CHAPTER XL.

CHIEFLY MATRIMONIAL.

"There is a love which, born In early days, lives on through silent years." "Love is life's end." --SPENSER.

Erminie--Lady Erminie now--sat in an elegantly-furnished library, pulling a costly bouquet wantonly to pieces, and looking excessively lovely in her dress of pale-blue silk and white lace.

Pacing up and down the room, as if for a wager, was Master Ranty Lawless, with a look as nearly approaching the intensely gloomy as was possible for his handsome, happy face to wear.

"Why, Ranty, what in the world is the matter with you this morning?" said Erminie, at last, opening her sweet blue eyes very wide in innocent wonder.

"Lady Erminie, I'm going away, this very morning; and what's more, I'm never going to come back! I'll be swung to the yard-arm if I do!" was the unexpected answer, delivered with a savage, jerking abruptness that made Erminie drop her flowers and half rise from her seat in consternation.

"Why, Ranty--why, Ranty! How can you talk so? What has happened? What is the matter? Are you going crazy?"

"What's happened? Everything's happened, everything's the matter, and I am going crazy, if it's any consolation to you to learn it. Yes, you may look surprised, Lady Erminie Germaine, or De Courcy, or whatever your name may be, but you are the cause of it all; and you know it too, for all you sit up there looking as innocent and unconscious as it is possible for any young woman to look. Never mind though; I don't care! Just go on, Lady Erminie! You'll find what a nice young man you've lost, when it's too late!" said Ranty, striding up and down, and looking ferociously at poor Erminie.

"Oh, Ranty! how can you go on so? What have I done?" said Erminie, twisting her fingers, and looking up with shining, tearful eyes, looking so pretty and innocent in her distress that Ranty's better angel prompted him to go over and caress away her tears on the spot.

But Ranty was angry and didn't do anything of the kind. On the contrary, he grew twice as fierce as before, and strode up and down twice as rapidly, bursting out with:

"What have you done? There's a question! What haven't you done, I want to know? You knew very well I loved you, and paid attention to you since you were the size of a well-grown doughnut, and when you hadn't a cent to bless yourself with. You know I did, Lady Erminie, and you needn't deny it. Well, your father and mother turn up, and you find yourself a fine lady, and after that you grow stiff and dignified, and keep me at a distance, as Paddy did the moon, and flirt with every bescented, behair-oiled jackanapes that squirms, and bows, and simpers, and makes fools of themselves, and talk with all sorts of soft nonsense to you! You know you do, Lady Erminie, and I repeat it, you needn't deny it! Here was last night, at that concert, soiree, or tea-party, or whatever it was, didn't you let that contemptible fool, the Honorable Augustus Ahringfeldt, make the strongest sort of love to you the whole blessed evening. Honorable, indeed! A pretty honorable, he is, all hair and conceit, like a scented orang-outang!" sneered Ranty, elevating his Roman nose to the loftiest angle of scorn.

"Indeed--indeed, Ranty, I couldn't help it! He talked to me, and I had to answer him, and you never came near me all the time," said Erminie with tears of distress in her gentle blue eyes.

"No; the thumb-screws of the Holy Office wouldn't have got a word out of me!" said Ranty, fiercely. "Do you think I was going to thrust myself forward where I wasn't wanted? No, Lady Erminie De Courcy; though you may be above me in rank and wealth, I can have as much pride as you can yet; and if you think fit to cut my acquaintance, you are perfectly welcome to do it. I am going away this afternoon, and I am not likely to trouble you any more; but first I'll punch the head of that sweet seraph, the Honorable Augustus--hanged if I don't! Lady Erminie, good-by! I'm off for a voyage to Constantinople; and if you hear that the sultan has had me bow-strung, or bastinadoed, or pitched into the Bosphorus, or that I have committed suicide, or anything, I hope you'll drop a tear to the memory of the little boy in roundabout-jackets who used to go sailing and making love with you at old Judestown."

Here Ranty dropped his voice to the deeply-pathetic, and held out his hand mournfully to Erminie. But that young lady's hands were up before her face, and she seemed in a fair way to comply with his request to drop a tear to his memory; for she was sobbing away convulsively.

"There, now! I've went and set you a-crying!" exclaimed Ranty, in a tone, or rather howl, of mingled remorse and distraction. "That's always the way I go and put my foot in whatever I go to do! I am a brute! a crocodile! a sea-serpent! a monster! an unmitigated bear! and I deserve a sound flogging for speaking to you as I did. Erminie! dear Erminie! dearest Erminie! forgive me, like a good girl. It was all owing to that hairy-faced fool, Ahringfeldt--I swear it was! I was jealous of him! madly jealous! the effeminate little cream-candy puppy! Dear Erminie, forgive me! Dearest Erminie, look up and say I am forgiven, or I will go to the nearest apothecary's, and put an end to my miserable existence with a gallon or two of Prussic acid. Dear, dearest, darling Erminie! only say you forgive me!" pleaded Ranty, kneeling before her, and gently withdrawing her hands from before her.

Erminie looked up imploringly through her tears.

