XII.--The Morning




CHAPTER I.

BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM ELECT.


Firelight falling on soft velvet carpet, where white lily buds trail
along azure ground, on chairs of white-polished wood that glitters
like ivory, with puffy of seats of blue satin; on blue and gilt
panelled walls; on a wonderfully carved oaken ceiling; on sweeping
draperies of blue satin and white lace; on half a dozen lovely
pictures; on an open piano; and last of all, on the handsome, angry
face of a girl who stands before it--Inez Catheron.

The month is August--the day the 29th--Miss Catheron has good reason
to remember it to the last day of her life. But, whether the August
sun blazes, or the January winds howl, the great rooms of Catheron
Royals are ever chilly. So on the white-tiled hearth of the blue
drawing-room this summer evening a coal fire flickers and falls, and
the mistress of Catheron Royals stands before it, an angry flush
burning deep red on either dusk cheek, an angry frown contracting her
straight black brows.

The mistress of Catheron Royals,--the biggest, oldest, queerest,
grandest place in all sunny Cheshire,--this slim, dark girl of
nineteen, for three years past the bride-elect of Sir Victor Catheron,