r and senior
partners counselled him to take Maria, even with the twenty thousand
settled, half down, and half at the death of Mr. Osborne, with the
chances of the further division of the property. So he "knuckled
down," again to use his own phrase, and sent old Hulker with peaceable
overtures to Osborne. It was his father, he said, who would not hear
of the match, and had made the difficulties; he was most anxious to
keep the engagement. The excuse was sulkily accepted by Mr. Osborne.
Hulker and Bullock were a high family of the City aristocracy, and
connected with the "nobs" at the West End. It was something for the old
man to be able to say, "My son, sir, of the house of Hulker, Bullock,
and Co., sir; my daughter's cousin, Lady Mary Mango, sir, daughter of
the Right Hon. The Earl of Castlemouldy." In his imagination he saw
his house peopled by the "nobs." So he forgave young Bullock and
consented that the marriage should take place.

It was a grand affair--the bridegroom's relatives giving the breakfast,
their habitations being near St. George's, Hanover Square, where the
business took place. The "nobs of the West End" were invited, and many
of them signed the book. Mr. Mango and Lady Mary Mango were there,
with the dear young Gwendoline and Guinever Mango as bridesmaids;
Colonel Bludyer of the Dragoon Guards (eldest son of the house of
Bludyer Brothers, Mincing Lane), another cousin of the bridegroom, and
the Honourable Mrs. Bludyer; the Honourable George Boulter, Lord
Levant's son, and his lady, Miss Mango that was; Lord Viscount
Castletoddy; Honourable James McMull and Mrs. McMull (formerly Miss
Swartz); and a host of fashionables, who have all married into Lombard
Street and done a great deal to ennoble Cornhill.

The young couple had a house near Berkeley Square and a small villa at
Roehampton, among the banking colony there. Fred was considered to
have made rather a mesalliance by the ladies of his family, whose
grandfather had been in a Charity School, and who were allied through
the husbands with some of the best blood in England. And Maria was
bound, by superior pride and great care in the composition of her
visiting-book, to make up for the defects of birth, and felt it her
duty to see her father and sister as little as possible.

That she should utterly break with the old man, who had still so many
scores of thousand pounds to give away, is absurd to suppose. Fred
Bullock would never allow her