As the hour of noon drew near, Mrs. Dalrymple’s house was filled with sympathetic guests, to whose ears had floated rumors of the sad ending of her long grief for her stolen child--recovered only in death. When they saw Darling Dalrymple in her coffin--her mother had never given her any name but Darling--they wept in sympathy with the bereaved heart from whom this lovely treasure had been so cruelly wrested by the grim King of Terrors. The beautiful Episcopal service was read, the mother’s farewell kiss pressed on the cold, white brow, the casket closed, and borne out to the white-plumed hearse, the carriages were filled with the mother and friends, and the solemn cortège moved away to Greenwood, where the grim family vault had been opened to receive another scion of the old house of Van Dorn, the fairest of all its fair daughters. At the same time only a block away, on the same avenue, a bridal train was leaving the Van Dorn mansion for the church. Life and death jostling each other almost side by side! In one carriage sat the bride, with her cousins, the Van Dorns, and her dark, brilliant beauty was at its best, enhanced by the snowy bridal robes and the joy that flashed from her eyes at the thought that she would soon be the bride of the man she adored. Laurier and his best man were to meet them at the church, the bridegroom having recovered sufficiently from his sprain that he could walk without a crutch. In the sunshine of the brilliant day the two processions met and passed each other, the bridal train and the funeral cortège--Cora going to her bridal, her rival to her grave! The bride’s eyes were riveted on the white, flower-banked casket, and her florid color faded to ashen pallor while she shrank back shuddering: “It is an evil omen to meet a corpse on the way to one’s wedding!” “Do not give way to such fancies, dear,” Mrs. van Dorn answered soothingly, but she also grew pale with superstition, though having heard all about Jessie from Cora, she thought inwardly: “Though it is evil-omened to meet a funeral on the way to one’s wedding, yet I fancy Cora is more fortunate to meet her rival dead than living. Though Frank Laurier treated that poor girl very badly, I believe that a secret remorse is gnawing at his heart, and if she had lived, who knows how it all might have turned out? Frank Laurier has appeared very strange to me these past two days--pale, distrait, and sad--the result of keen remorse, no doubt, but does he love Cora as well as before, I wonder! This encounter with the dead girl has shaken my nerves, and I feel uneasy. I wish the wedding was well over, and the knot safely tied for Cora’s sake. I hope he will be sure to meet us promptly at the church!” CHAPTER XIII. FORSAKEN AT THE ALTAR. Mrs. Dalrymple, throwing back her heavy veil for air, gasped with surprise and wonder.