Read Those Endearing Young Charms for Free Online

morning. Better to take her her morning chocolate. Emily groaned. She found it very hard to wake up early even at the best of times.
    "Then you will just have to sit up all night, miss," Emily told herself severely. "By morning, you will look every bit as wan and pale as Mary."
    A picture of the earl's furious, arrogant face rose before Emily's eyes, and she shuddered. But Mary must be saved at all costs. Mary had suffered enough and should suffer no more.
    Setting her lips in a stubborn line, Emily lit the candles, picked up a romance, and prepared to wait out the night.

    * * * *
It was a blessing that the Anstey sisters' lady's maid was new to the job. Their former lady's maid had recently retired with a good pension. The current one, Felice, a black-eyed French girl whose sole interest in life seemed to be the second footman, dressed her charges in an efficient but impersonal way, and, Emily was sure, had never studied them closely enough to tell them apart.
    Emily had drugged Mary's morning chocolate with laudanum, placed the blonde wig on her sister's head, and drawn the covers up about her face.
    Attired in the brown wig and with her lively features carefully schooled to copy Mary's demure expression, Emily was sure that with the help of the thick white veil which went with the wedding dress, she could easily pass for her sister.
    As soon as Mary had drunk the drugged chocolate and gone back to sleep, Emily told Felice to inform Mama that "Emily" was too ill to attend and to take the bridesmaid's gown to Cousin Bertha with the plea that Bertha perform Emily's part during the service.
    Although it was not yet time to get dressed, Emily then urged Felice to help her into the white silk wedding gown, trimmed with seed pearls and Valencienne lace, so that she was gowned and veiled by the time Mrs. Anstey came upstairs to look at poor "Emily" and wonder what Emily was doing sleeping in Mary's room.
    Emily gave her mother a long tale of nighttime headaches and sickness and said that "Emily" had begged to be allowed to rest and would join the family at the wedding celebrations.
    Mrs. Anstey tiptoed into Mary's room and gazed down anxiously at the sleeping figure on the bed, while Emily fretted, hoping that her mother would not draw back the covers and guess that the girl in bed was not Emily.
    The enormity of what she was about to do did not really strike Emily. She set her sister's happiness far above the haughty earl's humiliation and far above any embarrassment to the Anstey family.
    She was also living in a dream world, playing out the part of a heroine in a novel. In fact, when all was discovered, Emily planned to faint, quite in the best manner, because surely no one would rant and curse an unconscious girl.
    She prayed and prayed that her mother would stay away until the time came to set out for the church, but Mrs. Anstey considered it her duty to hint delicately at the mysteries of the marriage bed.
    Fortunately, this caused the good lady so much anguish and embarrassment that she looked anywhere in the room but at Emily.
    All at once it was time to leave. Flushed with excitement at appearing in the limelight for once in her life, Cousin Bertha looked feverish and animated, her long nose pink with excitement. Her gown was rather full in the bust for her flat figure, but she had solved that problem by stuffing her reticule down the front.
    As Emily stood at the entrance to the church, leaning on her father's arm, she suddenly felt sick with dread. As she looked at the glowing pride on her father's face, her conscience gave her such a sharp stab that she nearly cried aloud.
    But, somehow, it was too late to turn back. The church door was open, the organ was playing, and her father began to lead her forward.
    She approached the altar with her head meekly bowed, wishing her veil were thicker.
    Then she raised her eyes and saw the earl standing stiffly at attention, watching her approach. He was wearing a rose silk coat so