Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

therefore constrained to return homewards, with scarcely more hope than he had entertained on starting.

We must now take our leave of Redburn. The Evil Genius of the old Hall having thus fortunately been withdrawn, the life there resumed that peaceful, untroubled, sedate complexion, which, while most gratifying to those more immediately interested, offers little interest to the intruder. We have only to add that, by all accounts, the Saint's last parting wishes met with the full amount of deferential regard which she was entitled to expect from all to whom they were addressed. Not only Lord St. Edmunds, but his father also protracted their stay with their relatives. The fair Constance was seen in hourly and intimate communication with both, and more particularly with the former, while this constant and affectionate intercourse was watched and fostered, with the greatest complacency, by Sir Charles, by Lady Helen, and by Edward, who had reappeared as expected. Before very long, her Ladyship's lady's-maid intimated to Miss Basinstoke's lady's-maid, who was not at all surprised at the intelligence, that an auspicious event was

near at hand ;--and when our old acquaintance, the "Lincoln Express," reported and repeated the uncontradicted statement that Lord St. Edmunds's marriage with his lovely cousin was fully decided upon, no one at Redburn was at all so thankful for the information as he ought to have been.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE CONCLUSION.

OUR narrative is verging to its conclusion. Indeed, were we to say that we have reached it, we trust that the immortal Sam Weller himself, if we were so fortunate as to secure him for a reader, would pronounce it to be a very good notion of a conclusion. Who is not satisfied? inquire we, and echo alone triumphantly replies, Who? Certainly not Lord Tewkesbury, nor Sir Charles, nor Lady Helen, whose long cherished hopes will thus be realized. As to Miss Conny, pretty though she may deem herself, we cannot admit that she had a right to expect a better-looking, better-dressed, betterhearted, or, in short, a more suitable husband.

He, to be sure, might be suspected of having, in an evil hour, looked another way. Still, as Lady Helen had truly said, he was by no means blind; and all who know Constance Basinstoke, or who, not knowing her, have been pleased to attend to our description of her blue eyes, her tight nose, and her manifold other perfections, must rest satisfied that her accepted lover can have no cause to repine. As to Cécile, if we have mentioned her last, it is because all her wishes were evidently more completely gratified than those of any other party. Not only had she shaped out for herself that life-long repose for which she had so ardently sighed, but that which, as she has herself informed us, she had most anxiously longed and prayed for in regard to others, appeared also on the point of being accomplished. To be sure, the convent may seem to some a rather hazardous experiment for one of so ardent and aspiring a temperament. We, however, decidedly deem it a very fitting place for such a sententious and overexcitable young lady; and whether so wild a bird frets itself to death against the bars of its cage, or is lost, like many of its fellows, in the

trackless expanse of the ocean-clouds, its fate is, in neither case, very dissimilar.

Our conclusion being thus, decidedly, satisfactory to all in general, and to each in particular, we should be much inclined to let the curtain fall here, were it not for a critical inquiry which we imagine that we have just overheard a Pervert is certainly alluded to in the title page, and who can this Pervert be? Not Lady Helen, no doubt, nor Sir Charles, nor the metaphysical Edward, nor Lady Templedale, nor Lord Tewkesbury. Perhaps, sapient reader, you may surmise that it was the lovely Conny herself, the more so that, since Cécile's departure, she certainly had been very repeatedly seen in long and earnest conversation with Father Athanasius. You would be mistaken, however, grievously mistaken. There is not, within the four seas of Britain, a stauncher or a safer Protestant than our littly Conny, and what is more, as the modern phrase runs, we believe, she knows why. Indeed, we esteem that the Lord Chancellor of England could not select a more appropriate partner for his long-promised polka upon the reluctant head of the Romish

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »