And though our joy is all too new to wear
The golden sweetness of assured repose,
Since the good Gods have steered our bark of life
Through the rough storm and the deceitful calm,
We may together stem the tranquil wave
Not fearful, not secure--but grateful ever;
While in the roseate light of new born hope
We steep the shadows of the coming time--
Most blest, that whatsoe'er our future lot
Love gilds the present, sanctifies the past.
ANON.
"I say, little one," exclaimed Harriet, as Margaret entered the Oratory
to breakfast the next morning, "Will you go fishing with us to day, to
Tynebrook?"
"With you--to Tynebrook, Harriet?" said Margaret quite surprised.
"Yes; did you never hear of such a place? Perhaps, you don't know that I
saw Mr. Haveloc last night, and made a fishing party for the ladies?"
"Last night, Harriet!" said Margaret colouring.
"Yes, child," returned Harriet. "I suppose you think nobody can have
interviews with a gentleman but yourself."
Never was a more random shot, but it had the effect of covering
Margaret's face with blushes.
"How you love to torment Miss Capel;" said Mr. Gage, who was in the
room. "I wonder she ever comes near you."
"I never saw anything like your cheeks, child," continued Harriet,
'They'll be in scarlet straight at any news.'
"Do have a little mercy, Harriet," said poor Margaret. "I cannot tell
what you mean."
"I mean nothing more or less than this. You are to come with me to
Tynebrook this morning, to learn how to angle; who knows what you may
catch? I told Mr. Haveloc I should bring you, and he could not prevent
me, though he seemed very much averse to your company."
Margaret smiled quietly at this remark, and Harriet turned to attack
Everard, who entered the room at this moment.
"So here you are, slugs, who gave you leave to come and breakfast here
this morning?"
"It is so dull, alone," said Everard, drawing his chair to the table.
"Where is your book, Sir? Have you learned that scene through? I have a
great mind to hear you say it before I give you any coffee."
"I can't, Harriet," said Everard, quietly beginning his breakfast.
"Can't--what? Good gracious, that I should live to hear anybody say they
can't!"
"I can't learn it; nor could you, if--" (here he stopped and took
breath,) "if you did not know the English of it."
"If that is not a sufficient reason," said Mr. Gage, laughing, "I never
heard one."
Everard went on peaceably eating his breakfast.
Harriet surveyed him in speechless indignation.
"He does not know the English of it!" she exclaimed at last; "he reads
it like a parrot. Why even Captain Smithson--your prétendu,
Margaret--knows French. It is something horrible. George, what shall we
do?"
"Oh! Haveloc _must_ take it now," said Mr. Gage, "he cannot have any
real objection when he sees you in actual want of his assistance."
"Will you try to persuade him, Margaret?" said Harriet.
Margaret shook her head.
"It is a mere idle excuse," exclaimed Harriet after a pause, "I am sure,
by the way he read that long scene with Camille, that he understood it."
"I know the meaning of part, but I cannot make it all out," said
Everard.
"Then I will translate it for you. You give me an infinite deal of
trouble, but I console myself by thinking how remarkably well you will
look."
Everard, soothed by this little compliment, offered no opposition to the
plan; and Harriet, rising from the table, said that if Margaret had
breakfasted, they would go down stairs and arrange their expedition.
A similar desire seemed to possess the whole party of ladies--to learn
to angle. Never did a more brilliant morning follow a stormy night. Mrs.
Fitzpatrick said something about damp grass, but she was the only
middle-aged lady present, and her hint fell to the ground.
Lady James and Miss Campbell, standing together, by the open piano, were
engaged in an interesting conversation; Miss Campbell sometimes running
over the keys with one hand, and looking down at the music book;
Lady James approaching her head nearer and nearer in the earnestness of
her discourse.
Harriet reclined in the corner of a couch, fixed her eyes, brimming with
mischief, upon the talkers; and, although Lady James had the precaution
to speak low, she caught a few fragments.
