He was dreadfully old, this stately Sir Roger.  She didn’t care for him in the least, except as she might care for some nice old grandfather; and then there was Hugh Ingelow—­handsome Hugh!

But at this point Cricket caught her breath and her thoughts with a gasp.

“Mollie, Mollie, Mollie!  How dare you, you wicked, crazy girl!  Thinking of Hugh Ingelow, when you oughtn’t to remember there’s another man alive but Sir Roger Trajenna!  I wouldn’t marry poor Hugh when he wanted me—­a lucky escape for him—­and I’m not going to pine away for him now, when it’s high treason to do it”

“Hurry, Margaret,” the bride said aloud.  “Make me just as pretty as ever you can.”

The three rejected suitors had been invited to the bridal hall, and, singular to relate, had come.

But their discomfiture had been so singular altogether that perhaps they thought it as well to match Mollie in coolness.

There they were at least, regarding one another in the oddest way, and Mrs. Walraven, gorgeous in amber moiré, sidled up to her cousin, and hissed venomously in his ear: 

“So the vicious Guy Oleander has lost his little game, after all!  Blue-eyed Mollie is destined to be ‘My Lady,’ in spite of his teeth.”

“’There is many a slip’—­you know the proverb, Madame.”

It was all he said; but his sinister smile, as he moved away, said a great deal.

Hugh Ingelow, very pale, stood leaning against a marble column, all wreathed with festal roses, not as white as his own handsome face.

“What are they plotting, I wonder?” he thought.  “No good to her.  They hate her, as I ought to, but as I can’t, poor, pitiful fool that I am!  But my time may come, too.  I said I would not forget, and will not.”

The bride-maids, a gay group of girls, came fluttering into the “maiden bower” to see if the bride was ready.

“For the clergyman is down-stairs, and the guests are assembled, and Sir Roger is waiting, and nothing is needed but the bride.”

“A very essential need,” responded Mollie.  “I’m not going to hurry myself; they can’t get along without me.  A letter, Lucy?  For me?  From whom, I wonder?”

The girl had entered, bearing a note in a buff envelope, addressed, in a sprawling hand, to “Miss Mollie Dane.”

“The young person that brought it is waiting in the hall, miss,” said Lucy.  “I didn’t want to take it, and I told her you was just about getting married, but it was no use.  She said it was a matter of life or death, and you’d be sure to pay attention to it if you were before the altar.”

But Mollie had not listened.  She tore open the buff envelope, and the gazers saw her turn deathly pale as she read.

She crushed the letter in her hand and turned impetuously to the girl.

“Where is the person who brought this?  I must see her at once.  Bring her here; and you, young ladies, let me speak two words to her in private.”