e rush and
novelty of the past few weeks, bygone follies, big and little, active
and passive, dwindled to the vanishing point. If only Sue, dear, good,
unconscious Sue, would not recall them!

CHAPTER XII.

THE PHOTOGRAPH AND THE ORIGINAL.

Families in which the daughters marry early and in due succession, can
have but little idea of the huge, volcanic shock an engagement means in
a house like Boldero Abbey.

True, it had once before gone through a like experience, but the present
happy occasion was intensified by a variety of causes.

It was satisfactory, altogether satisfactory. Like good wine it needed
not the bush which General Boldero had strewed so plentifully over
Godfrey Stubbs's antecedents and surroundings. His future son-in-law was
well-born and well-bred, and his having lately succeeded to a
considerable fortune was also well known. Accordingly--we are obliged to
add "accordingly"--it was in good taste to say nothing about it.

But he could show, and he did show, enough to raise a smile wherever he
went. However demure his air when receiving congratulations, he could
insert here and there a phrase, adroitly conceived beforehand, the
point of which could not be missed--and he was rampant at home.

There he might freely puff and blow, and turn his little world upside
down. Nothing, not the veriest trifles of every-day life escaped his
touch; and had it not been that the sympathies of all were with him,
that there was not an antagonistic member of the family or household, he
would have been found unbearable.

But the change, the stir, the commotion, the heavy posts, and constant
ringing of the door-bell were delightful to everybody. There was
occupation for everybody. They ran against each other with busy,
pre-occupied faces. They hurried, when formerly time was of no account.
The writing-tables were bargained for, and Maud, all-important, retained
one solely for her own use,--while the two who had fancied they would
have so much to tell of their London escapade, found it so completely
superseded by the new excitement, that they dismissed it from their own
minds.

In short the whole atmosphere quivered with the sensation: "Who would
have thought it?--who would have believed it?--" to which there was but
one response: "We cannot make enough of it".

The man himself, however, had yet to be seen.

"Yes, it is very unfortunate," observed Miss Boldero, in answer to
neighbourly inquiries; "Major