"He was absolutely rivetted by that song of Schubert's," said Lady James.
"It is one of my best," said Miss Campbell.
"The lilac bonnet to-day, my love, with the white china-asters."
"Yes, I intended--"
"You will be delighted with Tynebrook; it is the finest seat in this
part of the country."
"Larger than Wardenscourt?" whispered Miss Campbell.
"Decidedly, and altogether a different style of place. A magnificent
park; oaks that the Druids might have planted, and the house built in
the quadrangular form like a Spanish convent."
"I like that sort of thing; but I fear he is rather difficult to--"
("To make a fool of," Harriet was almost tempted to add.)
"Not at all, my dear," pursued Lady James, "it is all manner; did I
never tell you how he was drawn in by our good friend, Mrs. Maxwell
Dorset?"
"No; I should like to hear it, of all things!"
"I'll tell you another time. Recollect, music is his passion. Talk of
Spohr and Beethoven."
"I do so dislike a 'fanatico per la musica,'" said Miss Campbell.
"Yes, but a man of his standing in society," argued Lady James, "by the
bye, I must secure him to drive with us to Tynebrook, this morning. You
and him together; I will sit in front with Lord James."
Harriet sprang from the sofa, seized upon Margaret, who was quietly
reading, and whirled her into the verandah. Lord Raymond, Mr. Gage and
Mr. Haveloc were standing on the lawn. Mr. Gage smoking.
"Come here, some of you!" cried Harriet.
Mr. Haveloc instantly turned round, and rushed up the steps.
"At last!" he said, "I have been into the drawing-room half a dozen
times, to see if you were not down."
"I have been there for ten minutes, I should think," said Harriet. "But
I am afraid that pretty speech was not meant for me--perhaps, you took
me for Mrs. Fitzpatrick?"
It did look as if he meant the speech for Margaret, since he took her
hand and kept it.
"How did you sleep?" he asked Margaret.
"Very well, thank you, after all my fright," returned Harriet, "but it
was a terrible storm, was it not Mr. Haveloc?"
"Ay--there was a storm last night," he said, as if just recollecting it.
"Did not you hear something of it then--you ought, I am sure; for I
found you all among the broken glass."
"Will you give me a lift, Mrs. Gage, this morning," he asked.
"With all my heart," said Harriet, "I take Margaret and Mrs.
Fitzpatrick; there is just room for you, if Margaret has no objection."
"Not any, Harriet," said Margaret quietly.
"George!" cried Harriet, "I am going to run off with Mr. Haveloc."
"Pray do," replied Mr. Gage.
"You will never see me again, after this morning!" she exclaimed.
Mr. Gage laughed and lit another cigar.
"There is a sort of stupid tranquillity about those Gages," said
Harriet, "I had hoped that George was an irascible person; but he grows
more and more like his father."
"That is a high compliment, Harriet;" said Margaret. "At----there was
always a good deal of philandering between you and Uncle Gage," said
Harriet; "you are an arrant little flirt in a quiet way."
"It must be a very quiet way, then;" said Mr. Haveloc, smiling.
"Don't you take her part!" cried Harriet, "you are on my side. George, I
wish you would give me a cigar."
"Not I, indeed," said Mr. Gage.
"Then I will get one from Lord James;" said Harriet, coolly.
Mr. Gage came up to the verandah, and offered her his cigar case.
Harriet took one.
"What are you going to do with it, Harriet?" asked Margaret.
"Nothing child--I have never smoked since the day I made you ill--but I
don't choose him to refuse me anything. There, you stingy wretch, you
may have it back again. Mr. Haveloc, tell me in confidence, what is your
favourite colour for a bonnet?"
Mr. Haveloc laughed, and said that he had not made up his mind, but that
when he saw Mrs. Gage's, he should be able to decide the point.
Lady James was not pleased when she saw Mr. Haveloc step into Mrs.
