had taken that he
should never know it would lay upon her spirit such a burden as to make
her hate him. So dismal had been, during the year that followed
his cousin's marriage, Ralph's prevision of the future; and if his
meditations appear morbid we must remember he was not in the bloom
of health. He consoled himself as he might by behaving (as he deemed)
beautifully, and was present at the ceremony by which Isabel was united
to Mr. Osmond, and which was performed in Florence in the month of
June. He learned from his mother that Isabel at first had thought of
celebrating her nuptials in her native land, but that as simplicity was
what she chiefly desired to secure she had finally decided, in spite
of Osmond's professed willingness to make a journey of any length, that
this characteristic would be best embodied in their being married by the
nearest clergyman in the shortest time. The thing was done therefore at
the little American chapel, on a very hot day, in the presence only of
Mrs. Touchett and her son, of Pansy Osmond and the Countess Gemini. That
severity in the proceedings of which I just spoke was in part the result
of the absence of two persons who might have been looked for on the
occasion and who would have lent it a certain richness. Madame Merle
had been invited, but Madame Merle, who was unable to leave Rome, had
written a gracious letter of excuses. Henrietta Stackpole had not been
invited, as her departure from America, announced to Isabel by Mr.
Goodwood, was in fact frustrated by the duties of her profession; but
she had sent a letter, less gracious than Madame Merle's, intimating
that, had she been able to cross the Atlantic, she would have been
present not only as a witness but as a critic. Her return to Europe had
taken place somewhat later, and she had effected a meeting with Isabel
in the autumn, in Paris, when she had indulged--perhaps a trifle too
freely--her critical genius. Poor Osmond, who was chiefly the subject
of it, had protested so sharply that Henrietta was obliged to declare to
Isabel that she had taken a step which put a barrier between them. "It
isn't in the least that you've married--it is that you have married
HIM," she had deemed it her duty to remark; agreeing, it will be seen,
much more with Ralph Touchett than she suspected, though she had few of
his hesitations and compunctions. Henrietta's second visit to Europe,
however, was not apparently to have been made in vain; for just a