A NOVEL. BY MRS. MABERLY. AUTHOR OF "LEONTINE," "THE LADY AND THE PRIEST," HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 1855. 249. W. 189. DISPLAY. CHAPTER I. It was the night before the wedding! The next morning, the beautiful Laura Malcolm was to be married to Sir Aubrey Mannering, one of the richest baronets of the day. It was what is called "a great match." Everything was ready, and the bustle attending upon all the necessary preparations for so grand an event, having at length subsided, the inmates of Camerford House might be supposed to have betaken themselves to repose. VOL. I. B The evidence of the great labour of the preceding day justified such a supposition, for the magnificent hall and staircase were already ornamented with a profusion of wreaths of choice evergreens, to which, flowers, freshly gathered, were to be added early in the morning. Mr. Malcolm, father of the bride elect, having resolved that nothing should be wanting to give éclat to a marriage he had long had so much at heart, had given orders for a sumptuous fête, which was to begin immediately upon the return of the bridal party from the parish church, where the solemn ceremony was to take place. A grand breakfast within the house had long been announced, and it was said that the hospitality of Mr. Malcolm was to be extended next day, not only to all the most distinguished residents of his own county, but to those of the two neighbouring ones, so that there appeared little danger of his handsome and spacious rooms not being well filled. In addition to this, the beautiful pleasure grounds were to be thrown open to the tenantry and their friends, and rows of marquees, and an endless profusion of coloured lamps, and places for fireworks, proclaimed that the rejoicings were intended to be on an unusual scale of grandeur. Mr. Malcolm, always magnificent, had on this occasion outdone himself. He was determined that his daughter should not, as he confidentially expressed it to Mr. Winthrop, "be married up in a corner." his agent, So everything was splendid, and many a heart beat high with anticipations of delight. A fête in the country is of tenfold more |