"Not well?" he said, with a pitying smile. "My sweet Cynthia, you cannot read her character as I read it. Do you not see how, for months past, our love has grown, rising like some lotus out from the cool depths of an Eastern lake till it has reached the surface, where it is about to unfold its petals to the glowing sun. Ah, my sweet child, you do not see how I have been forming her character, day by day, hour by hour, till she has reached to this sweet state of blissful repose. Look at her now." This conversation was going on in the back drawing-room, on the evening preceding the wedding-day, every one being very tired of the visitors and congratulations, and present-giving, the Rector especially, and he confided to Mrs Mallow the fact that after all he would be very glad to get away back to Lawford and be at peace. "Yes," said Cynthia, rather ill-humouredly, for Harry had not been there that evening, "I see her, and she looks very poorly." "Poorly? Unwell? Nay," said Perry-Morton serenely, "merely in a beatific state of repose. Ah, Cynthia, my child, when she is my very own, and Claudine has imparted to her some of the riches of her own wisdom on the question of dress, I shall be a happy man." Cynthia seemed to give every nerve in her little body a kind of snatch, but the lover did not perceive it; he only closed his eyes, walked to the half-pillar that supported the arch between the two rooms, leaned his shoulder against it, crossed his legs, gazed at poor listless Julia for a few moments from this point of view, and then turning his half-closed eyes upon Cynthia, beckoned to her softly to come. "Oh," whispered the latter to herself, as she drew a long breath between her teeth, "I wish I were going to be married to him to-morrow instead of Julia. How I would bring him to his senses, or knock something into his dreadful head, or--there, I suppose I must go. Julia must be mad." "Yes," she said, as she crossed to where her brother in prospective stood. "There," he said; "look now. Could there be a sweeter ideal of perfect repose? Good--good night, dear Cynthia, I am going to steal away without a word to a soul. I would not break in upon her rapturous calm; and the memory of her sweet face, as I see it now, will soothe me during the long watches of the peaceful night. Good night, Cynthia. Ah, you should have changed names. Yonder is Cynthia in all her calm silvery beauty. Good night, sweet sister--good night--good night." There was something very moonlike in his looks and ways as he softly stole from the room and out of the house, leaving Cynthia motionless with astonishment.