hould not wonder if she came round to it.
But then, one never knows how a woman will take a thing. If she will, she
will, etc., etc."

* * * * *

And now, it may strike the reader as very strange, but, as a matter of
fact, ten days from the date of the above conversation, there was a
small-and-early gathering at St. George's, Hanover-square, close by. I
say "small," for the marriage had been kept quite secret, in order to
prevent curiosity-mongers from marching down upon it in their thousands,
as they would certainly have done had it been announced that the heroine
of the great will case was going to be married. Therefore the party was
very select. Augusta had no relations of her own; and so she had asked
Dr. Probate, with whom she had struck up a great friendship, to come and
give her away; and, though the old gentleman's previous career had had
more connection with the undoing of the nuptial tie than with its
contraction, he could not find it in his heart to refuse.

"I shall be neglecting my duties, you know, my dear young lady," he said,
shaking his head. "It's very wrong--very wrong, for I ought to be at the
Registry; but--well, perhaps I can manage to come--very wrong,
though--very wrong, and quite out of my line of business! I expect that I
shall begin to address the Court--I mean the clergyman--for the
petitioner."

And so it came to pass that on this auspicious day the registering was
left to look after itself; and, as a matter of history, it may be stated
that no question was asked in Parliament about it.

Then there was Lady Holmhurst, looking very pretty in her widow's dress;
and her boy Dick, who was in the highest spirits, and bursting with
health and wonder at these strange proceedings on the part of his
"Auntie"; and, of course, the legal twins brought up the rear.

And there in the vestry stood Augusta in her bridal dress, as sweet a
woman as ever the sun shone on; and looking at her beautiful face, Dr.
Probate nearly fell in love with her himself. And yet it was a sad face
just then. She was happy--very, as a loving woman who is about to be made
a wife should be; but when a great joy draws near to us it comes
companioned by the shadows of our old griefs.

The highest sort of happiness has a peculiar faculty of recalling to our
minds that which has troubled them in the past, the truth being, that
extremes in this, as in other matters, will sometimes touch, which wou