purse for it-her poor old miserly purse. And how magnificent 1y Valeria swept through all the parts al- lotted to her-now the East Indian prin- cess in her snowy gauges and blazing gems now the Spanish lady with comb and mantilla :; now in the curdling part of the Bride of Death, with her white robe brocaded in gold, and her vail of costly lace shrouding her like cloud Emily looked on as if Q pageant were passing before her and she herself were invisible; and so, indeed, it might be said she was, for her fair pale identity seemed to retire, to fade and vanish, before this splendid reality of flesh and tint.
 | "Do see Valeria tremble r whispered Mary Pennyman to young Luttrell. | II should think she would tremble," he replied, Git takes nerve to represent the Bride of Death"
 | 'None of the rest of us would do it-it was so ill omened. Oh, it isn't fear with which Valeria trembles-she doesn't know the word. Are the rooms cold? Any one would suppose it was positively real. Just look at her-how fervent! what an actress! I should think it would set Lawrence to thinkingr P
 ''About making it real? I've never seen the lover that could approach Miss Gueltan sufficiently to propose making such scene real p
 ''Mrs. Paget says there was always an understanding in the family that they should marry some day."
 ''But they're cousins"
 ''Oh, only thousandth cousins"
 
 said young Luttrell, taking Mary's boquet and giving her a quick sidelong look. ''F'or my part, it is very different kind of beauty that touches me! !' ] Yet it was true there was the least pos- | sible tremor about Valeria in that last picture she made, under the shimmer of | that bridal veil. She had turned white as clay when, from behind the scenes, Aunt Paget whispered to Lawrence to speak up, and if she had not caught his hand for support, she might have fallen. He turned 1n surprised inspection to see if 1t could be an imaginative horror at the ghastly presentment or any emotion at this mimic marriage with himself-for he was the Knight of Death-that so affected Valeria. At his look all her color came laanin0 back like beautiful flame; and dor than need be in the tone which failed to be sepulchral, and with which he pronounced the responses that, after all, he had not expected to make orally. It was fine scene--the radiant bride in her rich antique attire, the naughty mailed and visored groom, the robed and reve. rend priest, the armed servitors, tho gloom, the torches. It was applauded to the echo but Valera refused the encore. There was waltzing that night, when the charades were over. Flutes, horns, violins, breathed magical strain. and Lawrence was dancing with Valeria. Faster grew the measure; swifter fled the dancers by; swifter beat the currents of his blood. What was the wild, strange spell sweeping over him as he moved there l in those may circles, and forgot Emily, and remembered only this voluptuous, pull sating creature in his arms?
 At last the dance was done, the music had taken another key, and they were standing alone together on the little bal cony where she had so boldly drawn the curtain on the night of her arrival-how | long ago that seemed! All sounds came to them subdued through the heavy folds; they heard the murmurs within, the minor music of the band, the plashing of the garden boughs in the ftful wind of the starry night.
 ''There is something perhaps terrible that must tell you," Valeria was say ing, while he heard her as if in a dream. ''Terrible?" he said.
 ''You may think so," she answered. | ''Do you know-how can say it! Law renee, the priest who married us in tho charade-he is justice of the peace. learn. He is in sad quandary, for it subjects him to fine in some way. But but, Lawrence, we are-really mar riedp'
 Really married! He paused moment before replying. Then fate had taken it out of his hands; fate had assumed tho responsibility; fate had done the work. ''Is there any step you will take to undo it?' she was asking. silverly. 'tDo you wish to undo it?" he murmur- ed.
 She was silent-silent and trembling. l 'E you are my wife," he whispered, ''you shall never go out of these arms again."
 impetuous clasp, the curtains parted be: hind them, an innocent little face, where the sm1le had grown doubtful and infre- l quent of late, looked out upon them, | blanched as it's eager look faded, grew white and winter, while the seal of great agony seemed to stamp itself there slowly and then retreated silently as it had come. But 1t would have taken more than any little innocent face, or agonized one either to waken Lawrence from the madness of that passionate moment. i'n'
 That night, when the other guests had l departed, the horses were brought round, and Lawrence went home with his wife. l As Aunt Paget, in the lighted doorway, ran laboriously but triumphantly from the side of Uncle Martin and of Mrs. Gueltan, who remained for a time with them, to pick up the slipper she had gen. erously thrown after the phaeton, q little figure came slowly up the avenue, all its thin light garments. its hanging hair drip ping with dew. It was Emily white as any wrath herself, wild-eyed as ono ut. terly -be~ildered, and talking incoherently | when thnv hoSn0ko hay
 They took her in, and lel her to her room, pat her into bed, and gave her mild opiate-gnilty old Aunt Paget's hand shaking as she soothed the pillow. Some called it fever, and some insanity. What ever it was, it was a death warrant: she exchanged that bed only for one in the bosom of the great mother, who hides us at last from all the woes that have beset