Excerpt from Margaret and Her Bridesmaids
Slowly, at a funereal pace, went the we ed, by the long two-and-two line the rider's eyes ted, as Lotty indignantly declared, on Margaret; as Augusta?5 exultingly believed, on herself. The gaze (if she caught it) but} deepened the bloom on Margaret's cheek; but she was too much engaged to attend to it. This was her time for telling stories to the little girls, and at present the tale was most alarmingly interesting, and was duly repeated at night by the one favored little maiden, who heard it from the fountain's head, to the others, when sup posed to be innocently sleeping.
Sir Harold might have been satisfied had he been able to gain as much of Margaret's attention as he did of Augusta's. But after six weeks' gazing, he found he made no advance, so he contrived an introduction to Sir Thomas and Lady Montagu.
There he certainly was in the same room with the lovely face which had so riveted his attention as to make him forget hunt ing, racing, and steeple-chasing, and all other sports so dear to his heart. But he did not make much way.
In fact, being an experienced man of the world, having been courted, flattered, spoiled, and made much of, he could not under stand the shy, sensitive heart, that belonged to the prettiest face he had ever seen.
One evening, after devoting a whole hour to entertaining Margaret with stories of his horses and dogs, and seeing, with pleasure, how her shy eyes began furtively to glance up into his, with evident interest how they rested for full ten seconds on his face, giving him time to see how dark and soft they were, when he told of his favorite horse's love for him how the half smile was beginning to break into irrepressible dimples, and the rosy lips to give glimpses of the little white teeth within, he was wholly unprepared for the unrestrained look of delight with which she sprang from this most interesting conversation to greet her school-fellows.
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