Gage's carriage; but she contented herself by bringing up the old story
of Mrs. Maxwell Dorset, and declaring that it was now the same thing
over again, with Mrs. Gage; a very designing young woman with all her
apparent frankness. Miss Campbell cordially agreed in this flattering
verdict.
But if Harriet had heard this remark, she would only have laughed at it,
with Margaret and Mr. Haveloc seated opposite to her, as her carriage
swept through the park gates, and drove into the stately avenues of
Tynebrook. They drove into the quadrangle through a grey archway,
covered with ivy, and alighted at a stone entrance, divided by an oaken
screen from the great hall.
"I say, little one, should not you like to have it?" asked Harriet,
glancing round the splendid hall, "if you are very good, I'll see if I
can help you."
Harriet equipped herself like a true angler, with a basket over her
shoulder. Mr. Haveloc was buckling on her accoutrements for her, when
the rest of the party crowded into the hall.
Lady James, though disturbed, did not allow herself defeated.
"Go to him, my love, and ask him to teach you to throw a fly," said she.
Miss Campbell took her advice, and succeeded, at least, in securing Mr.
Haveloc's services. Having ascertained that Margaret was not going to
fish, he selected a rod and a basket for Miss Campbell, put a fly on her
line, and wished her success.
But Miss Campbell said she was such a novice, that Mr. Haveloc must
kindly give her a little advice; and, at least, select for her a very
fortunate spot.
So they all set off to the stream that ran through the park; a rough,
brawling rivulet, that tumbled and foamed among rocky stones and
straggling roots of trees.
Mr. Haveloc carried Miss Campbell's rod and basket; and having found a
spot where there were no hawthorns near to intercept her line, he
recommended her to begin forthwith.
She made a trial; but any one who has taken a fishing-rod in their hand
for the first time, knows that it is by no means an easy task to guide
it.
After several desperate man[oe]uvres, in which she perilled herself and
her neighbours, more than once, with the spike at the end, she gave up
the attempt, and trusted to the sole attraction of her lilac bonnet.
Harriet was far up the stream with Mr. Gage; and Everard, who was
wandering about with his play-book in his hand, finding Miss Campbell
disengaged, insisted on her hearing him; and she had the delightful task
of listening to his blunders, while she was calculating whether, if Mr.
Haveloc proved obstinate, it would be possible for her to accept a
younger son.
Mr. Haveloc had managed to detach Margaret from the rest of the party,
and they sat watching the stream, as it glided through the tangled
roots of the hawthorns.
They had time to say, not all they wished; but all there was any
occasion for before they were interrupted; for Mr. Haveloc well knew the
precise angle of the rocky bank at which they would be invisible to the
party below.
Harriet, coming down with her basket on her shoulder, and her rod
unjointed, was the first to discover them. She suspended her song; stood
before them a minute, enjoying Margaret's rosy blushes, and Mr.
Haveloc's look of extreme unconcern; and then shrugging her shoulders,
and throwing down her basket on the grass, exclaimed:--
"Well! never say I did not have a hand in it."
The ladies had settled to go home after a late luncheon. The gentlemen
adhered to their original plan.
Everybody thought Mr. Haveloc was rather particular in his attentions to
Margaret; fortunately, for her comfort, they did not know how
particular. They did not know that he had obtained her permission to
write to Mr. Warde and to Mr. Casement, by that day's post. They did not
know that when he went up to dress, the letters were written; and that
Margaret's last words as he put her in the carriage, were to beg "that
he would be very polite to poor Mr. Casement."
Harriet happened to be alone with Margaret, as Mrs. Fitzpatrick went
back with Lady Raymond; and she caressed and teazed her alternately all
the way home, but Margaret could now bear teazing very bravely.
This was destined to be a day of events, for when they returned to
Wardenscourt, they found Captain Gage and Elizabeth already arrived.
Lucy and Harriet, both warmly attached to Lady d'Eyncourt, flew to
welcome her.
"And Margaret," said Elizabeth enquiringly, when she had embraced her
cousins.
