me to find that dear Loo was dead, and that the
great Tooley Street fire had swept away his father's premises and ruined
him. As this blow had, however, been the means of softening his father,
and effecting a reconciliation between them, he was rather glad than
otherwise, he said, that the fire had taken place. Fred did not say--
although he might have said it with truth--that stiff and stately Mr
Auberly had been reduced almost to beggary, and that he was now
dependent for a livelihood on the very palette and brushes which once he
had so ruthlessly condemned to the flames!

After this trip to Wales, Frank returned home and told his mother
abruptly that he meant to marry Emma Ward without delay, to which Mrs
Willders replied that she thought he was quite right. As Emma appeared
to be of the same mind the marriage took place in due course. That is
to say, Miss Tippet and Emma managed to put it off as long as possible
and to create as much delay as they could. When they had not the shadow
of an excuse for further delay--not so much as a forgotten band or an
omitted hook of the voluminous trousseau--the great event was allowed to
go on--or, "to come off."

Many and varied were the faces that appeared at the church on that
auspicious occasion. Mr Auberly was there to give away the bride, and
wonderfully cheerful he looked, too, considering that he gave her to the
man whom he once thought so very unworthy of her. Willie was groomsman,
of course, and among the bridesmaids there was a little graceful,
dark-eyed and dark-haired creature, whom he regarded as an angel or a
fairy, or something of that sort, and whom everybody else, except Frank
and Mrs Willders, thought the most beautiful girl in the church. In
the front gallery, just above this dark-eyed girl, sat an elderly man
who gazed at her with an expression of intense affection. His
countenance was careworn and, had a somewhat dissipated look upon it.
Yet there was a healthy glow on it, too, as if the dissipation were a
thing of the distant past. The dark-eyed girl once or twice stole a
glance at the elderly man and smiled on him with a look of affection
quite as fervent as his own. There was a rather stylish youth at this
man's elbow whose muscles were so highly developed that they appeared
about to burst his superfine black coat. He was observed to nod
familiarly to the dark-eyed girl more than once, and appeared to be in a
state of considerable excitement--