The silence and dejection of our bride were construed, by her parents, into that seemly and becoming sedateness which sensible young women think it proper to assume on the eve of so important a change in their condition as marriage; while the happy bridegroom had come to that time of life when he is pleased with submission, though it be expressed through tears. No chemical menstruum has so much power in the dissolution of the hardest metals as the self-complacency of an old lover has in construing, according to his wishes, the actions, words, or looks of the young woman who is destined to be his bride. Silence and tears are expressive of happiness as well as of grief; and, so long as the desire of the ancient philosopher is uncomplied with by the gods, and there is no window to the heart, that organ in the young victim may break while the sexagenarian bridegroom is enjoying the imputed silent, restrained happiness of the object of his ill-timed affection.
The sadness and melancholy of the apparently-resigned Effie Mearns had no effect on the noise and show of the preparations for her marriage with her old lover. The marriages of old men are well known to be celebrated with higher bugle notes from the trumpet of fame than any others. A sumptuous dinner was to be given to the neighbouring lairds, and the cotters were to be fed and regaled on the green opposite to the mansion. Dancing and music were to add their charms to the gay scene; and it was even alleged that the light of a bonfire would lend its peculiar aid, in raising the joy of the guests, predisposed to hilarity by plenteous potations, to the proper height suited to the conquest of the old bridegroom over, at once, a young woman and old Time.
For days previous to the eventful one, Effie Mearns was not heard to open her lips. She looked on all the gay preparations for her marriage as if they had been the mournful acts of the undertaker employed in laying the silver trimming on the coffin lid of a lover. The bedside of her sick parent, who was still unable to rise, was the place where she sat "shrouded in silence." She heard the conversations of her father and mother about the progress of the preparations, without exhibiting so much interest as to show that she understood them. Misgivings crossed the minds of the old couple, and brought tears to their eyes, as they contemplated the animated corpse that sat there, waiting the nod of the master of ceremonies, and ready to perform the part assigned to it in the forthcoming orgies of mournful joy; but they had gone too far to recede, and it was even a subject of satisfaction to them that the period of the celebration was so near, for otherwise they might have had reason to fear that their daughter would not have survived the intermediate time. When the bridegroom called, his ears were alarmed by the voices of the parents, who saw the necessity of endeavouring to hide the condition of their daughter; and he was satisfied, if he got, free and unrestrained, "a feast of the eyes." His love was still expressed by silent gazing; for it was too deep in his old heart for either words or tears; if, indeed, there was moisture enough in the seat of his affection for the suppliance of the _softest_ expression of the soft passion.