"You have said nothing as yet to your daughter?"
"Not a word," she replied.
"Then," said he, "our course will be to drive at once to Father Basil's
residence, and get him to broach the whole matter to Miss Barbara. He
has a very persuasive tongue, and I think she will at once yield to his
exhortations. Should she, however, be disposed to resist forcibly our
measures for her benefit, there will be the means at hand to carry them
out."
Barbara entered the room, wholly unsuspicious of the plots against her
liberty.
"The carriage will soon be at the door," said her mother. "Go and get
ready." And after a whispered hint from Mr. Glide, she added, "Put on
your pearl silk, Barbara. We shall have to call on certain persons of
distinction."
Barbara was soon ready. They all three entered the carriage, and after a
drive of about a mile, it stopped before a large and elegant house.
"Our father confessor lives in style," whispered Mrs. Dinwiddie.
"Yes," returned Glide; "one of his wealthy neophytes gives him a home
here. If you will wait in this little basement room, Madam, I will
conduct your daughter up to his library."
"Go with Mr. Glide, Barbara," said Mrs. Dinwiddie.
Supposing it was merely one of the mysterious forms of business, little
Barbara at once took the gentleman's proffered arm and ascended the
stairs with him.
Ten minutes,--twenty,--thirty,--Mrs. Dinwiddie waited, and nobody came.
She looked at the furniture, the carpets, the paintings, till she had
exhausted the curiosities of the apartment. Suddenly there was a sound
of music from above,--not sacred music,--it sounded very much like the
waltz from "Gustavus." What could it all mean?
At last Mr. Glide made his appearance.
"Now, Madam, 't is all arranged," said he. "I regret to say that we had
to use the most stringent measures for reducing your daughter to terms.
But she is so bound at last that she can have little hope of regaining
her freedom."
"Bound, Sir? Did you have to bind her?" asked Mrs. Dinwiddie, with a
throb of maternal solicitude.
"You shall see, Madam."
He threw open the door at the head of the landing, and they entered a
stately room, where some thirty or forty ladies and gentlemen seemed to
be assembled. Mrs. Dinwiddie drew away her arm and almost swooned with
amazement and consternation.
At the front end of the apartment, before a gorgeous mirror, stood
Barbara and Captain Penrose. A veil and a bunch of orange-blossoms had
been added to the young lady's coiffure. At her side stood a handsome
old gentleman, with bright, affectionate eyes, (very much like the
Captain's,) who seemed to regard her with a gratified look. On the side
of Penrose stood--horrors!--Mr. Dinwiddie himself, a smile of fiendish
exultation on his face; while a gentleman with a white cravat and a
narrow collar to his coat, evidently an Episcopal clergyman, went up and
shook hands with Barbara, and then mingled with the rest of the company.
A middle-aged gentleman, whom the guests accosted as Mr. Carver, drew
near to Dinwiddie, and said,--
"Now introduce me to your wife."
Dinwiddie took his arm, and, leading him to where the lady stood,
said,--
"Wife, this is my old friend Carver, of whom you have so often heard me
speak. Yonder stands your daughter, Mrs. Penrose, waiting for your
maternal kiss of congratulation."
Mrs. Dinwiddie debated with herself a moment whether to shriek, to fall
into hysterics, to explode in a philippic, or to rush from observation.
Her husband, seeing her hesitation, took her by the hand and led her
into an unoccupied room. A veil must be dropped upon the connubial
interview which then and there took place.
Suffice it to say, that, when she came forth leaning on the arm of Mr.
Dinwiddie, it was with the air of one who has made up her mind to make
the best of a case of necessity,--an air very much like that, I fancy,
with which the South will yet take the arm of its consort, the North.
She saw there was no longer any chance for another flank movement.
One vindictive glance she turned on the dapper Mr. Glide, as he stood
guzzling Champagne, and looking the picture of meek fidelity; and then
she courageously walked up, kissed her daughter, shook hands with the
Captain, curtsied condescendingly to old Mr. Penrose, and smothered her
astonishment as she best could, on being taken up to a lady of rare
elegance of person and demeanor, whom she had set down as the wife of
the Governor-General at least, but who, on presentation, she learned was
the mother of her new son-in-law.
"Ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Carver,--and at his voice the buzz of
conversation was hushed,--"I believe we have none here who will not
readily comply with the request I have now to make. Since all's well
that ends well, I ask it as a favor, that no person of this company, who
may happen to be acquainted with the peculiar circumstances of this
marriage, will mention them outside of the circle here present. Will you
all say _ay_ to this proposition?"
Amid smiles there rose what sounded like a unanimous assent; but a close
observer might have remarked that the Perfidious Mr. Glide, instead of
moving his lips affirmatively, simply lifted his Champagne-glass, and in
the act raised his forefinger so as to cover the side of his nose. To
this individual, no doubt the boon companion of some rascally reporter,
we probably owe the circumstance that a garbled and incorrect account of
this affair appeared in the Baltimore and Washington papers. The present
writer has consequently felt it incumbent on him to place on record a
version which, whatever may be said of it, cannot be stigmatized as
exaggerated.