he mysterious forms of business, little
Barbara at once took the gentleman's proffered arm and ascended the
stairs with him.

Ten minutes,--twenty,--thirty,--Mrs. Dinwiddie waited, and nobody came.
She looked at the furniture, the carpets, the paintings, till she had
exhausted the curiosities of the apartment. Suddenly there was a sound
of music from above,--not sacred music,--it sounded very much like the
waltz from "Gustavus." What could it all mean?

At last Mr. Glide made his appearance.

"Now, Madam, 't is all arranged," said he. "I regret to say that we had
to use the most stringent measures for reducing your daughter to terms.
But she is so bound at last that she can have little hope of regaining
her freedom."

"Bound, Sir? Did you have to bind her?" asked Mrs. Dinwiddie, with a
throb of maternal solicitude.

"You shall see, Madam."

He threw open the door at the head of the landing, and they entered a
stately room, where some thirty or forty ladies and gentlemen seemed to
be assembled. Mrs. Dinwiddie drew away her arm and almost swooned with
amazement and consternation.

At the front end of the apartment, before a gorgeous mirror, stood
Barbara and Captain Penrose. A veil and a bunch of orange-blossoms had
been added to the young lady's coiffure. At her side stood a handsome
old gentleman, with bright, affectionate eyes, (very much like the
Captain's,) who seemed to regard her with a gratified look. On the side
of Penrose stood--horrors!--Mr. Dinwiddie himself, a smile of fiendish
exultation on his face; while a gentleman with a white cravat and a
narrow collar to his coat, evidently an Episcopal clergyman, went up and
shook hands with Barbara, and then mingled with the rest of the company.

A middle-aged gentleman, whom the guests accosted as Mr. Carver, drew
near to Dinwiddie, and said,--

"Now introduce me to your wife."

Dinwiddie took his arm, and, leading him to where the lady stood,
said,--

"Wife, this is my old friend Carver, of whom you have so often heard me
speak. Yonder stands your daughter, Mrs. Penrose, waiting for your
maternal kiss of congratulation."

Mrs. Dinwiddie debated with herself a moment whether to shriek, to fall
into hysterics, to explode in a philippic, or to rush from observation.
Her husband, seeing her hesitation, took her by the hand and led her
into an unoccupied room. A veil must be dropped upon the connubial
interview which then and there took place.

Suffice