"Yes, it is worth knowing," said I, "but how can we know?"
"What wouldst thou give to know it? Not that it can be bought: but what is it worth in thine eyes?"
I thought, and thought, but I could not tell wherewith to measure any thing so intangible.
"Wouldst thou give up having thine own will for one year?" she asked.
"I know not what might happen in it," said I, with a rather frightened feeling.
Why, I might marry, or be ill, or die. Or Guy might give over loving me altogether, in that year. Oh, I could not, could not will that! And a year is such a long, long time. No, I could not--for such a time as that--let myself slip into nothing, as it were.
"Helena," she said, "suppose, at this moment, God were to send an angel down to thee from Heaven. Suppose he brought to thee a message from God Himself, that if thou wouldst be content to leave all things to His ordering for one year, and to have no will at all in the matter, He would see that nothing was done which should really harm thee in the least. What wouldst thou say?"
"Oh, then I should dare to leave it!" said I.
"My child, if thou art of His redeemed, He has said it--not for one short year, but for all thy life. _If_, Helena!"
Lady Judith wrought at her gold diapering, and I at my roses, and we were both silent for a season. Then the Lady Queen and the Lady Isabel came in, and there was no further opportunity for quiet conversation.
"Coming events cast their shadows before." --CAMPBELL.
It is Monday night, and I am,--Oh, so tired!
The three grand weddings are over. Very beautiful sights they were; and very pleasant the feasts and the dances; but all is done now, and if Messire Renaud feels any doubt to-night about his body being himself, I have none about mine.
Eschine made a capital bride, in the sense in which a man would use the words. That is, she looked very nice, and she stood like a statue. I do not believe she had an idea in her head beyond these: that she was going to be married, that it was a very delightful thing, and that she must look well and behave becomingly.
Is that the sort of woman that men like? It is the sort that some men seem to think all women are.
But Amaury! If ever I did see a creature more absurd than he, I do not know who it was. He fidgetted over Eschine's bridal dress precisely as if he had been her milliner. At the very last minute, the garland had to be altered because it did not suit him.