"Say that again, and I will murder you!" retorted Josephine, in the white heat of concentrated passion. "You will make me remember that our old scores are not quite settled yet." "I have no scores against you;" said Ida, firmly. "The past cannot return--why refer to it?" Josephine regarded her fixedly. "You are wise!" she said, presently, breaking into a contemptuous laugh. "To another, you would preach repentance--you know I never repent!" and with this strange speech, she quitted her. Now that he had broken the matter to his daughter, the bridegroom used the utmost celerity in the despatch of preliminaries. The house was filled with workmen, upholsterers and cooks, whose din destroyed the quiet of Ida's chamber, the only one left unaltered. Josephine adhered to her resolution not to move a finger in the preparations for the detested intruder's reception. She would not go to the marriage, which took place at the bride's father's, in the country. Mr. Read did not insist; he was secretly pleased to be free for this evening--conscious that he could acquit himself more creditably, if her eyes were not upon him. The wedding party was to be at his house, the next night but one. The supper was in the hands of the profession; Mr. Read being too prudent to risk the probability of a grievous mortification, by entrusting the most trifling arrangement to his filial mar-plot. It was dark when the bridal party arrived. The girls were dressed, and in the drawing-room. Ida's picture of the bride, drawn from Josephine's representment, was of an overdressed, forward country girl, who had wheedled and flattered a man of treble her age, into an offer of his hand and fortune; and she was puzzled by the elaborate toilette of the step-daughter. If her aim was to outshine the creature she had described, she had certainly over-estimated the labor its accomplishment required. She swept into the apartment with a hauteur, that made her diminutive form appear two inches taller; her jetty hair, almost an incumbrance from its length and profusion, dressed partly in ringlets, partly in braids--instead of, as she usually wore it at parties, and as her father liked to see it--in natural curls floating upon her shoulders. This style gave her a juvenile air, pleasing, heretofore--discarded by the full-fledged woman she acted to-night. Her robe was of white satin; the falling shoulders and proud swell of the throat exhibited to fine advantage by the low bodice. Ida was dressed in a silver-grey silk, with a berthe of rich black lace; the throat-latch and cuffs of black velvet and jet, making her extreme paleness more striking. Her figure and expression of repose had its opposite in the impersonation of splendid inquietude, which trod the rooms impatiently, rustling and gleaming in the blaze of the chandeliers.