lent man of rank unjustly suspected of pride
and haughtiness; but there could be no such mistake here--his
shamefacedness was patent to all men. I myself, a child not five years
old, one day threw him into an agony of blushing, by running up to his
chair in mistake for my papa. Now I was a shy child, a very shy child, and
as soon as I arrived in front of his lordship, and found that I had been
misled by a resemblance of dress, by the blue coat and buff waistcoat, I
first of all crept under the table, and then flew to hide my face in my
mother's lap; my poor fellow-sufferer, too big for one place of refuge,
too old for the other, had nothing for it but to run away, which, the door
being luckily open, he happily accomplished.

That a man with such a temperament, who could hardly summon courage enough
to say, "How d'ye do?" should ever have wrought himself up to the point of
putting the great question, was wonderful enough; that he should have
submitted himself to undergo the ordeal of what was called in those days a
public wedding, was more wonderful still.

Perhaps the very different temper of the lady may offer some solution to
the last of these riddles; perhaps (I say it in all honor, for there is no
shame in offering some encouragement to a bashful suitor) it may assist us
in expounding them both.

Of a certainty, my fair cousin was pre-eminently gifted with those very
qualities in which her lover was deficient. Every thing about her was
prompt and bright, cheerful and self-possessed. Nearly as tall as himself,
and quite as handsome, it was of the beauty that is called showy--a showy
face, a showy figure, a showy complexion. We felt at a glance that those
radiant, well-opened, hazel eyes, had never quailed before mortal glance,
and that that clear, round cheek, red and white like a daisy, had never
been guilty of a blush in its whole life. Handsome as she was, it was a
figure that looked best in a riding-habit, and a face that of all
head-dresses, best became a beaver hat; just a face and figure for a
procession; she would not have minded a coronation: on the contrary, she
would have been enchanted to have been a queen-regent; but, as a
coronation was out of the question, she had no objection, taking the
publicity as a part of the happiness, to a wedding as grand as the
resources of a country town could make it.

So a wedding procession was organized, after the fashion of Sir Charles
Grandison, comprising the chief