Margaret was in her arms at once, sobbing with joy and emotion.
Elizabeth stroked down her hair, and spoke soothingly to her: she had
grown older so fast, that Margaret was really a child to her now.
Captain Gage was in excellent spirits. He was come back to England,
which delighted him, for he had no great taste for foreign parts. And
now that the grief of Sir Philip's death was, with him, over, he felt
that he had his daughter back again, all to himself, and that was a
great source of consolation. He was sorry it happened that his sons were
out fishing, but it was a capital day for sport, and he should see them
in the morning, which after all, was almost the same thing. So he kissed
Harriet again, and asked her whether she could give George a good
character.
Elizabeth was beautiful in her weeds; she looked graver, older, and more
serene. There was something in her slow and dignified movements, that
reminded Margaret of Sir Philip. And though she suffered, as Schiller
tells us as all great minds suffer, in silence and alone, yet those who
knew her best, felt a certainty, (in her case fully confirmed by time),
that she would never marry again. She seemed to feel, as the poets tell
us, women felt in their days, that her destiny was accomplished, her
part in the drama of life played out, that she had given her heart to
her husband; and that to all eternity her soul was wedded to the soul
that had preceded hers to Heaven.
With these peculiar views, a second marriage would have been to her a
crime replete with horror and disgrace.
That many people regretted these views, and that some sought to change
them, will not be wondered at, considering that, independent of her
beauty and good private fortune, Sir Philip left her mistress and sole
heiress of Sherleigh, expressing only a wish that if she should not
marry again, it might go to some one of Captain Gage's descendants.
Every one, whom it nearly concerned, was pleased with Margaret's
approaching marriage. Mrs. Fitzpatrick declared it was all that she
could wish. Lady d'Eyncourt congratulated her warmly, her guardians gave
a willing assent, Mr. Casement saying, that if Miss Peggy liked to
venture upon the young man, it was her affair; that there was no mistake
about his property, but that he thought him a violent fellow.
Elizabeth desired that Margaret should be married from Chirke Weston.
Hubert was safe on the coast of South America, and there was no drawback
to the plan. Captain Gage insisted upon giving her away. He said he had
half a right to do so, since he had a narrow escape of being her father
in earnest. For he still regarded Hubert's attachment to her as a
childish piece of business, that would serve very well for a jest when
one was wanting. So after the performance of the Vaudeville, which went
off to admiration, the party at Wardenscourt broke up. The Gages and
Raymonds, with Margaret and Mrs. Fitzpatrick started for Chirke Weston;
and Mr. Haveloc was kindly invited to take up his abode with Mr. Warde,
who was to perform the ceremony.
Margaret found many changes since she left that neighbourhood, though
none so strange to her as the change in her own prospects. At the
Vicarage, Mrs. Somerton still resided, but her eldest daughter was now
with her; a sharp, fractious spinster, who seemed but a bad exchange for
her wilful, pretty sister, now fortunately Mrs. Compton.
Mrs. Compton had a little girl, and was grown, her mother said, more
steady; and Mr. Compton had just been in all the newspapers for playing
at skittles before a church door, during divine service, at some place
where he was quartered with a detachment. This last piece of information
came from the acid sister; but Mrs. Somerton added that it was done for
a bet, which in her opinion, at once explained and excused the action.
The Trevors had for some time been in possession of Ashdale. They were
very nice people, and already extremely popular with the neighbours.
They were particularly civil to Margaret, took care to call upon her and
to invite her, and to express a great deal of pleasure in her intended
marriage. They little knew that they owed to Margaret's forbearance the
estate they were now enjoying; for a word from her would have caused Mr.
Grey to alter again, before his death, the distribution of his property;
and they rather grudged her the ten thousand pounds which her uncle did
bequeath to her--for very nice people are sometimes niggardly in their
ideas; they thought her own ten thousand pounds ample for a single
woman, and now that she was about to make a grand marriage, it was still
less needful to her; but as no means occurred to them of getting this
money back again, they contented themselves with _feeling_ the injury,
and with fixing on little Richard, as the one of their children who
would be sure to have had it, if Margaret had not robbed him of it.
