id Cunliffe. 'Very few,' said Ongar, with a sneer.
Now, if I haven't a better head of game here than he has at Courton,
I'll eat him. But the impudence of his saying that before me!"

"Did you make him any answer?"

"'There's about enough to suit me,' I said. Then he skulked away,
knocked off his pins. I shouldn't like to be his wife; I can tell Julia
that."

"Julia is very clever," said the sister.

The day of the marriage came, and everything at Clavering was done with
much splendor. Four bridesmaids came down from London on the preceding
day; two were already staying in the house, and the two cousins came as
two more from the rectory. Julia Brabazon had never been really intimate
with Mary and Fanny Clavering, but she had known them well enough to
make it odd if she did not ask them to come to her wedding and to take a
part in the ceremony. And, moreover, she had thought of Harry and her
little romance of other days. Harry, perhaps, might be glad to know that
she had shown this courtesy to his sisters. Harry, she knew, would be
away at his school. Though she had asked him whether he meant to come to
her wedding, she had been better pleased that he should be absent. She
had not many regrets herself but it pleased her to think that he should
have them. So Mary and Fanny Clavering were asked to attend her at the
altar. Mary and Fanny would both have preferred to decline, but their
mother had told them that they could not do so. "It would make
ill-feeling," said Mrs. Clavering; "and that is what your papa
particularly wishes to avoid."

"When you say papa particularly wishes anything, mamma, you always mean
that you wish it particularly yourself," said Fanny. "But if it must be
done, it must; and then I shall know how to behave when Mary's time
comes."

The bells were rung lustily all the morning, and all the parish was
there, round about the church, to see. There was no record of a lord
ever having been married in Clavering church before; and now this lord
was going to marry my lady's sister. It was all one as though she were a
Clavering herself. But there was no ecstatic joy in the parish. There
were to be no bonfires, and no eating and drinking at Sir Hugh's
expense--no comforts provided for any of the poor by Lady Clavering on
that special occasion. Indeed, there was never much of such kindnesses
between the lord of the soil and his dependants. A certain stipulated
dole was given at Christmas for coals and bla