For Maynard a happy morn!
It was that of the day on which Blanche Vernon was to become his bride!
His presentiment was upon the point of being fulfilled; the _child_ was
to be his _wife_!
Not by abduction; not by clandestine marriage; but openly, in the face
of the world, and with the consent of her father!
Sir George had conceded--arranged everything, even to the details of the
marriage ceremony.
It was to be soon--at once.
Before dying, he desired to see his daughter bestowed and under
protection.
If he had not chosen the arms that were to protect her, he no longer
opposed her choice.
He had now sanctified it by a free formal approval. His future
son-in-law was no more a stranger-guest in the mansion at Sevenoaks,
Kent.
The nuptials were not to be celebrated there. Not that Sir George would
have felt any shame in such celebration; but because he did not deem it
opportune.
He knew that ere long sable plumes would be seen waving there, with a
black hatchment upon the wall. He wished not that these funereal
emblems should so soon fling their blighting shadow over the orange
blossoms of the bridal.
It could be conveniently avoided. He had a sister living in Kensington
Gore; and from her house his daughter could be married.
Besides, the old parish church of Kensington was that before whose altar
he had himself stood, some twenty years ago, with Blanche's mother by
his side.
The arrangement would be altogether appropriate.
It was determined upon; and Captain Maynard was requested to present
himself upon a certain day, at a certain hour, in the church of Saint
Mary's, Kensington.
He came, accompanied by Count Francis Teleky; and there met his bride
attended by her maids.
They were not many, for Blanche had expressed a desire to shun
ostentation. She only wanted to be wed to the man who had won her
heart!
But few as were her bridesmaids, they were among the noblest of the
land, each of them bearing a title.
And they were of its loveliest too; every one of them entitled to the
appellation of "belle."
The bridegroom saw them not. Having saluted each with a simple bow, his
eyes became bent upon his bride; and there stayed they.
No colours blend more harmoniously than those of the sunbeam and the
rose. Over none drapes the bridal veil more becomingly.
Blanche Vernon needed not to blush. She had colour enough without that.
But as her gaze met his, and his voice, like the challenge to some
beleaguered citadel, seemed to sound the death-knell of her maiden days,
she felt a strange sweet trembling in her heart, while the tint deepened
upon her cheeks.
She was but too happy to surrender.
Never in Maynard's eyes had she looked so lovely. He stood as if
spell-bound, gazing upon her beauty, with but one thought in his mind--a
longing to embrace her!
He who has worshipped only in churches of modern structure can have but
little idea of the interior of one such as that of Saint Mary's,
Kensington. Its deep pews and heavy overhanging galleries, its shadowy
aisles flanked by pillars and pilasters, make it the type of the sacred
antique; and on Maynard's mind it produced this impression.
And he thought of the thousands of thousands who had worshipped within
its walls, of knights and noble dames, who had knelt before its altar,
and whose escutcheons were recorded in the stained glass of its windows,
as in brass palimpsests set in the flags beneath his feet. How
suggestive these records of high chivalric thought, penetrating the far
past, and flinging their mystic influence over the present!
It was upon Maynard, as he stood regarding them.