d smiling from stained eyes.

Mrs. Berry was requested to drink some wine, which Ripton poured out for
her, enabling Mrs. Berry thereby to measure his condition.

The bride now kissed Mrs. Berry, and Mrs. Berry kissed the bridegroom,
on the plea of her softness. Lucy gave Ripton her hand, with a musical
"Good-bye, Mr. Thompson," and her extreme graciousness made him just
sensible enough to sit down before he murmured his fervent hopes for her
happiness.

"I shall take good care of him," said Mrs. Berry, focussing her eyes to
the comprehension of the company.

"Farewell, Penelope!" cried Richard. "I shall tell the police everywhere
to look out for your lord."

"Oh my dears! good-bye, and Heaven bless ye both!"

Berry quavered, touched with compunction at the thoughts of approaching
loneliness. Ripton, his mouth drawn like a bow to his ears, brought up
the rear to the carriage, receiving a fair slap on the cheek from an old
shoe precipitated by Mrs. Berry's enthusiastic female domestic.

White handkerchiefs were waved, the adieux had fallen to signs: they
were off. Then did a thought of such urgency illumine Mrs. Berry, that
she telegraphed, hand in air; awakening Ripton's lungs, for the coachman
to stop, and ran back to the house. Richard chafed to be gone, but at
his bride's intercession he consented to wait. Presently they beheld the
old black-satin bunch stream through the street-door, down the bit of
garden, and up the astonished street; halting, panting, capless at the
carriage door, a book in her hand,--a much-used, dog-leaved, steamy,
greasy book, which; at the same time calling out in breathless jerks,
"There! never ye mind looks! I ain't got a new one. Read it, and don't
ye forget it!" she discharged into Lucy's lap, and retreated to the
railings, a signal for the coachman to drive away for good.

How Richard laughed at the Berry's bridal gift! Lucy, too, lost the
omen at her heart as she glanced at the title of the volume. It was Dr.
Kitchener on Domestic Cookery!

CHAPTER XXXI

General withdrawing of heads from street-windows, emigration of organs
and bands, and a relaxed atmosphere in the circle of Mrs. Berry's abode,
proved that Dan Cupid had veritably flown to suck the life of fresh
regions. With a pensive mind she grasped Ripton's arm to regulate his
steps, and returned to the room where her creditor awaited her. In the
interval he had stormed her undefended fortress, the cake, from which