and the man supplanted by
him went another way.

TWENTY-SEVEN.

"One might think better of marriage if one's married friends
would not confide in one so much."--_Reflections of a
Bachelor Girl._

Mrs Martha Clay proved a little obstreperous in regard to Ernest
Breslaw filling the position of grandson-in-law.

"You always get what you don't want," said she; "an' that's why one of
the same class as treated me daughter so shocking is now to be
pesterin' me for me grandchild in the same way. A girl of the decent
class wants to look a long time before she leaps with one of them
swells. They just take to a girl out of their own click out of the
contrariness of human nature, and then by-and-by give 'em a dog's
life. I know there's bad in all classes, but them upstarts have so
much more licence to be up to bad capers,--that's where it comes in.
And anyhow I ain't breakin' me neck to have Dawn married. None of my
people ever had any trouble to get married, an' she can wait a bit an'
look round an' see if this feller can stand the test of waitin',"
concluded the old dame, with the light of conflict in her steel-blue
eye.

Fortunately I was able to bring forward a seductive statement of the
case. Walker--the man who had made the money for Breslaw and his
step-brother--had been a grand level-headed old labourer, and though
his sons had been educated in the great English schools, they were
not far removed from honest utilitarian folk, and owing to this, and
in conjunction with Dawn, when her real name was divulged,--being a
daughter of one of the "old families," to wit, the Mudeheepes of
Menangle, the old dame consented to be reconciled.

Now that the oppression of Carry had been removed, Mrs Bray came over
and beamed upon us in her usual inspiriting way.

The electioneering gossip having died out, she reopened the old budget
concerning the misdoings of the Noonoon aristocracy, and once more the
name of Mrs Tinker figured so largely on the bill that I deeply
regretted my inability to encounter this much-discussed individual.

However, when Dawn flung into the quiet pool the bomb of her
approaching wedding with one of the best "catches" of New South Wales,
all other topics faded into insignificance, and every woman who had
the slightest acquaintance with the bride-elect called on her to warn
her against the horrors to be discovered after she had irrevocably
taken the contemplated step in the dark.