me he might win her to return his love.

But what can be hoped from a girl, not a coquette, who is besieged
on the one side by an awkward and ungainly admirer, when directly
opposite to her is the handsome hero for whose love her secret heart,
unknown to herself, is crying, and who has withdrawn himself for
the time from smiles and benevolence? Leam somehow felt as if every
compliment paid to her by Alick was an offence to Edgar; and she
repelled him, blushing, writhing, uncomfortable, but adoring, with
a coldness that nothing could warm, a stony immobility that nothing
could soften, because it was the coldness of fidelity and the
immobility of love.

Edgar saw it all. It put him somewhat in better humor with himself,
but made him indignant with the Reverend Alexander, as he generally
called Alick when he spoke of him wishing to suggest disrespect. He
held him as a poacher beating up his preserves; and the gentlemen
of England have scant mercy for poachers, conscious or unconscious.
Meanwhile, nothing could be more delightfully smooth and successful
than the whole thing was on the outside. The women looked nice, the
men were gallant, the mature but comely bride was so happy that
she seemed to radiate happiness on all around her, and the elderly
bridegroom was marvelously vitalized for a man whose heart was broken,
and only at the best riveted. Edgar performed his duties, as has been
said, with heroic constancy; Mrs. Harrowby did not weep nor bemoan
herself as a victim because one of her daughters had at last left the
maternal wing for a penthouse of her own; Adelaide talked to Frank
with graceful discretion, mindful of his owner watching her property
jealously from the other side of the way; Leam was--Leam in her more
reserved mood if Alick was too manifestly adoring; and the families
admitted acted like a well-trained chorus, and carried on the main
thread to lower levels without a break. So time and events went
on till the moment came for that fearful infliction--the
wedding-breakfast toast prefaced by the wedding-breakfast speech.

This naturally fell to the lot of Mr. Birkett to propose and deliver,
and after a concerted signaling with Edgar he rose to his feet and
began his oration. He proposed "the health of the fair bride and her
gallant groom," both of whom, after the manner of such speeches, he
credited with all the virtues under heaven, and of whom each was the
sole proper complement of the other to be foun