ing; and no end of speeches within and tears shed (no doubt),
and His Grace the Arch-Brahmin will make a highly appropriate speech,
just with a faint scent of incense about it as such a speech ought to
have; and the young person will slip away unperceived, and take off her
veils, wreaths, orange-flowers, bangles and finery, and will put on
a plain dress more suited for the occasion, and the house-door will
open--and there comes the SUTTEE in company of the body: yonder the pile
is waiting on four wheels with four horses, the crowd hurrahs and the
deed is done.

This ceremony amongst us is so stale and common that to be sure there is
no need to describe its rites, and as women sell themselves for what you
call an establishment every day; to the applause of themselves, their
parents, and the world, why on earth should a man ape at originality
and pretend to pity them? Never mind about the lies at the altar, the
blasphemy against the godlike name of love, the sordid surrender, the
smiling dishonour. What the deuce does a mariage de convenance mean
but all this, and are not such sober Hymeneal torches more satisfactory
often than the most brilliant love matches that ever flamed and burnt
out? Of course. Let us not weep when everybody else is laughing: let us
pity the agonised duchess when her daughter, Lady Atalanta, runs
away with the doctor--of course, that's respectable; let us pity Lady
Iphigenia's father when that venerable chief is obliged to offer up his
darling child; but it is over her part of the business that a decorous
painter would throw the veil now. Her ladyship's sacrifice is performed,
and the less said about it the better.

Such was the case regarding an affair which appeared in due subsequence
in the newspapers not long afterwards under the fascinating title of
"Marriage in High Life," and which was in truth the occasion of the
little family Congress of Baden which we are now chronicling. We all
know--everybody at least who has the slightest acquaintance with the
army list--that, at the commencement of their life, my Lord Kew, my Lord
Viscount Rooster, the Earl of Dorking's eldest son, and the Honourable
Charles Belsize, familiarly called Jack Belsize, were subaltern officers
in one of His Majesty's regiments of cuirassier guards. They heard the
chimes at midnight like other young men, they enjoyed their fun
and frolics as gentlemen of spirit will do; sowing their wild oats
plentifully, and scattering th