ton
having a brother, an Irish peer, who lent them for a few months his
house on the Blackwater. The marriage, of course, was celebrated in the
cathedral, and equally of course, the officiating clergymen were the
Dean and Canon Holdenough. On the day before the marriage Lord George
was astonished to find how rich a man was his father-in-law.

"Mary's fortune is her own," he said; "but I should like to give her
something. Perhaps I had better give it to you on her behalf."

Then he shuffled a cheque for a thousand pounds into Lord George's
hands. He moreover gave his daughter a hundred pounds in notes on the
morning of the wedding, and thus acted the part of the benevolent
father and father-in-law to a miracle. It may be acknowledged here that
the receipt of the money removed a heavy weight from Lord George's
heart. He was himself so poor, and at the same time so scrupulous, that
he had lacked funds sufficient for the usual brightness of a wedding
tour. He would not take his mother's money, nor lessen his own small
patrimony; but now it seemed that wealth was showered on him from the
deanery.

Perhaps a sojourn in Ireland did as well as anything could towards
assisting the young wife in her object of falling in love with her
husband. He would hardly have been a sympathetic companion in
Switzerland or Italy, as he did not care for lakes or mountains. But
Ireland was new to him and new to her, and he was glad to have an
opportunity of seeing something of a people as to whom so little is
really known in England. And at Ballycondra, on the Blackwater, they
were justified in feeling a certain interest in the welfare of the
tenants around them. There was something to be done, and something of
which they could talk. Lord George, who couldn't hunt, and wouldn't
dance, and didn't care for mountains, could enquire with some zeal how
much wages a peasant might earn, and what he would do with it when
earned. It interested him to learn that whereas an English labourer
will certainly eat and drink his wages from week to week,--so that he
could not be trusted to pay any sum half-yearly,--an Irish peasant,
though he be half starving, will save his money for the rent. And Mary,
at his instance, also cared for these things. It was her gift, as with
many women, to be able to care for everything. It was, perhaps, her
misfortune that she was apt to care too much for many things. The
honeymoon in Ireland answered its purpose, and Lady Geor