The Midnight Queen - Page 63/177

Our two friends having drained the bitten, had got to the bottom of the

cup, and neither knew that no sooner were the sweets swallowed, than

it was to be replenished with a doubly-bitter dose. Neither of them

dismounted till they reached the house of Leoline, and there Sir Norman

secured his horse, and looked up at it with a beating heart. Not that

it was very unusual for his heart to beat, seeing it never did anything

else; but on that occasion its motion was so mush accelerated, that any

doctor feeling his pulse might have justly set him down as a bad case

of heart-disease. A small, bright ray of light streamed like a beacon

of hope from an upper window, and the lover looked at it as a clouded

mariner might at the shining of the North Star.

"Are you coming in, Ormiston?" he inquired, feeling, for the first time

in his life, almost bashful. "It seems to me it would only be right, you

know."

"I don't mind going in and introducing` you," said Ormiston; "but after

you have been delivered over, you may fight poor own battles, and take

care of yourself. Come on."

The door was unfastened, and Ormiston sprang upstairs with the air of a

man-quite at home, followed more decorously by Sir Norman. The door

of the lady's room stood ajar, as he had left it, and in answer to his

"tapping at the chamber-door," a sweet feminine voice called "come in."

Ormiston promptly obeyed, and the next instant they were in the room,

and in the presence of the dead bride. Certainly she did not look dead,

but very much alive, just then, as she sat in an easy-chair, drawn up

before the dressing-table, on which stood the solitary lamp that illumed

the chamber. In one hand she held a small mirror, or, as it was then

called, a "sprunking-glass," in which she was contemplating her own

beauty, with as much satisfaction as any other pretty girl might justly

do. She had changed her drenched dress during Ormiston's absence, and

now sat arrayed in a swelling amplitude of rose-colored satin, her dark

hair clasped and bound by a circle of milk-white pearls, and her pale,

beautiful face looking ten degrees more beautiful than ever, in contrast

with the bright rose-silk, shining dark hair, and rich white jewels. She

rose up as they entered, and came forward with the same glow on her face

and the same light in her eyes that one of them had seen before, and

stood with drooping eyelashes, lovely as a vision in the centre of the

room.

"You see I have lost no time in obeying your ladyship's commands," began

Ormiston, bowing low. "Mistress Leoline, allow me to present Sir Norman

Kingsley."

Sir Norman Kingsley bent almost as profoundly before the lady as

the lord high chancellor had done before Queen Miranda; and the lady

courtesied, in return, until her pink-satin skirt ballooned out all over

the floor. It was quite an affecting tableau. And so Ormiston felt, as

he stood eyeing it with preternatural gravity.