There was nothing left to be done,--no more shopping, no more solemn interviews with the French milliner, no more excitement of any kind whatever, but a dead, sullen calm. No sooner had Aunt Jane's hired brougham driven away from the gates of the Fountains, than Florence Crawford's spirits sank as suddenly as the wind drops sometimes on a sultry summer's day. She went up stairs to her room, and on her way thither had occasion to pass those boxes whose primly-written labels had become obnoxious to her. "It is such an ugly name," she thought; "_nobody_ could like to be called Mrs. Lobyer." In the bed-room Miss Crawford found the new maid who had been engaged to attend her in her altered estate; and if, in such moments of unreasonable depression, one individual can be more antipathetic than another, that individual is a new maid. The young person was busying herself with the arrangements of the dressing-table, and Florence fled from her as from a pestilence; but not before she had caught a glimpse of the wedding-dress laid out on the sofa like a shroud, and looking almost as ghastly in its spotless whiteness. "She'd want to talk to me if I stayed," thought Flo, as she hurried from her abigail's presence; "and I should have to hear all about her last place, and her anxiety to please me and understand my ways, and so on: as if I had any particular ways, except always losing my things and leaving my keys about." Miss Crawford wandered into the drawing-room, and thence into an apartment which served as a library. The windows were all open, the birds were singing in the conservatory-passage that led to the painter's sacred chamber, the warm June sunlight shone upon dazzling flower-beds, and sparkled amid the waters of those marble basins which gave a name to William Crawford's abode. All things were looking their gayest and brightest; but poor Flo's heart sank amid this summer radiance. She closed the venetian-shutters, and seated herself in the darkest corner of the shadowy room. She was quite alone. Mr. Lobyer had pleaded some especially important engagement of a business character as an excuse for his absence on this day, and Flo had told her father's servant that she would be at home to no one. She had the long summer hours to herself, and her aunt had entreated her to rest. If repose consists in sitting motionless in an easy-chair, with fixed eyes and idle hands, Flo certainly obeyed Mrs. Bushby's injunction; for the little clock on the chimneypiece recorded the passage of more than one hour while the bride-elect sat in the same attitude, with sad eyes fixed on one spot in the carpet, and listless hands loosely intertwined in her lap. She aroused herself at length from this melancholy meditation; but she sighed more heavily than a millionaire's bride-elect has any right to sigh as she lifted her head and looked dreamily round the room.