"Well, then, I would. So there now! Not only if he hadn't a diamond to his name, but if he hadn't a hair on his head. Poor Le! Poor dear Le! I do love him so dearly!"
Wynnette had made no vain boast of "bearding the lion." She watched her opportunity, and on the very first occasion on which she found him alone, sitting and reading in the drawing room, she--to use her own expression--"went for him."
She stood right up before the great soldier of India, and astonished him by addressing him in the very words she had rehearsed to Elva.
Col. Anglesea threw himself back in his chair, and gave way to a peal of laughter. And when he recovered his breath, patted her on the head and said, mockingly:
"You will forgive me, and thank Odalite, when you discover that we have got married on purpose to leave the gallant young middy to you, so that you shall not be an old maid."
"Thank you, sir. No one shall make a match for me. And since my peaceful mission to you has failed, I must leave you to be taken in hand by the gentleman you have robbed. He will call you to a strict account."
So saying, the small young lady threw up her head, and with great dignity marched out of the room.
Her next effort in the absent lover's cause was with Odalite herself.
She found her eldest sister in their mother's room, where a colored maidservant was engaged in unpacking a case just arrived from New York, and carefully extricating from its interior a rich white dress of velvet and swansdown, garnished with orange blossoms, and which was elaborately folded, with white tissue paper between every surface.
"Be careful, Net. The veil must be somewhere there," said Mrs. Force, who was standing over the case, watching the work.
"I reckon it is in this square bandbox at the bottom," suggested the woman.
Odalite, sitting back in an easy chair, seemed languid and indifferent to what was going on before her.
"Is that the wedding dress?" inquired Wynnette, when the elegant structure was laid out at length upon the bed, the train hanging from the foot far down on the carpet.
"Yes, that is the wedding dress. What do you think of it? Is it not beautiful?" inquired Mrs. Force, gazing admiringly on the bridal robes.
"No! I think it is horrid! Perfectly horrid! I wouldn't wear it if I were Odalite!" exclaimed Wynnette, turning her back on the finery, and going straight up to where her sister sat alone in her sadness.