“Beatrice met the bill.”

“Had there been no Beatrice?”

Bertram turned his head away.

“I have been a scoundrel,” he said at last.

The Rector laid his hand on his arm.

“You have been something uncommonly like it, my dear fellow.  And the spirit of revenge does not sit well on you.  Come, your mother is waiting.  Change her despair to peace.  Say some of the good things you have said to me to her, and the blessing of God will descend on you, Bertram, and on the young girl whom you will call your wife to-day.  Give me your hand.  Come.”

Bertram went.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE BRIDE!

Miss Peters was lying in sound slumber, and Mrs. Butler, with a wet sponge in her hand, was standing over the little spinster’s bed.

“Maria,” she said, in her sharp voice.  And at the same moment the sponge descended with unerring aim on the sleeper’s upturned face.

“Good heavens—­fire—­water!  What is it?—­I’m drowning—­” gasped Miss Peters.

She raised her eyes, choked, for her mouth had been open, and some of the contents of the sponge had got in, and then surveyed her sister in trepidation.

“Oh, Martha, it’s you.  How you frightened me!”

“I only applied the sponge,” replied Mrs. Butler.  “It’s an old-fashioned remedy for inordinate drowsiness, and effectual.”

“But surely, surely—­I feel as if I had only just dropped to sleep.”

“Maria, it’s five o’clock.”

“Five!  What do you mean, Martha?  Am I to be accused of inordinate sleepiness at five in the morning?”

“On this morning you are.  This is the wedding morning—­get up, dress yourself.  Put on your bridal finery, and join me in the parlor.”

Mrs. Butler left the room.  Miss Peters rubbed her sleepy eyes again.

“The wedding morning! and my bridal finery!” she murmured.  “One would think poor Sam had never been drowned.  I don’t think Martha has any heart.  She knows how I suffered about Sam.  He certainly never proposed for me, but he was attentive—­yes, he was attentive, and I—­I suffered.  It’s thirty years now since he was drowned.  Martha oughtn’t to forget.  People have no memories in these days.”

The little lady began to put on her garments.

“It does seem extraordinarily early to have to get up, even though Bee is to be married at eleven o’clock to-day,” she murmured.  “Certainly, Martha is a most masterful person.  Well, I don’t mind so much, as it is for Bee’s sake.”

Miss Peters proceeded with her toilet, took tenderly out of its folds of camphor and white linen, a little antiquated brown silk dress, put it on, crossed over her shoulders a neat fichu of white lace, mounted her bonnet, composed of a piece of silk, which she had artfully removed from the skirt of her dress.  This bonnet was trimmed with three enormous lemon-colored chrysanthemums, and was further embellished with a pink ruching, which surrounded the good lady’s face.