tened by Crosbie's behaviour on that Sunday
evening, and had made the countess understand that there should be no
unnecessary delay. "He doesn't scruple at that kind of thing," Lady
Amelia had said in one of her letters, showing perhaps less trust in
the potency of her own rank than might have been expected from her.
The countess, however, had agreed with her, and when Crosbie received
from his mother-in-law a very affectionate epistle, setting forth all
the reasons which would make the fourteenth so much more convenient
a day than the twenty-eighth, he was unable to invent an excuse for
not being made happy a fortnight earlier than the time named in the
bargain. His first impulse had been against yielding, arising from
some feeling which made him think that more than the bargain ought
not to be exacted. But what was the use to him of quarrelling? What
the use, at least, of quarrelling just then? He believed that he
could more easily enfranchise himself from the de Courcy tyranny when
he should be once married than he could do now. When Lady Alexandrina
should be his own he would let her know that he intended to be her
master. If in doing so it would be necessary that he should divide
himself altogether from the de Courcys, such division should be made.
At the present moment he would yield to them, at any rate in this
matter. And so the fourteenth of February was fixed for the marriage.

In the second week in January Alexandrina came up to look after her
things; or, in more noble language, to fit herself with becoming
bridal appanages. As she could not properly do all this work alone,
or even under the surveillance and with the assistance of a sister,
Lady de Courcy was to come up also. But Alexandrina came first,
remaining with her sister in St. John's Wood till the countess should
arrive. The countess had never yet condescended to accept of her
son-in-law's hospitality, but always went to the cold, comfortless
house in Portman Square,--the house which had been the de Courcy town
family mansion for many years, and which the countess would long
since have willingly exchanged for some abode on the other side of
Oxford Street; but the earl had been obdurate; his clubs and certain
lodgings which he had occasionally been wont to occupy, were on the
right side of Oxford Street; why should he change his old family
residence? So the countess was coming up to Portman Square, not
having been even asked on this occasion to St. Jo