CHAPTER XXXIII.
The Fatal Discovery.
There is great bustle and confusion in the house of Mr.Bates.
Mantua-makers and milliners are coming in at unearthly hours, and consultations of deep importance are being duly held with maiden aunts and the young ladies who are to officiate as bridesmaids at the approaching ceremony.

There are daily excursions to drapers' establishments, and jewellers, and, in fact, so much to be done and thought of, that little Birdie is in constant confusion, and her dear little curly head is almost turned topsy-turvy.

Twenty times in each day is she called upstairs to where the sempstresses are at work, to have something tried on or fitted.
Poor little Birdie! she declares she never can stand it: she did not dream that to be married she would have been subjected to such a world of trouble, or she would never have consented,--_never_! And then Clarence, too, comes in every morning, and remains half the day, teasing her to play, to talk, or sing.

Inconsiderate Clarence! when she has so much on her mind; and when at last he goes, and she begins to felicitate herself that she is rid of him, back he comes again in the evening, and repeats the same annoyance.

O, naughty, tiresome, Clarence! how can you plague little Birdie so?
Perhaps you think she doesn't dislike it; you may be right, very likely she doesn't.
She sometimes wonders why he grows paler and thinner each day, and his nervous and sometimes distracted manner teases her dreadfully; but she supposes all lovers act thus, and expects they cannot help it--and then little Birdie takes a sly peep in the glass, and does not so much wonder after all.
Yet if she sometimes deems his manner startling and odd, what would she say if she knew that, night after night, when he left her side, he wandered for long hours through the cold and dreary streets, and then went to his hotel, where he paced his room until almost day?
Ah, little Birdie, a smile will visit his pale face when you chirp tenderly to him, and a faint tinge comes upon his cheek when you lay your soft tiny hand upon it; yet all the while there is that desperate secret lying next his heart, and, like a vampire, sucking away, drop by drop, happiness and peace.
Not so with little Birdie; she is happy--oh, _so_ happy: she rises with a song upon her lips, and is chirping in the sunshine she herself creates, the live-long day.