’And you don’t feel solitary or neglected,
going away by yourself; do you, Pa?’
‘Lord bless you! No, my Life!’
‘Good-bye, dearest Pa. Good-bye!’
‘Good-bye, my darling! Take her away, my
dear John. Take her home!’
So, she leaning on her husband’s arm, they turned
homeward by a rosy path which the gracious sun struck
out for them in its setting. And O there are
days in this life, worth life and worth death.
And O what a bright old song it is, that O ’tis
love, ’tis love, ’tis love that makes
the world go round!
CONCERNING THE MENDICANT’S BRIDE
The impressive gloom with which Mrs Wilfer received
her husband on his return from the wedding, knocked
so hard at the door of the cherubic conscience, and
likewise so impaired the firmness of the cherubic legs,
that the culprit’s tottering condition of mind
and body might have roused suspicion in less occupied
persons that the grimly heroic lady, Miss Lavinia,
and that esteemed friend of the family, Mr George Sampson.
But, the attention of all three being fully possessed
by the main fact of the marriage, they had happily
none to bestow on the guilty conspirator; to which
fortunate circumstance he owed the escape for which
he was in nowise indebted to himself.
‘You do not, R. W.’ said Mrs Wilfer from
her stately corner, ’inquire for your daughter
Bella.’
‘To be sure, my dear,’ he returned, with
a most flagrant assumption of unconsciousness, ’I
did omit it. How—or perhaps I should
rather say where—is Bella?’
‘Not here,’ Mrs Wilfer proclaimed, with
folded arms.
The cherub faintly muttered something to the abortive
effect of ’Oh, indeed, my dear!’
‘Not here,’ repeated Mrs Wilfer, in a
stern sonorous voice. ’In a word, R. W.,
you have no daughter Bella.’
‘No daughter Bella, my dear?’
‘No. Your daughter Bella,’ said Mrs
Wilfer, with a lofty air of never having had the least
copartnership in that young lady: of whom she
now made reproachful mention as an article of luxury
which her husband had set up entirely on his own account,
and in direct opposition to her advice: ‘—your
daughter Bella has bestowed herself upon a Mendicant.’
‘Good gracious, my dear!’
‘Show your father his daughter Bella’s
letter, Lavinia,’ said Mrs Wilfer, in her monotonous
Act of Parliament tone, and waving her hand.
’I think your father will admit it to be documentary
proof of what I tell him. I believe your father
is acquainted with his daughter Bella’s writing.
But I do not know. He may tell you he is not.
Nothing will surprise me.’
‘Posted at Greenwich, and dated this morning,’
said the Irrepressible, flouncing at her father in
handing him the evidence. ’Hopes Ma won’t
be angry, but is happily married to Mr John Rokesmith,
and didn’t mention it beforehand to avoid words,
and please tell darling you, and love to me, and I
should like to know what you’d have said if any
other unmarried member of the family had done it!’
