The bright sunlight of the next morning was very exhilarating, and though the doctor was disappointed in Spring Bank, he greeted his bride-elect kindly, noticing, when he did so, how her cheeks alternately paled, and then grew red, while she seemed to be chilly and cold. ’Lina had passed a wretched night, tossing from side to side, bathing her throbbing head and rubbing her aching limbs. The severe cold taken in the wet yard was making itself visible, and she came to the breakfast-table jaded wretched and sick, a striking contrast to Alice Johnson, who seemed to the doctor more beautiful than ever. She was unusually gay this morning, for while talking to Dr. Richards, whom she had met in the parlor, she had, among other things concerning Snowdon, said to him, casually, as it seemed, “Anna has a waiting-maid at last: You saw her of course?” Somehow the doctor fancied Alice wished him to say yes, and as a falsehood was nothing for him, he replied at once, “Oh, yes, I saw her. Her little boy is splendid.” Alice was satisfied. The shadow lifted from her spirits. Dr. Richards was not George Hastings. He was not the villain she had feared, and ’Lina might have him now. Poor ’Lina! Alice felt almost as if she had done her a wrong by suspecting the doctor, and was very kind to her that day. Poor ’Lina! we say it again, for hard, and wicked, and treacherous, and unfilial, as she had ever been, she had need for pity on this her wedding day. Retribution terrible and crushing, was at hand, hurrying on in the carriage bringing Anna Richards to Spring Bank, and on the fleet-footed steed bearing the convict swiftly up the Frankfort ‘pike. Restless and impatient ’Lina wandered from room to room, stopping longest in the one where lay the bridal dress, at which she gazed wistfully, feeling almost as if it were her shroud. She could not tell what ailed her. She only knew that she felt wretchedly, as if some direful calamity were about to overtake her, and more than once her eyes filled with tears as she wished her path to Dr. Richards’ name had been marked with no deception. He was now in his room, and it was almost time for her to dress. Lulu might begin to arrange her hair, and she called her just as the mud-bespattered vehicle containing Anna Richards drove up, Mr. Millbrook having purposely stopped in Versailles, thinking it better that Anna should go on alone. It was Ellen Tiffton, who was to come early, ’Lina said, and so the dressing continued, and she was all unsuspicious of the scene enacting below, in the room where Anna met her brother alone. She had not given Hugh her name. She simply asked for Dr. Richards, and conducting her into the parlor, hung with bridal decorations, Hugh went for the doctor, saying, “a lady wished to see him.” “A lady! Who is it?” the doctor asked, visions of his aggrieved mother, in her black silk velvet, rising before his mind. “What could a lady and a stranger want of him?”