244 
THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
and a long red beard? Why, indeed! Yet here am I 
distinctly couseious of—disapproval. 
‘‘ Yes.” he is saying in the dry. carefully modulated 
voice of the middle-aged lawyer,, "by leaving Vance 
judge pro tern. I was enabled to get away a few hours 
earlier. I will be up to-night.” 
He passes into his office as the horses are turned. As 
they turn, and the wheels go into deeper water. I glance 
apprehensively in that dir ection, and become aware that 
" Faust” is passing. He stands on a gunnel; he is re¬ 
garding us closely: and when my eyes meet his, his 
hand goes up at once to his hat. 
"How d'ye?” is cousin David's careless greetiug to 
Millard Reeve, the schoolmaster. 
Then we drive far into the country, and it is night¬ 
fall when we return. Marguerite stands, white-robed, 
among the yellow Lilies in the dusk. 
Do my eyes deceive me ? or do I see a peculiar, high- 
shouldered figure vanishing among the swiftly falling 
shades of night? When we are in the brilliantly- 
lighted supper-room this chimera fades. I give myself 
an arousing shake. Am I bewitched, that 1 see this 
man everywhere? 
After a little. Judge Granger comes; sits, with 
crossed knees and folded arms, squarely in his chair, 
talking sensibly of matter-of-fact things. All the fam¬ 
ily are in the room except Marguerite. “ She will be 
down stairs presently,” her mother has said. But an 
hour goes by and she does not come. No one seems to 
t hink her absence strange. I am strangely nervous 
and restless; I catch myself straining my ears for 
sounds from Marguerite’s room overhead. But all is 
still. Crops versus high water, politics and the docket, 
fall like a foreign language upon my listening ear: then 
I slip unobserved from my seat near the door and go to 
the front steps. 
It is quite dark now. Gusts of hot air. damp from 
the river, lift the hair from my heated face. Storm- 
clouds, inky black, are piling up mountain high in 
Egypt. Distant floating lights are on the river, 
whose awful roar is so distinctly heard in the silence of 
night. 
A flutter of white garments at the gate ; a form glides 
by me into the house, wraith-like, noiseless. With a 
start I push the hair from my forehead, rub my eyes 
and gaze down the hall after the retreating form. It is 
Marguerite ! Then a sudden terror fa l ls upon me—hor¬ 
ror of some intangible, terrible thing. 
Pooh! it’s nervousness, the electricity. “Will it 
rain to-night?” I ask of Cousin David, as the others 
come out, leaving the affianced alone. He looks at the 
sky in grave scrutiny. 
“I fear so,” he says. “The farmers have given 
up the crops, and a heavy rain now would endanger 
their homes. There has been already a clean 
sweep of the fences and corn-pens in the river 
bottoms.” 
Ascending the stair I involuntarily glance through 
the open door of the sitting-room. Judge Granger leans 
forward, talking in a low tone to Marguerite, whose 
face I cannot see. 
“Ze rain, eel has not come,” says Madame, throwing 
the blinds of our chamber open next morning. 
“But the flood has. It is at the hedge!” Cousin 
David’s strong, hearty tones come up from the garden. 
“ Tell Cousin Ruth ! Come down and see !” 
On every side is water—too deep for wading, too 
shallow for boating, in front of the house. At the side 
of the garden along the hedge it is very deep, and hero 
the boats ply between the house and town. 
A trocfp of colored servants, under direction of the 
‘‘caterer,” come after breakfast and begin preparation' 
for the wedding feast. 
At the window in my lady’s chamber sits my lady, 
white and beauteous as tho ivory Lilies I hold in my 
hand. All the long, breathless summer day she sits 
there: and if her mother goes near or speaks to her, I 
do not see or hear. 
The caterer having completed the preparations 
for the supper to his provincial satisfaction, de¬ 
parts. 
It is growing late, and Madame and I, too, rest from 
our labors. In the hall, as usual, it seems scarcely pos¬ 
sible to breathe ; elsewhere the faint, unsteady breeze 
wliich precedes a storm comes and goes, leaving us to 
gasp and fan. Cousin David, who sits in the door fan¬ 
ning with his big straw hat. takes a parcel from a mes¬ 
senger and calls Marguerite twice before she appears at 
the head of the stairs. 
“ Here is the wedding dress,” he says ; “ try it on and 
let’s see what a magnificent young woman you mean to 
be to-night!” 
She stands looking at him, without making a move¬ 
ment to descend, when an unprecedented lit of energy 
seizes her mother. 
“ I will be tire-woman to the bride,” she says gran¬ 
diloquently, starting up stairs. But she is arrested by 
a cry from Madame. 
“Ze mallieur! eet vill ze bad luck !” 
Mrs. Easten is above vulgar superstition, and, after 
some gay badinage, goes her way up stairs. 
Madame expresses further trepidation over the threat¬ 
ened storm. The clouds, which have been lowering for 
two days, are settling down in lurid, appalling masses 
on the Illinois shore. Rain upon a wedding—that, too, 
will bring ill luck ! 
“ Get thee gone, bird of evil!” I misquote softly under 
my breath. Cousin David laughs, and Madame gives a 
quick glance about. 
“Where eez ze bird at ?” 
This Kentucky idiom is a recent acquisition to Ma- 
dame’s vocabulary. 
A soft rustle of silk, the sound of trailing garments— 
Marguerite is coming ! 
The exquisite silvery brocade has been ruiued', and is 
as hideous a failure as rustic incapacity can compass. 
But it is beyond the power of an illy-made gown to con¬ 
ceal the lithe perfection of the beautiful young body, or 
dim the ineffable loveliness of the pallid face. 
Mrs. Easten, with partially-closed, critical eyes, re¬ 
gards her with a sort of • disinterested approbation. 
Cousin David looks at her with a sudden, proud light 
in his eyes ; then hurriedly turns his face toward the 
river. 
“ La dame blanche," inspired by the occasion, Madame 
quavers out a few words of the old song in an antiquated 
treble. Not even in beloved Paris has she ever seen a 
more beautiful bride. 
I say nothing. I can only gaze at the girl in wonder; 
