“What a wonderful thing love is, when it makes a girl feel like that--nervous and all broken up--on her wedding day,” mused the maid, wondering when the handsome young artist and his pleasant companion would make good their promise to call. One thing she had noticed and thought long and earnestly about, and that was that they only cared to linger while she was talking to them about her mistress’ guest, Miss Jess; when she persisted in changing the conversation, they had taken sudden leave. “Everybody who sees her goes wild over her beauty,” mused the maid, gazing at the girl sitting before her, with eyes that were certainly jealous ones, “and, somehow, I shall be very glad when she marries and goes away from here. Who knows but what my two new friends were enamored of her, too? The more I come to look back over their questions and words, the more it looks like that to me.” She had little time to follow up the train of her reflections, however, for time was fleeting. It wanted but fifteen minutes now to the time when the handsome, fair-haired gentleman whom Jess was to wed would come for her. “Ah, here he is now!” she exclaimed, as the sound of a peal at the front doorbell fell upon her ear. An instant later Jess recognized the voice of her bridegroom-to-be in the lower corridor, and at that instant Queenie, gowned and bonneted, fluttered into the room, exclaiming: “All is in readiness, Jess, except yourself. Hurry, my love. It is unlucky to delay the marriage ceremony a moment beyond the appointed time.” CHAPTER XLVIII. WHAT IS TO BE WILL BE. Jess looked helplessly at her false friend. “If the wedding must take place, I--I am ready!” she answered, in a low voice, which threatened to break into sobs ere she finished the sentence. “Come along, then, my dear,” returned Queenie, ignoring the first part of the remark. “Your bridegroom-to-be is most impatient; I can hear him pacing up and down the drawing-room.” Jess allowed Queenie to wrap the long fur cloak about her, and lead her down to the corridor below. “Do not let him come near me, or touch my hand, or I shall surely faint!” whispered Jess, hoarsely, as she shrank behind Queenie. The latter bit her lips fiercely, to keep back the sneering retort that sprang to them. She concluded, however, that discretion was the better part of valor, and that it would not do to seem to go against her, lest Jess should refuse to allow the marriage to take place at all, and thus upset all of their well-laid plans and her own hope of getting a good slice of the Dinsmore inheritance. Low as Jess had uttered the words, Raymond Challoner’s quick ear had caught the words distinctly, and he crushed back an imprecation most fierce behind his white teeth.