n everything
is in keeping, is excellent sport. Heaven forbid that we should
have no gala marriages. But the small spasmodic attempt, made in
opposition to manifest propriety, made with an inner conviction of
failure,--that surely should be avoided in marriages, in dinners, and
in all affairs of life.

There were bridesmaids and there was a breakfast. Both Margaretta and
Rosina came up to London for the occasion, as did also a first cousin
of theirs, one Miss Gresham, a lady whose father lived in the same
county. Mr Gresham had married a sister of Lord de Courcy's, and his
services were also called into requisition. He was brought up to give
away the bride, because the earl,--as the paragraph in the newspaper
declared,--was confined at Courcy Castle by his old hereditary enemy,
the gout. A fourth bridesmaid also was procured, and thus there was
a bevy, though not so large a bevy as is now generally thought to be
desirable. There were only three or four carriages at the church, but
even three or four were something. The weather was so frightfully
cold that the light-coloured silks of the ladies carried with them
a show of discomfort. Girls should be very young to look nice in
light dresses on a frosty morning, and the bridesmaids at Lady
Alexandrina's wedding were not very young. Lady Rosina's nose was
decidedly red. Lady Margaretta was very wintry, and apparently very
cross. Miss Gresham was dull, tame, and insipid; and the Honourable
Miss O'Flaherty, who filled the fourth place, was sulky at finding
that she had been invited to take a share in so very lame a
performance.

But the marriage was made good, and Crosbie bore up against his
misfortunes like a man. Montgomerie Dobbs and Fowler Pratt both stood
by him, giving him, let us hope, some assurance that he was not
absolutely deserted by all the world,--that he had not given himself
up, bound hand and foot, to the de Courcys, to be dealt with in all
matters as they might please. It was that feeling which had been so
grievous to him,--and that other feeling, cognate to it, that if he
should ultimately succeed in rebelling against the de Courcys, he
would find himself a solitary man.

"Yes; I shall go," Fowler Pratt had said to Montgomerie Dobbs.
"I always stick to a fellow if I can. Crosbie has behaved like a
blackguard, and like a fool also; and he knows that I think so. But I
don't see why I should drop him on that account. I shall go as he has
asked me."

"So