perceived how very many people have been
made happy by matrimony. If marriage be the proper ending for a
novel,--the only ending, as this writer takes it to be, which is not
discordant,--surely no tale was ever so properly ended, or with so
full a concord, as this one. Infinite trouble has been taken not only
in arranging these marriages but in joining like to like,--so that,
if not happiness, at any rate sympathetic unhappiness, might be
produced. Our two sisters will, it is trusted, be happy. They have
chosen men from their hearts, and have been chosen after the same
fashion. Those two other sisters have been so wedded that the one
will follow the idiosyncrasies of her husband, and the other bring
her husband to follow her idiosyncrasies, without much danger of
mutiny or revolt. As to Miss Docimer there must be room for fear. It
may be questioned whether she was not worthy of a better lot than
has been achieved for her by joining her fortunes to those of Frank
Houston. But I, speaking for myself, have my hopes of Frank Houston.
It is hard to rescue a man from the slough of luxury and idleness
combined. If anything can do it, it is a cradle filled annually. It
may be that he will yet learn that a broad back with a heavy weight
upon it gives the best chance of happiness here below. Of Lord John's
married prospects I could not say much as he came so very lately on
the scene; but even he may perhaps do something in the world when
he finds that his nursery is filling, For our special friend Tom
Tringle, no wife has been found. In making his effort,--which he
did manfully,--he certainly had not chosen the consort who would be
fit for him. He had not seen clearly, as had done his sisters and
cousins. He had fallen in love too young,--it being the nature of
young men to be much younger than young ladies, and, not knowing
himself, had been as might be a barn-door cock who had set his heart
upon some azure-plumaged, high-soaring lady of the woods. The lady
with the azure plumes had, too, her high-soaring tendencies, but she
was enabled by true insight to find the male who would be fit for
her. The barn-door cock, when we left him on board the steamer going
to New York, had not yet learned the nature of his own requirements.
The knowledge will come to him. There may be doubts as to Frank
Houston, but we think that there need be none as to Tom Tringle. The
proper wife will be forthcoming; and in future years, when he will
probabl