THE LADY OF GLYNNE. BY THE AUTHOR OF "MARGARET AND HER BRIDESMAIDS." "What shall I do to gain eternal life? Discharge aright The simple dues with which each day is rife ; Yea, with thy might. Ere perfect scheme of action thou devise Will life be fled, While he who ever acts as conscience cries Shall live, though dead." TRANSLATION OF SCHILLER IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1857. [The right of Translation is reserved] 249.2.24. THE LADY OF GLYNNE. CHAPTER I. "Speak it not lightly! oh, beware, beware! Oh! then kneel humbly at His altar now, ANON. Ir became true, that Lady Maria was more kind, and less irritable. Selina could not be married until July, because her home was not ready for her; but what with preparations, expectations, and the unwonted peace of our lives, we were very happy. Also, I thought VOL. II. B Glynne's absence a relief. His mother, though civil to him, was not good-humoured when he was in the house; and sometimes he was so sarcastic and bitter- he was not particularly amiable himself. Aunt Scann, having quite recovered her spirits, was in and out of the house all day. In her "nevey's" absence it behoved her to be very particular in her attentions, for if she was in any of our situations, she would be only too glad to have an elderly relative to whom she could turn for advice and comfort; and in her situation it became a duty to look after us all. She loved a wedding of all things, and revelled in the preparations for it more than the bride and bridegroom themselves. Now she was in the situation of the bride, selecting the trousseau-anon she was in the place of the bridegroom, choosing the ring, detailing the various schemes and methods by which she should try, in such a situation, to deceive the shopkeeper, as to the possibility of the ring being required for himself; it being considered by aunt Scann as only discreet and proper that, though a wedding was to take place, the existence, or rather bodily presence, of the two principal parties concerned should be either ignored or only slightly remembered. As for Isabel and myself, we went through the rehearsal of every possible scene in which a bridesmaid could be placed. Suppose our dresses did not fit, aunt Scann in our situations would think nothing of that, or make more fuss than to have them altered, because there was a person who acted a rather more conspicuous part, and who only would be looked at. Suppose the bride fainted;—in our peculiar positions as ministering advisers and soothers, we were not to suffer the bridegroom's feelings to be hurt, as his situation was already so peculiar, aunt Scann would not be in it for more than she could say. Suppose our healths were drank, as brides |