cherubic parent made a coaxing face as if she had
never grown up, and said, 'What a silly little Mouse it is!'

'But you do forgive me that, and everything else; don't you, Pa?'

'Yes, my dearest.'

'And you don't feel solitary or neglected, going away by yourself; do
you, Pa?'

'Lord bless you! No, my Life!'

'Good-bye, dearest Pa. Good-bye!'

'Good-bye, my darling! Take her away, my dear John. Take her home!'

So, she leaning on her husband's arm, they turned homeward by a rosy
path which the gracious sun struck out for them in its setting. And O
there are days in this life, worth life and worth death. And O what a
bright old song it is, that O 'tis love, 'tis love, 'tis love that makes
the world go round!

Chapter 5

CONCERNING THE MENDICANT'S BRIDE

The impressive gloom with which Mrs Wilfer received her husband on his
return from the wedding, knocked so hard at the door of the cherubic
conscience, and likewise so impaired the firmness of the cherubic legs,
that the culprit's tottering condition of mind and body might have
roused suspicion in less occupied persons that the grimly heroic lady,
Miss Lavinia, and that esteemed friend of the family, Mr George Sampson.
But, the attention of all three being fully possessed by the main
fact of the marriage, they had happily none to bestow on the guilty
conspirator; to which fortunate circumstance he owed the escape for
which he was in nowise indebted to himself.

'You do not, R. W.' said Mrs Wilfer from her stately corner, 'inquire
for your daughter Bella.'

'To be sure, my dear,' he returned, with a most flagrant assumption of
unconsciousness, 'I did omit it. How--or perhaps I should rather say
where--IS Bella?'

'Not here,' Mrs Wilfer proclaimed, with folded arms.

The cherub faintly muttered something to the abortive effect of 'Oh,
indeed, my dear!'

'Not here,' repeated Mrs Wilfer, in a stern sonorous voice. 'In a word,
R. W., you have no daughter Bella.'

'No daughter Bella, my dear?'

'No. Your daughter Bella,' said Mrs Wilfer, with a lofty air of never
having had the least copartnership in that young lady: of whom she now
made reproachful mention as an article of luxury which her husband had
set up entirely on his own account, and in direct opposition to her
advice: '--your daughter Bella has bestowed herself upon a Mendicant.'

'Good gracious, my dear!'

'Show your father his daughter Bella's letter, Lavinia,' said Mrs
Wilfer, in her