But there were little private family feelings, which these nice people
took care to keep to themselves. They were invited to the breakfast,
very reluctantly, on the part of Harriet; who superintended everything,
and who hated them because they happened to have five very plain
children.
"Don't tell me, Uncle Gage, that it is not their fault!" she exclaimed,
when Captain Gage ventured to remonstrate with her for her dislike.
"Good people, always have handsome children. Your children were all
handsome!"
Captain Gage was silenced by this logical inference, "his children were
good looking, he must confess."
"Little sinners!" cried Harriet, "I'll have them all five to the
breakfast, that I may make them ill for a fortnight. I know they are
greedy by the look of them. I know they will eat as long as I choose to
stuff them."
And little Mrs. Trevor, when she yielded to Harriet's earnest
entreaties, that the five darlings should see the wedding and appear at
the breakfast, little thought of the fate in store for them.
Harriet was now in the very midst of business, to the great contentment
of her unquiet spirit. She assumed the direction of every thing; as
Elizabeth was not in spirits to take an active share in such matters.
But Harriet was in her element, inviting the company and arranging the
breakfast, and holding secret committees, with Captain Gage.
And then the trousseau. She was a Queen among milliners and ladies'
maids; and samples of gowns and bonnets. Her taste was admirable and
most imperative; she would not allow an opinion but her own on the
subject. Not a silk could be decided upon, unless she approved the
colour; not a bonnet, unless she pronounced the shape to be faultless.
Margaret submitted passively to all her directions, and bade Mrs. Mason
to be equally submissive. This was difficult, because then Mrs. Thompson
began to triumph over Mrs. Mason, and to intrude her advice upon matters
with which, as Mrs. Mason said, she had nothing to do.
Then Harriet selected the bridesmaids, which was a matter of some
nicety. She meant to have had six; but as she insisted upon their all
being handsome, she soon found herself obliged to limit the number to
four.
Whenever Mr. Gage was within hearing, she took care to regret over and
over again that the untoward circumstance of her own marriage prevented
her from offering herself in that capacity.
"You see," said Mr. Gage to Margaret, on occasion of one of these
attacks, "what you are to expect; when you have been married six months,
you will wish yourself single, that you may be bridesmaid to some of
your friends."
"No, she will not!" cried Harriet, "you don't see the difference. Do
you think, if I had married dear Mr. Haveloc, I should now wish I was
single?"
Mr. Gage laughed, and said "that altered the case, he had no doubt; but
people with a very little imagination might conjecture the degree of
peace that would have been enjoyed by both parties, if Harriet had
married 'dear Mr. Haveloc.'"
However, though she was not married to him; she enjoyed the great
satisfaction of teazing him to her heart's content. She would come in
with a solemn face, and assure him that his lawyer had died suddenly,
and the settlements must be transferred into other hands; that his
coach-maker had absconded, and he must send elsewhere for his carriage;
or that Margaret was upstairs ill with the influenza, and the doctor was
sure it would prove a very tedious attack.
This was the last time she succeeded in mystifying him, for before she
had finished speaking, he rushed past her, and up the stairs in search
of Margaret, whom he met quietly coming down, in perfect health. Harriet
declared that a very affecting meeting took place on the staircase, and
made Captain Gage laugh very much with her account of it; but she could
not get Mr. Haveloc to believe any more of her provoking tales.
But she could not let him entirely alone. She affirmed that with regard
to ladies' dress, he had one single idea, an _idée fixe_, which she was
anxious to reason him out of.
This idea was a perfect mania for shawls. He presented Margaret with one
costly shawl after another, till Harriet said, it was plain he thought
ladies' dress consisted of nothing else; and she vowed, that Margaret
should go to church on _the_ day, clothed in every single shawl he had
ever given her. And then she would draw such a lively picture of
Margaret's appearance in this singular costume, as would set every one
present laughing.
