to Anastasia, only child of the late
Michael Joliffe, of Cullerne Wharfe." Mrs Bulteel had been heard to
say that she could not allow dear Lord Blandamer to be married without
her being there. Canon Parkyn and Mrs Parkyn felt that their presence
also was required _ex-officio_, and Clerk Janaway averred with some
redundancies of expletive that he, too, "must see 'em turned off." He
hadn't been to London for twenty year. If 'twere to cost a sovereign,
why, 'twas a poor heart that never made merry, and he would never live
to see another Lord Blandamer married. Yet none of them went, for time
and place were not revealed.

But Miss Joliffe was there, and on her return to Cullerne she held
several receptions at Bellevue Lodge, at which only the wedding and the
events connected with it were discussed. She was vested for these
functions in a new dress of coffee-coloured silk, and what with a
tea-urn hissing in Mr Sharnall's room, and muffins, toast, and
sweet-cakes, there were such goings-on in the house, as had not been
seen since the last coach rolled away from the old Hand of God thirty
years before. The company were very gracious and even affectionate, and
Miss Joliffe, in the exhilaration of the occasion, forgot all those
cold-shoulderings and askance looks which had grieved her at a certain
Dorcas meeting only a few weeks before.

At these reunions many important particulars transpired. The wedding
had been celebrated early in the morning at the special instance of the
bride; only Mrs Howard and Miss Euphemia herself were present. Anstice
had worn a travelling dress of dark-green cloth, so that she might go
straight from the church to the station. "And, my dears," she said,
with a glance of all-embracing benevolence, "she looked a perfect young
peeress."

The kind and appreciative audience, who had all been expecting and
hoping for the past six weeks, that some bolt might fall from the blue
to rob Anastasia of her triumph, were so astonished at the wedding
having finally taken place that they could not muster a sneer among
them. Only lying-and-mischief-making Mrs Flint found courage for a
sniff, and muttered something to her next neighbour about there being
such things as mock marriages.

The honeymoon was much extended. Lord and Lady Blandamer went first to
the Italian lakes, and thence, working their way home by Munich,
Nuremburg, and the Rhine, travelled by such easy stages that autumn had
set in when