I took an opinion—and found it is so; and
the viscount seeing it, agreed the best thing for
her as well as me would be, we should marry. She
is a wide-awake young lady, and nothing the worse
for that: I’m a bit that way myself.
And so very little courtship has sufficed. She
is a splendid beauty, and when you see her you’ll
say any fellow might be proud of such a bride; and
so I am. And now, dear Charlie, you have it all.
It will take place somewhere about the twenty-fourth
of next month; and you must come down by the first,
if you can. Don’t disappoint. I want
you for best man, maybe; and besides, I would like
to talk to you about some things they want me to do
in the settlements, and you were always a long-headed
fellow: so pray don’t refuse.
’Dear Charlie, ever most sincerely,
’Your old Friend,
’Mark Wylder.
’P.S.—I stay at the Brandon Arms
in the town, until after the marriage; and then you
can have a room at the Hall, and capital shooting when
we return, which will be in a fortnight after.’
I can’t say that Wylder was an old friend.
But he was certainly one of the oldest and most intimate
acquaintances I had. We had been for nearly three
years at school together; and when his ship came to
England, met frequently; and twice, when he was on
leave, we had been for months together under the same
roof; and had for some years kept up a regular correspondence,
which first grew desultory, and finally, as manhood
supervened, died out. The plain truth is, I did
not very much like him.
Then there was that beautiful apathetic Dorcas Brandon.
Where is the laggard so dull as to experience no pleasing
flutter at his heart in anticipation of meeting a
perfect beauty in a country house. I was romantic,
like every other youngish fellow who is not a premature
curmudgeon; and there was something indefinitely pleasant
in the consciousness that, although a betrothed bride,
the young lady still was fancy free: not a bit
in love. It was but a marriage of convenience,
with mitigations. And so there hovered in my
curiosity some little flicker of egotistic romance,
which helped to rouse my spirits, and spur me on to
action.
In which I enter the drawing-room.
I was now approaching Brandon Hall; less than ten
minutes more would set me down at its door-steps.
The stiff figure of Mrs. Marston, the old housekeeper,
pale and austere, in rustling black silk (she was accounted
a miser, and estimated to have saved I dare not say
how much money in the Wylder family—kind
to me with the bread-and-jam and Naples-biscuit-kindness
of her species, in old times)—stood in fancy
at the doorway. She, too, was a dream, and, I
dare say, her money spent by this time. And that
other dream, to which she often led me, with the large
hazel eyes, and clear delicate tints—so
