e,
though a better friend of Church and State never stood on a hustings,
that, rather than court such a revulsion, the Squire would have found
jesuitical excuses for the marriage if Riccabocca had been discovered to
be the Pope in disguise! As for the stocks, their fate was now
irrevocably sealed. In short, the marriage was concluded--first
privately, according to the bridegroom's creed, by a Roman Catholic
clergyman, who lived in a town some miles off, and next publicly in the
village church of Hazeldean.

It was the heartiest rural wedding! Village girls strewed flowers on the
way;--a booth was placed amidst the prettiest scenery of the park, on
the margin of the lake--for there was to be a dance later in the day; an
ox was roasted whole. Even Mr. Stirn--no, Mr. Stirn was _not_ present,
so much happiness would have been the death of him! And the Papisher
too, who had conjured Lenny out of the stocks; nay, who had himself sat
in the stocks for the very purpose of bringing them into contempt--the
Papisher! he had as lief Miss Jemima had married the devil! Indeed, he
was persuaded that, in point of fact, it was all one and the same.
Therefore Mr. Stirn had asked leave to go and attend his uncle the
pawnbroker, about to undergo a torturing operation for the stone! Frank
was there, summoned from Eton for the occasion--having grown two inches
taller since he left--for the one inch of which nature was to be
thanked, for the other a new pair of resplendent Wellingtons. But the
boy's joy was less apparent than that of others. For Jemima was a
special favorite with him, as she would have been with all boys--for she
was always kind and gentle, and made many pretty presents whenever she
came from the watering-places. And Frank knew that he should miss her
sadly, and thought she had made a very queer choice.

Captain Higginbotham had been invited; but, to the astonishment of
Jemima, he had replied to the invitation by a letter to herself, marked
"_private and confidential_." "She must have long known," said the
letter, "of his devoted attachment to her; motives of delicacy, arising
from the narrowness of his income and the magnanimity of his sentiments,
had alone prevented his formal proposals; but now that he was informed
(he could scarcely believe his senses, or command his passions) that her
relations wished to force her into a BARBAROUS marriage with a foreigner
of MOST FORBIDDING APPEARANCE, and most _abject circumstances_,