ge, when she
came back to Manor Cross, almost thought that she had succeeded. She
was at any rate able to assure her father that she had been as happy as
the day was long, and that he was absolutely--"perfect."

This assurance of perfection the Dean no doubt took at its proper
value. He patted his daughter's cheek as she made it, and kissed her,
and told her that he did not doubt but that with a little care she
might make herself a happy woman. The house in town had already been
taken under his auspices, but of course was not to be inhabited yet.

It was a very small but a very pretty little house, in a quaint little
street called Munster Court, near Storey's Gate, with a couple of
windows looking into St. James's Park. It was now September, and London
for the present was out of the question. Indeed, it had been arranged
that Lord George and his wife should remain at Manor Cross till after
Christmas. But the house had to be furnished, and the Dean evinced his
full understanding of the duties of a father-in-law in such an
emergency. This, indeed, was so much the case that Lord George became a
little uneasy. He had the greater part of the thousand pounds left,
which he insisted on expending,--and thought that that should have
sufficed. But the Dean explained in his most cordial manner,--and no
man's manner could be more cordial than the Dean's,--that Mary's
fortune from Mr. Tallowax had been unexpected, that having had but one
child he intended to do well by her, and that, therefore, he could now
assist in starting her well in life without doing himself a damage. The
house in this way was decorated and furnished, and sundry journeys up
to London served to brighten the autumn which might otherwise have been
dull and tedious.

At this period of her life two things acting together, and both acting
in opposition to her anticipations of life, surprised the young bride
not a little. The one was her father's manner of conversation with her,
and the other was her husband's. The Dean had never been a stern
parent; but he had been a clergyman, and as a clergyman he had
inculcated a certain strictness of life,--a very modified strictness,
indeed, but something more rigid than might have come from him had he
been a lawyer or a country gentleman. Mary had learned that he wished
her to attend the cathedral services, and to interest herself
respecting them, and she had always done so. He had explained to her
that, although he kept a