ipher suddenly sponged out of his
visionary ledger, rather than so much money should vanish clean out
of the family, Captain Higginbotham had taken what he conceived, if
a desperate, at least a certain, step for the preservation of his
property. If the golden horn could not be had without the heifer, why,
he must take the heifer into the bargain. He had never formed to himself
an idea that a heifer so gentle would toss and fling him over. The blow
was stunning. But no one compassionates the misfortunes of the covetous,
though few perhaps are in greater need of compassion. And leaving poor
Captain Higginbotham to retrieve his illusory fortunes as he best may
among "the expectations" which gathered round the form of Mr. Sharpe
Currie, who was the crossest old tyrant imaginable, and never allowed
at his table any dishes not compounded with rice, which played Old Nick
with the captain's constitutional functions, I return to the wedding
at Hazeldean, just in time to see the bridegroom--who looked singularly
well on the occasion--hand the bride (who, between sunshiny tears and
affectionate smiles, was really a very interesting and even a pretty
bride, as brides go) into a carriage which the squire had presented to
them, and depart on the orthodox nuptial excursion amidst the blessings
of the assembled crowd.

It may be thought strange by the unreflective that these rural
spectators should so have approved and blessed the marriage of a
Hazeldean of Hazeldean with a poor, outlandish, long-haired foreigner;
but besides that Riccabocca, after all, had become one of the
neighbourhood, and was proverbially "a civil-spoken gentleman," it is
generally noticeable that on wedding occasions the bride so monopolizes
interest, curiosity, and admiration that the bridegroom himself goes for
little or nothing. He is merely the passive agent in the affair,--the
unregarded cause of the general satisfaction. It was not Riccabocca
himself that they approved and blessed,--it was the gentleman in the
white waistcoat who had made Miss Jemima Madam Rickeybockey!

Leaning on his wife's arm (for it was a habit of the squire to lean on
his wife's arm rather than she on his, when he was specially pleased;
and there was something touching in the sight of that strong sturdy
frame thus insensibly, in hours of happiness, seeking dependence on the
frail arm of woman),--leaning, I say, on his wife's arm, the squire,
about the hour of sunset, walked down to t