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"Yes, mamma; your dress is very handsome; quite rich and gay enough for a ball-room; but wouldn't a simpler, plainer one be more suitable for a lawn-party?" "Well, really!" was the laughing rejoinder; "the idea of such a chit as you venturing to criticise her mother's taste in dress!
The day of the lawn-party was perfect neither too hot nor too cold and the sun which shone upon that humble funeral in the palmetto clearing shone upon a very different scene in the Crompton grounds, where the people began to assemble as early as one o'clock.
A certain proportion and not a small one of the men at the lawn-party had been brought there by friends who were privileged to introduce them. The moment she appeared every one of those men suddenly became interested in the lady who had been chosen first. "That's a very charming woman," whispered one of the strangers at the house to one of the friends of the house. "Who is she?"
Consider! in your own interests, consider before you drive the miserable woman who has trusted you to despair. You have promised me marriage by all that is sacred. I claim your promise. I insist on nothing less than to be what you vowed I should be what I have waited all this weary time to be what I am, in the sight of Heaven, your wedded wife. Lady Lundie gives a lawn-party here on the 14th.
"'Didn't you hear me? says I; 'I'm to be shot in two weeks. Did you think I said I was going to a lawn-party? And it wouldn't hurt of Roosevelt could get the Japs to send down the Yellowyamtiskookum or the Ogotosingsing or some other first-class cruisers to help. It would make me feel safer. "'Now, what you want, says the consul, 'is not to get excited.
"A few days after you went away my anxieties grew more than I could bear alone. I went secretly to Windygates, and had an interview with Blanche. "She was absent for a few minutes from the room in which we had met. In that interval I saw Geoffrey Delamayn for the first time since I had left him at Lady Lundie's lawn-party. He treated me as if I was a stranger.
"I forbid you to mention that woman's name again in my hearing," pursued her ladyship. "Sir Patrick! My worst anticipations are realized. Miss Silvester has left the house!" IT was still early in the afternoon when the guests at Lady Lundie's lawn-party began to compare notes together in corners, and to agree in arriving at a general conviction that "some thing was wrong."
He was a Crompton and had faith in himself, and the faith was increased by the compliment paid by his townspeople; and as he was not one to receive a favor without returning it, he conceived the idea of giving an immense lawn-party, to which nearly everybody should be invited.
The cheerful tumult of the lawn-party was pleasantly audible from the distance. Outside, the hum of voices, the laughter of girls, the thump of the croquet-mallet against the ball. Inside, nothing but a woman forcing back the bitter tears of sorrow and shame and a man who was tired of her. She roused herself. She was her mother's daughter; and she had a spark of her mother's spirit.
I insist on nothing less than to be what you vowed I should be what I have waited all this weary time to be what I am, in the sight of Heaven, your wedded wife. Lady Lundie gives a lawn-party here on the 14th. I know you have been asked. I expect you to accept her invitation. If I don't see you, I won't answer for what may happen. My mind is made up to endure this suspense no longer.
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