ry comfortable position, for Georgiana still
persisted in her refusal either to be a bridesmaid or to speak to Mr
Whitstable; but still his presence, which was very rare at Caversham,
gave some assistance: and, as at this moment his money affairs had
been comfortably arranged, he was not called upon to squabble with his
father. It was a great thing that one of the girls should be married,
and Dolly had brought down an enormous china dog, about five feet
high, as a wedding present, which added materially to the happiness of
the meeting. Lady Pomona had determined that she would tell her
husband of those walks in the park, and of other signs of growing
intimacy which had reached her ears;--but this she would postpone until
after the Whitstable marriage.

But at nine o'clock on the morning set apart for that marriage, they
were all astounded by the news that Georgiana had run away with Mr
Batherbolt. She had been up before six. He had met her at the park
gate, and had driven her over to catch the early train at Stowmarket.
Then it appeared, too, that, by degrees, various articles of her
property had been conveyed to Mr Batherbolt's lodgings in the adjacent
village, so that Lady Pomona's fear that Georgiana would not have a
thing to wear was needless. When the fact was first known it was
almost felt, in the consternation of the moment, that the Whitstable
marriage must be postponed. But Sophia had a word to say to her mother
on that head, and she said it. The marriage was not postponed. At
first Dolly talked of going after his younger sister, and the father
did dispatch various telegrams. But the fugitives could not be brought
back, and with some little delay,--which made the marriage perhaps
uncanonical but not illegal,--Mr George Whitstable was made a happy
man.

It need only be added that in about a month's time Georgiana returned
to Caversham as Mrs Batherbolt, and that she resided there with her
husband in much connubial bliss for the next six months. At the end of
that time they removed to a small living, for the purchase of which Mr
Longestaffe had managed to raise the necessary money.

CHAPTER XCVI - WHERE 'THE WILD ASSES QUENCH THEIR THIRST'

We must now go back a little in our story,--about three weeks,--in
order that the reader may be told how affairs were progressing at the
Beargarden. That establishment had received a terrible blow in the
defection of Herr Vossner. It was not only that he had robbed