s nuptials. For Augusta herself he
did not care at all, as men are supposed to care for the girl they are
about to marry. He did not dislike her, and he thought her rather pretty
and lady-like, with a far better education than his own; but, strangely
enough in these last days of his bachelorhood, he often found himself
living over again those far-off times in Monte Carlo, when, as Cousin
Sue from Bangor, he had laughed and talked and flirted with poor little
Daisy, as he called her to himself, now that she was dead, and the grave
had closed over all her faults and misdemeanors. She had been the cause
of his ruin, and he had, at times, hated her for it, but she had been
jolly company for all that, and he wondered what she would say if she
could know that Mrs. Rossiter-Browne was to be his mother-in-law and
Augusta Lady Hardy.

"She would turn over in her coffin, I do believe," he thought, and then
he wondered how much Augusta's wedding portion would be, and how far it
would go toward restoring his Irish home to something like its former
condition. But on this point, _pere_ Browne maintained a rigid silence,
and he was obliged to be content with the hints which _mere_ Browne
dropped from time to time. She had made minute inquiries with regard to
Hardy Manor, her daughter's future home, and at her request he had made
a drawing of it, so that she knew just how many rooms there were, and
how they were furnished.

"I shall h'ist them feather beds out double quick," she said, "and them
high four-posters, with tops like a buggy. I'd as soon sleep in a
hearse, and I shall put in some brass bedsteads and hair mattresses, and
mabby I shall furnish Gusty's room with willer work. I'll show 'em what
Uncle Sam can do."

Was she then going with him to Hardy Manor, and must he present her to
his aristocratic friends as the mother of his bride? The very
possibility of such a calamity made the perspiration ooze from the tips
of Lord Hardy's fingers to the roots of his hair, and once he
contemplated running away and taking the first ship which sailed for
Liverpool. But when he remembered his debts he concluded to swallow
everything, even the mother-in-law, if necessary. He was to sail the
last week in November, and as, when he engaged his state-room, nothing
had been said about a second one for Mrs. Browne, he comforted himself
with the hope that she did not meditate going with him. She would,
perhaps, come in the spring, by which time