Always doing what was most contrary to the theories with which she
started in life, Albinia found herself taking the middle course that
she contemned. She was marrying her first daughter with an aching,
foreboding heart, unable either to approve or to prevent, and obliged
to console and cheer just when she would have imagined herself
insisting upon a rupture at all costs.
Sophy had said from the first that her sister could not go back. She
expected her to be unhappy, and believed it the penalty of the
wrongdoings in consenting to the clandestine correspondence; and
treated her with melancholy kindness as a victim under sentence. She
was very affectionate, but not at all consoling when Lucy was sad,
and she was impatient and gloomy when the trousseau, or any of the
privileges of a fiancee brought a renewal of gaiety and importance.
A broken heart and ruined fortunes were the least of the consequences
she augured, and she went about the house as if she had realized them
both herself.
The wedding-day came, and grandmamma was torpid and only half
conscious, so that all could venture to leave her. The bride was not
allowed to see her, lest the agitation should overwhelm both; for the
poor girl was indeed looking like the victim her sister thought her,
pale as death, with red rings round her extinguished eyes, and
trembling from head to foot, the more at the apprehension that
Algernon would think her a fright.
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