for your good opinion. I know very well how high is the honor which you
are doing Florence, and she will quite understand it. But you see the
thing is fixed; it's only a week." Florence was said, at the moment, to
be not at home, though she was up-stairs, looking at four dozen new
pocket-handkerchiefs which had just come from the pocket-handkerchief
merchant, with the letters F.A. upon them. She had much more pleasure in
looking at them than she would have had in listening to the
congratulations of M. Grascour.

"He's a very good man, no doubt, mamma; a deal better, perhaps, than
Harry." That, however, was not her true opinion. "But one can't marry
all the good men."

There was almost more trouble taken down at Buston about Harry's
marriage than his sister's, though Harry was to be married at
Cheltenham; and only his father, and one of his sisters as a bride's
maid, were to go down to assist upon the occasion. His father was to
marry them. And his mother had at last consented to postpone the joy of
seeing Florence till she was brought home from her travels, a bride
three months old. Nevertheless, a great fuss was made, especially at
Buston Hall. Mr. Prosper had become comparatively light in heart since
the duty of providing a wife for Buston, and a future mother for
Buston's heirs, had been taken off his shoulders and thrown upon those
of his nephew. The more he looked back upon the days of his own
courtship the more did his own deliverance appear to him to be almost a
work of Heaven. Where would he have been had Miss Thoroughbung made good
her footing in Buston Hall? He used to shut his eyes and gently raise
his left hand toward the skies as he told himself that this evil thing
had passed by him.

But it had passed by, and it was expected that there should be a lunch
of some sort at Buston; and as, with all his diligent inquiry, he had
heard nothing but good of Florence, she should be received with as
hearty a welcome as he could give her. There was one point which
troubled him more than all others. He was determined to refurnish the
drawing-room and also the bedroom in which Florence was destined to
sleep. He told his sister in the most solemn manner that he had at last
made up his mind thoroughly. The thing should be done. She understood
how great a thing it was for him to do. "The two centre rooms!" he said,
with an almost tragic air. Then he sent for her the next day, and told
her that, on farther consideratio