Then she was always alluding to Mr. Humphries, though this was partly
to plague Margaret. She would mention the songs Mr. Humphries liked, and
she would sing them of an evening with a great deal of pathos, directing
the expression particularly to Margaret. If she happened to wear any
thing particularly pretty, she would ask if it was not something of that
sort that Mr. Humphries used to admire so much?
Mr. Haveloc was not of a more curious disposition than men in general,
but it was natural he should wish to know why Harriet laid so much
stress on this Mr. Humphries, and why Margaret should always colour when
she did so.
Mr. Gage, who was present one evening when Harriet made one of these
allusions, told him that Humphries was a country squire, who lived near
Mr. Singleton; a good sort of man, whom he believed Miss Capel had
refused when she was at Singleton Manor; that the poor fellow had a
large property, but really was such a boor, that you could not be
surprised at any woman refusing him.
Fortunately Harriet did not overhear this explanation, or she would have
little thanked Mr. Gage for interfering with her concerns.
Mr. Casement was a good deal at Chirke Weston. He came sometimes on
business, with Mr. Haveloc, but much more often because he had no where
else to bestow himself.
He took an amazing fancy to Mrs. Gage, and, to Margaret's surprise, she
seemed equally pleased with his society. He made Margaret very angry by
saying the first morning he called, "I say, little woman, what a famous
match Bessy Gage will be for me now. I little thought she would have
such an estate as Sherleigh, when I first engaged her for my second."
But when he repeated this jest to Elizabeth, she did not seem at all
ruffled; she merely hoped that she should never have any more serious
pretenders to her estate than Mr. Casement.
But the old man certainly admired Harriet the most. If she was not in
the way when he called, he always asked where that handsome woman, Mrs.
Gage was? And if she was in the garden, he would stand at the window
watching her movements, and pointing out to Margaret how well she
walked.
For Harriet, who darted about like lightening when she was in a hurry,
walked with all the slow and undulating grace of a Spanish woman.
Harriet used to question Mr. Casement very minutely respecting
Margaret's early acquaintance with Mr. Haveloc.
"I advised the match, in the first instance," said Mr. Casement, "I told
old Grey, (you did not know Grey, a worthy old soul, he left me a
thousand pounds) I told Grey, that if he made up a match between his
ward and Miss Peggy, he would be rid of the trouble of her."
"Then he made the match?" inquired Harriet.
"Not he! Grey was a child in such affairs. Miss Peggy was shy; Master
Claude was sulky, and nothing came of it for a long time."
"And how did they understand each other?" asked Harriet.
"Why that, to tell you the truth, I don't know. I believe he hung so
long about the house, that Master Grey asked him his intentions. And
then, you know, the young man was obliged to speak out."
"But, then, Mr. Casement, what put it off so long?"
"Ah! that I can't tell exactly; but I suppose it was Master Claude's
temper. He is a dreadful temper. Besides, he went off with a married
woman in Italy."
"But that was before this affair," said Harriet.
"Was it? I don't know. I am rather sorry for Miss Peggy; she is a
well-behaved little girl, upon the whole; but as people brew, so they
must bake. Some people say that old Grey turned him out of the house,
and would not hear of the match. I know this, that I caught him one
evening making love; and the next day he was off. But old Grey was very
close, in some things: he had his secrets. He rather wished her to marry
Hubert Gage."
There was one thing in which Mr. Casement and Harriet cordially
sympathised. He hated the Trevors.
"Nice people, ah! very nice, indeed," he exclaimed. "Everybody speaks
well of them; 'so much the worse,' as the man says, in the 'School for
Scandal.' A mean family, depend on it. A very attached couple; attached,
because they have one interest in common; to scrape and save every
farthing they can lay their hands upon. And the children; straggling all
over Ashdale, and spoiling the furniture. Poor old Grey never liked
children. 'I like 'em when they grow old enough to talk to,' he used to
say. I will tell you when I like 'em--never! I should like to see
Trevor begging about the streets, like a Manchester weaver, with his
five children behind him."
