ide and bridegroom would go off from the church
door. The question of a breakfast was never mooted: Captain Monk's
equable indifference might not have stood that.

"I shall wish them good-luck with all my heart--but I don't feel
altogether sure they'll have it!" bewailed poor Mrs. Carradyne in
private. "Eliza should have agreed to the delay proposed by her father."

III.

Ring, ring, ring, broke forth the chimes on the frosty midday air. Not
midnight, you perceive, but midday, for the church clock had just given
forth its twelve strokes. Another round of the dial, and the old year
would have departed into the womb of the past.

Bowling along the smooth turnpike road which skirted the churchyard on
one side came a gig containing a gentleman; a tall, slender,
frank-looking young man, with a fair face and the pleasantest blue eyes
ever seen. He wore a white top-coat, the fashion then, and was driving
rapidly in the direction of Leet Hall; but when the chimes burst forth
he pulled up abruptly.

"Why, what in the world?--" he began--and then sat still listening to
the sweet strains of "The Bay of Biscay." The day, though in mid-winter,
was bright and beautiful, and the golden sunlight, shining from the
dark-blue sky, played on the young man's golden hair.

"Have they mistaken midday for midnight?" he continued, as the chimes
played out their tune and died away on the air. "What's the meaning of
it?"

He, Harry Carradyne, was not the only one to ask this. No human being in
and about Church Leet, save Captain Monk and they who executed his
orders, knew that he had decreed that the chimes should play that day
at midday. Why did he do it? What could his motive be? Surely not that
they should, by playing (according to Mrs. Carradyne's theory),
inaugurate ill-luck for Eliza! At the moment they began to play she was
coming out of church on Mr. Hamlyn's arm, having left her maiden name
behind her.

A few paces more, for he was driving gently on now, and Harry pulled up
again, in surprise, as before, for the front of the church was now in
view. Lots of spectators, gentle and simple, stood about, and a handsome
chariot, with four post horses and a great coat-of-arms emblazoned on
its panels, waited at the church gate.

"It must be a wedding!" decided Harry.

The next moment the chariot was in motion; was soon about to pass him,
the bride and bridegroom inside it. A very dark but good-looking man,
with an air of command