Poor Belle! this world is full of disappointments, even when one’s affairs wear a most smiling aspect; her little triumphal expedition into town had not been quite as satisfactory as she had anticipated. CHAPTER X. “THE BRIDE-ELECT.” “Was ever maid so used as I?” --UPTON. The days that ensued, how busy they were, and how fast they flew. Mrs. Redmond, with a deadened conscience and an active brain, fired up into a final blaze of energy and intrigue. She drew out--although it was as agonising as extracting her teeth--a considerable amount of her savings, to pay for Belle’s extravagant outfit. It was one of her few remaining pleasures to see her idol fittingly adorned, and to superintend dress rehearsals of future social triumphs. She dashed off dozens of letters to her former friends, announcing her daughter’s approaching wedding in fitting terms; and as Belle was apparently making an excellent match, presents followed in thick and fast. Mrs. Malone endowed her future relative with her own wedding veil. Cuckoo sent a case of scissors, Miss Dopping a looking-glass in an antique silver frame, with a bye word to Betty that “it would remind the bride of what she loved best in the world.” And there were many other offerings, from a small diamond brooch to a large silver button-hook, and on the whole Belle considered that she had done remarkably well. Betty was invaluable at this period. She planned and sewed, and toiled from morning till night, and was quite feverishly busy--in constant bodily occupation was her only opiate for mental anguish. The shock of the first realisation of George’s baseness, had resolved itself into a continuous ache, that would always stir and throb as long as his memory might rouse her pride; her lover had forsaken her, and the bitterness of abandonment was in her heart. Many people remarked that she was looking thin and out of spirits, that her eyes were hollow, and her laugh was rare, but attributed this--including the fair damsel herself--to Belle’s approaching departure. She accompanied her radiant cousin in wild and hasty raids on Dublin shops. She folded and unfolded, tried on and altered, many of the smart gowns that came pouring in by the carrier’s cart. She “hurried up” the Dooleys, and the hum of her sewing machine might be heard for hours. But late at night, whilst Belle slept soundly, and dreamt happy dreams of India, at the other side of the thin partition wall, Betty, wrapped in a white dressing-gown, and with streaming hair, was wandering restlessly up and down, and flinging herself on her knees with clasped and outstretched hands. “He has forgotten,” she would murmur--“Oh, if _I_ could but forget,” and then she would sob--repressed strangling sobs, lest the sound should penetrate to her sleeping cousin. No wonder that she looked pale and haggard, and very different from the gay and beaming Betty of a year ago!