Ethelyn was making a terrible mistake, and she knew it, hating herself for her duplicity, and vaguely hoping that something would happen to save her from the fate she so much dreaded.  But nothing did happen, and it was now too late to retract herself.  The bridal trousseau was prepared under Mrs. Van Buren’s supervision, the bridal guests were bidden, the bridal tour was planned, the bridegroom had arrived, and she would keep her word if she died in the attempt.

And so we find her on her bridal morning wishing nobody was coming, and denouncing getting married “a bore,” while Aunt Barbara looked at her in surprise, wondering if everything were right.  In spite of her ill humor, she was very handsome that morning in her white cambric wrapper, with just a little color in her cheeks and her heavy hair pushed back in behind her ears and twisted under the silk net.  Ethelyn cared little for her looks—­at least not then; by and by she might, when it was time for Mrs. Dr. Van Buren to arrive with Frank and Nettie Hudson, whom she had never seen.  She should want to look her very best then, but now it did not matter, even if her bridegroom was distant not an eighth of a mile, and would in all probability be coming in ere long.  She wished he would stay away—­she would rather not see him till night; and she experienced a feeling of relief when, about nine o’clock, Mrs. Markham’s maid brought her a little note which read as follows: 

“Darling Ethie: 

“You must not think it strange if I do not come to you this morning, for I am suffering from one of my blinding headaches, and can scarcely see to write you this.  I shall be better by night.  Yours lovingly,

“Richard Markham.”

Ethelyn was sitting upon the piazza steps, arranging a bouquet, when the note was brought to her; and as it was some trouble to put all the roses from her lap, she sent the girl for a pencil, and on the back of the note wrote hastily: 

“It does not matter, as you would only be in the way, and I have something of a headache, too.

“E.  Grant.”

“Take this back to Judge Markham,” she said to the girl, and then resumed her bouquet-making, wondering if every bride-elect were as wretched as herself, or if to any other maiden of twenty the world had ever looked so desolate and dreary, as it did to her this morning.

CHAPTER II

THE VAN BUREN SET

Captain Markham’s carryall, which Jake, the hired man, had brushed up wonderfully for the occasion, had gone over to West Chicopee after the party from Boston—­Mrs. Dr. Van Buren, with Frank, and his betrothed, Miss Nettie Hudson, from Philadelphia.  Others had been invited from the city, but one after another their regrets had come to Ethelyn, who would gladly have excused the entire set, Aunt Van Buren, Frank and all, though she confessed to herself a great