Picotee was called from the observation of these phenomena by a remark from her sister:  ’Picotee, the marriage is to be very early indeed.  It is to be the day after to-morrow—­if it can.  Nevertheless I don’t believe in the fact—­I cannot.’

‘Did you arrange it so?  Nobody can make you marry so soon.’

‘I agreed to the day,’ murmured Ethelberta languidly.

’How can it be?  The gay dresses and the preparations and the people—­how can they be collected in the time, Berta?  And so much more of that will be required for a lord of the land than for a common man.  O, I can’t think it possible for a sister of mine to marry a lord!’

’And yet it has been possible any time this last month or two, strange as it seems to you. . . .  It is to be not only a plain and simple wedding, without any lofty appliances, but a secret one—­as secret as if I were some under-age heiress to an Indian fortune, and he a young man of nothing a year.’

’Has Lord Mountclere said it must be so private?  I suppose it is on account of his family.’

’No.  I say so; and it is on account of my family.  Father might object to the wedding, I imagine, from what he once said, or he might be much disturbed about it; so I think it better that he and the rest should know nothing till all is over.  You must dress again as my sister to-morrow, dear.  Lord Mountclere is going to pay us an early visit to conclude necessary arrangements.’

’O, the life as a lady at Enckworth Court!  The flowers, the woods, the rooms, the pictures, the plate, and the jewels!  Horses and carriages rattling and prancing, seneschals and pages, footmen hopping up and hopping down.  It will be glory then!’

‘We might hire our father as one of my retainers, to increase it,’ said Ethelberta drily.

Picotee’s countenance fell.  ’How shall we manage all about that?  ’Tis terrible, really!’

’The marriage granted, those things will right themselves by time and weight of circumstances.  You take a wrong view in thinking of glories of that sort.  My only hope is that my life will be quite private and simple, as will best become my inferiority and Lord Mountclere’s staidness.  Such a splendid library as there is at Enckworth, Picotee—­quartos, folios, history, verse, Elzevirs, Caxtons—­all that has been done in literature from Moses down to Scott—­with such companions I can do without all other sorts of happiness.’

’And you will not go to town from Easter to Lammastide, as other noble ladies do?’ asked the younger girl, rather disappointed at this aspect of a viscountess’s life.

‘I don’t know.’

’But you will give dinners, and travel, and go to see his friends, and have them to see you?’

‘I don’t know.’

’Will you not be, then, as any other peeress; and shall not I be as any other peeress’s sister?’

’That, too, I do not know.  All is mystery.  Nor do I even know that the marriage will take place.  I feel that it may not; and perhaps so much the better, since the man is a stranger to me.  I know nothing whatever of his nature, and he knows nothing of mine.’