That foul disaster
has happened, through our having temporarily yielded to a fit of the
dumps and treated a mad world's lunatic issue with some seriousness. But
fun shall be had with the aid of His Highness below. The madder the
world, the madder the fun. And the mixing in it of another element, which
it has to beguile us--romance--is not at all bad cookery. Poetic romance
is delusion--a tale of a Corsair; a poet's brain, a bottle of gin, and a
theatrical wardrobe. Comic romance is about us everywhere, alive for the
tapping.

A daughter of the Old Buccaneer should participate in it by right of
birth: she would expect it in order to feel herself perfectly at home.
Then, be sure, she finds an English tongue and prattles away as merrily
as she does when her old scapegrace of a father is the theme. Son-in-law
to him! But the path of wisdom runs in the line of facts, and to have
wild fun and romance on this pantomime path, instead of kicking to break
away from it, we follow things conceived by the genius of the situation,
for the delectation of the fair Countess of Fleetwood and the earl, her
delighted husband, quite in the spirit of the Old Buccaneer, father of
the bride.

Carinthia sat beside the fire, seeing nothing in the room or on the road.
Up in her bedchamber, the girl Madge was at her window. She saw Lord
Fleetwood standing alone, laughing, it seemed, at some thought; he threw
up his head. Was it a newly married man leaving his bride and laughing?
The bride was a dear lady, fit for better than to be driven to look on at
a prize-fight--a terrible scene to a lady. She was left solitary: and
this her wedding day? The earl had said it, he had said she bore his
name, spoke of coming from the altar, and the lady had blushed to hear
herself called Miss. The pressure of her hand was warm with Madge: her
situation roused the fervid latent sisterhood in the breast of women.

Before he mounted the coach, Lord Fleetwood talked to Kit Ives. He
pointed at an upper window, seemed to be issuing directions. Kit nodded;
he understood it, whatever it was. You might have said, a pair of
burglars. The girl ran downstairs to bid her lover good-bye and show him
she really rejoiced in his victory. Kit came to her saying: 'Given my
word of honour I won't make a beast of myself to-night. Got to watch over
you and your lady.'

Lord Fleetwood started his fresh team, casting no glance at the windows
of the room where his bride was. He and