“You are right, my boy,” he says, quite
gently, looking kindly at the unfortunate Bobby; “she
does look very—very young!”
“I shall mend of that!” cry I, briskly,
putting my arm through his, in anxious amends for
Bobby’s hapless speech. “We are a
family who age particularly early. I have a cousin
whose hair was gray at five-and-twenty, and I am sure
that any one who did not know father, would say that
he was sixty, if he was a day—would not
they, mother?”
The preparations are ended; the guests are come; no
great number. A few unavoidable Tempests, a few
necessary Greys (I have told you, have not I, that
my name is Grey?). The heels have been amputated
from a large number of white satin slippers, preparatory
to their being thrown after us. The school-children
have had their last practice at the marriage-hymn.
I have resolved to rise at five o’clock on my
wedding-morning, so as to make a last gloomy progress
round every bird and beast and gooseberry-bush on
the premises. I have exacted—binding
her by many stringent oaths—a solemn promise
from Barbara to make me, if I do not do so of my own
accord, at the appointed hour. I am sunk in heavy
sleep, and wake only very gradually, to find her,
in conformity with her engagements, giving my shoulder
reluctant and gentle pushes, and softly calling me.
“Is it five?” say I, sitting up and yawning.
Then as the recollection of my position flashes across
my mind, “I will not be married!”
I cry, turning round, and burying all my face in my
pillow again. “Nobody shall induce me!
Let some one go and tell Sir Roger so.”
“Sir Roger is not awake,” replied Barbara,
laughing rather sleepily, “you forget that.”
And by the time he is awake, I have come to a saner
mind. We dress, for the last time, alike.
The thought that never again shall I have a holland
frock like Barbara’s is nearly too much for us
both. We run quietly downstairs, and out into
as August a morning as God ever gave his poor pensioners.
We walk along soberly and silently, hand-in-hand,
as we used to do when we were little children.
My heart is very, very full. I may be going
to be happy in my new life. I fully expect to
be. At nineteen, happiness seems one’s
right, one’s matter of course; but it will not
be in the same way. This chapter of my life
is ended, and it has been such a good chapter,
so full of love, of healthy, strong affection, of
interchanged, kind offices, and little glad self-denials,
so abounding in good jokes and riotous laughter, in
little pleasures that—looked back on—seem
great; in little wholesome pains that—in
retrospect—seem joys. And, as we walk,
the birds
“Prefer soft anthems to the ears
of men
To woo them from their beds, still murmuring
That men can sleep while they their matins
sing.
Most divine service, whose so early lay
Prevents the eyelids of the blushing day.”
