EUGENE ARAM

By Edward Bulwer-Lytton



BOOK V.

Surely the man that plotteth ill against his
neighbor perpetrateth ill against himself,
and the evil design is most evil to him that
deviseth it.
--Hesiod


CHAPTER I.

GRASSDALE.--THE MORNING OF THE MARRIAGE.--THE CRONES GOSSIP.--THE BRIDE
AT HER TOILET.--THE ARRIVAL.

JAM veniet virgo, jam dicetur Hymenaeus,
Hymen, O Hymenae! Hymen ades, O Hymenae!
CATULLUS: Carmen Nuptiale.

It was now the morning in which Eugene Aram was to be married to Madeline
Lester. The student's house had been set in order for the arrival of the
bride; and though it was yet early morn, two old women, whom his domestic
(now not the only one, for a buxom lass of eighteen had been transplanted
from Lester's household to meet the additional cares that the change of
circumstances brought to Aram's) had invited to assist her in arranging