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Rh delicate consideration for me up to the present, and yet because he asked my permission to absent himself for a few hours on our wedding-day, I worked myself up into a state of nervous excitement on the ground that the proceeding happened to be a little unusual. Pshaw! what nonsense. Had we not a whole lifetime to spend together? How could I be so ridiculous? "Ha! Ha! Ha!" I burst out laughing. Poor Marie must have experienced another surprise concerning English customs. She looked up, her gray eyes round as saucers.

"Is Madame ill?"

"Fiddlesticks!" I exclaimed, with unpardonable inelegance. "Let us come into the drawing-room, and I will teach you how we waltz over here."

Alas! with all the efforts I made, the time dragged horribly. It was now midnight, and there had been nothing to break the monotony of the evening. I wondered what they were doing at home. Dancing, of course, for my sake. The ball was now at its height, and my mother was in a state of dignified ecstasy. Marie sat in a low