"Don't love you, oh, no!"

"Archie, have you forgotten how we were married in the back garden, and how
you used to say I was your little wife; and you wanted to fight a duel
with Richard because he had taken me on his knee and kissed me?"

"See how pretty!" exclaimed Archie, whose attention had been fixed during
this speech upon two of the workmen who were unrolling between them a
piece of crimson cloth appertaining to the hangings.

"What a creature!" muttered Kate to herself. To have her romantic souvenirs
ignored even by this simpleton vexed her a little. Perhaps, too, she had
another reason for regretting her companion's witlessness. She could
remember when she had cared for him--or for something called him--more
than she cared now for the man she would wed to-morrow. Why was he not the
same now as then? His face, his hands, his figure--these were the same, or
rather they were handsomer and more manlike than formerly. Why could not
the soul, or whatever may be that mysterious invisible motive-power in a
man--why could it not have stuck to its fortress during these seven years
past? Here were five feet eleven of well-sculptured living clay, that had
been growing and improving for more than one and twenty years; and for an
inhabitant, nothing but a soft foolish child, destitute of memory,
intelligence, and passion. Such reflections may have passed through the
mind of the young heiress; and then she may have thought, glancing at him,
"If my Archibald were here, to-morrow might see another spectacle than
that put down in the programme." She might have thought this; she did not
and of course would not on any account have uttered such a sentiment
aloud. But it would be unjust to her taste and sensibility to suppose
that, apart from worldly and politic considerations, she should have