"Did you know he had whims and caprices?"

"Molly," says Lady Stafford, slowly, with a fine show of pity, "you are
disgracefully young: cure yourself, my dear, as fast as ever you can,
and as a first lesson take this to heart: if ever there was a mortal
man born upon this earth without caprices it must have been in the year
one, because no one that I have met knows anything about him."

"Well, for the matter of that," says Molly, laughing, "I don't suppose
I should like a perfect man, even if I did chance to meet him. By all
accounts they are stilted, disagreeable people, with a talent for
making everybody else seem small. But go on with your story. What was
his reply?"

"He agreed cordially to all my suggestions, named a very handsome sum
as my portion, swore by all that was honorable he would never interfere
with me in any way, was evidently ready to promise anything, and--sent
me back my parlor-maid. Was not that insulting?"

"But when he came to marry you he must have seen you?"

"Scarcely. I decided on having the wedding in our drawing-room, and
wrote again to say it would greatly convenience my cousin and myself (I
lived with an old cousin) if he would not come down until the very
morning of the wedding. Need I say he grasped at this proposition also?
I was dressed and ready for my wedding by the time he arrived, and
shook hands with him with my veil down. You may be sure I had secured a
very thick one."

"Do you mean to tell me," says Molly, rising in her excitement, "that
he never asked you to raise your veil?"

"Never, my dear. I assure you the 'best man' he brought down with him
was by far the more curious of the two. But then, you must remember,
Sir Penthony had seen my picture." Here Cecil goes off into a hearty
burst of laughter. "If you had seen that maid once, my dear, you would
not have been ambitious of a second view."

"Still I never heard of anything so cold, so unnatural," says Miss
Massereene, in high disgust. "I declare I would have broken off with
him then and there, had it been me."

"Not if you lived with my cousin Amelia, feeling yourself a dependent
on her bounty. She was a startling instance of how a woman _can_
worry and torment. The very thought of her makes my heart sore in my
body and chills my blood to this day. I rejoice to say she is no more."

"Well, you got married?"

"Yes, in Amelia's drawing-room. I had a little gold band put on my
third finger, I had a cold shake-han