When Harriet confided to Mr. Casement how she meant to serve the five
children at the breakfast, his delight knew no bounds.
"Have 'em! cram 'em! the avaricious little villains!" he exclaimed.
"Have them all, down to the stuffed pillow case on two legs, that they
call baby! See, if I don't do 'em a good turn. I'll drown 'em in sack!
I'll make 'em all drunk, or my name is not Roger Casement!"
And Mr. Casement, when the time came was as good as his word.
* * * * *
Lady d'Eyncourt, Margaret and Harriet, were walking on the lawn beneath
the broad light of the harvest moon. It was the evening before the
marriage.
"Do feel nervous, little one, please," said Harriet; "I can't bear
heroines. Do be frightened! I assure you, I tremble for you. He is a
fire eater--your Mr. Haveloc."
"You will make her nervous, Harriet," said Elizabeth, gently.
"I tell you what, Margaret," said Harriet, "I hope you and Mr. Haveloc,
will not turn too religious, that is all. I expect, when I come to
Tynebrook, to find you grown into two old hermits, with beards down to
your waists."
"Pray exempt me from the beard, Harriet," said Margaret smiling.
"I say, the next time you go to Tynebrook church, you will think of your
first visit," said Harriet.
"Do not remind me of it, Harriet."
"What a number of little lies you did tell," exclaimed Harriet; "but I
suppose it is natural, is it not, Bessy?"
"Do you remember whether I told many during my noviciate?"
"Oh! a great many, Harriet."
"I will call you out, child! Why, what in the world can Mr. Haveloc want
with us? To go and sign the settlements? I am quite agreeable. I assure
you, Margaret, I signed my own death-warrant in a fine flowing hand,
that will prove to future ages how valiant I was."
Margaret signed hers too steadily, Harriet thought. She crept near her
at the last signature, and gave her arm such a push, as sent her pen
across the parchment. Just to keep up appearances, Harriet told Mr.
Haveloc, and to make people believe she felt some little regret at the
very unguarded step she was about to take.
Elizabeth, being still in weeds, did not go to church with Margaret.
Every one was delighted with the delicate, and faultless beauty of the
bride when she appeared, looking radiant in her white lace and orange
blossoms. Even Harriet was contented with the numerous cortège that she
had contrived to assemble in honour of the occasion.
Lady d'Eyncourt was the first to welcome Margaret and wish her joy, when
Mr. Haveloc led her back into the drawing-room, calm--silent--with just a
few tears upon her blushing cheek.
"But I dare not ask, that your lot may be as happy as mine," she
whispered, "lest it should be as brief."
"Ah, I could die now!" said Margaret, as she rested her head on
Elizabeth's shoulder--feeling as Othello did; and as all those who feel
deeply, must sometimes feel, in this unstable world.
Mrs. Fitzpatrick and Lady d'Eyncourt, stood together at the window
watching the carriage which bore away Mr. and Mrs. Haveloc.
"I have not a fear for her," said Elizabeth, turning to her companion,
"hers was a love match, and I have no faith in any other."
"Nor I," returned Mrs. Fitzpatrick with a smile.
"For Love is Lord of Truth and Loyalty,
Lifting himself out of the lowly dust,
In golden plumes up to the purest sky."
THE END.
LONDON:
Printed by Schulze & Co., 13, Poland Street.
Transcriber's Note: The oe ligature is shown as [oe]. A few printer's
errors have been amended. Disagreeble is now disagreeable, independant
is now independent, embarrasment is now embarrassment, interupting is
now interrupting, chesnut is now chestnut, recal is now recall, Shubert
is now Schubert and acceeded is now acceded.
End of Project Gutenberg's Margaret Capel, v. 3 of 3, by Ellen Wallace