"Oh, Ranty! how can you say such dreadful things? Oh, you frighten me to death! Promise me you will not kill yourself; it is so wicked, you know!"

"Beside being disagreeable to be sat on by a coroner and a dozen asses of jurymen. Well, I won't, if you will promise me one thing."

"Oh, Ranty! I will promise anything if you will not do it."

"Will you, though? Oh, Erminie! you're a nice young woman! Well, I want you to be my dear, little blue-eyed wife. Now, then, say yes."

But Erminie, with a bright blush and a little surprised scream, threw up her hands and covered her face.

"Now, Erminie, that's no answer at all," said Ranty, taking down the hands. "You don't know what a capital husband I'll make. You can't begin to have the remotest idea of it, you know. Come, Erminie, say yes--there's a good girl."

"Oh, Ranty!"

"Yes, I know; girls always look flustered in cases like this; but, somehow, they manage to say yes, after all. Now, Erminie, if you don't say yes, I'll go right straight off for the Prussic acid--mind that!"

"Well, yes, then," said Erminie, blushing, and laughing, and hiding her face on his shoulder.

"Gloria in excelsis! alleluia! hurrah! Oh, Erminie! my own little darling! you have made me the happiest man from here to the antipodes. Oh, Erminie! I knew you would, all along! I always thought you had too much good sense to reject me for a puppy like the Honorable Augustus!" exclaimed Ranty, in a rapture. "Oh, Erminie! I'll give you leave to cowhide me within an inch of my life if I ever give you a cross look or word again! Oh, Erminie--"

The sudden opening of the library-door cut short his interminable string of interjections in which Ranty would have indulged, and the next moment, Lord De Courcy stood looking with grave surprise on the two lovers.

"Ah! beg your pardon," he said, blandly, as Ranty sprung to his feet. "I was not aware there was any one here. Excuse me for interrupting you." And with a bow and an almost imperceptible smile, he was turning away, when Ranty stepped forward, and said:

"Hold on, my lord. There's a little matter to be arranged here, which may as well be done now as any other time. I love your daughter and have told her so, and your daughter loves me, and has told me so; and all we want is your lordship's consent to our union. I may not be quite her equal in wealth, and rank, and all that sort of thing, in your eyes; but as a free-born American citizen, and an independent 'sovereign' in my own right, and possessing a strong arm, a stout heart, and a clear conscience, I feel myself as good as the best lord, duke, or Sir Harry in all Great Britain; and so, my lord, if you will give me your daughter, I will try to prove myself worthy of the gift."

This plain, straight-forward speech, delivered with head erect, shoulders thrown back, and Master Ranty drawn up to the full extent of his six feet odd inches, evidently did not displease the earl. He turned to Erminie, whose blushing face was hid again, and said, with a smile:

"And what says my little girl? Has she authorized her old friend to say all this?"

"Yes, father," whispered Erminie, throwing her arms around his neck.

"Well, then, I suppose I shall have to consent," said the earl, rising. "Right, my boy," he said, slapping Ranty heartily on the shoulder; "you are as good as any man living, and I like your bold, independent spirit. And now, as I am _de trop_ here, I shall go and tell her ladyship that she is about to lose her new-found daughter again," said the earl, as he left the room.

And for the next hour, Ranty and Erminie were just as perfectly happy as it is possible for any two denizens of this rather unhappy world to be.

It was arranged that the marriage of Ranty and Erminie should take place on the same day as that of Ray and Pet, and that the whole party should sail for England together.

And three days after, came our whole party from Judestown in a body, consisting of the judge, pompous and important, but inwardly wincing a little at the thought of meeting Erminie; Ray, handsome, and happy, and quite unlike his usual haughty self; Pet, bright, defiant, saucy, and sparkling as ever; the admiral, in a high state of beatitude and a new frock-coat with eye-dazzling brass buttons; Mr. Toosypegs, arrayed in a complete new suit to do honor to the occasion, and looking mildly melancholy; and last, but by no means least, Miss Priscilla, as stiff, grim, sour, rigid and upright as a church steeple.

Erminie flew down to meet them, and rushed into the arms of Pet, who favored her with a crushing hug; and then she kissed Miss Priscilla, who gingerly presented her wrinkled cheek for that operation; and then she shook hands with Mr. Toosypegs, who repressed a groan of despair as she did so; and then she finished her greetings by throwing her arms around the admiral's neck and kissing him too.

"Stand from under!" roared the admiral, with a tremendous burst of laughter. "So you're going to get spliced to Ranty, Snowflake? Ho, ho, ho! Who'd 'a' thought it? Lord! how pretty you are, anyway! And how's your father and that nice-looking woman, your mother? I hope she's pretty jolly," said the admiral, politely.

Erminie laughed, and replied that she was as jolly as could be expected.

"And so you're going to England, Miss Minnie, and never going to come back?" said Mr. Toosypegs, mournfully. "I'm real sorry--I'm dreadfully sorry, Miss Minnie. I do assure you I am. It's awfully lonesome now, at the cottage. I can't bear to go near it at all, it recalls the past so much. Miss Minnie, I don't know what I shall ever do when you're gone at all--I just don't!"

"Horlando, hold your tongue!" snarled Miss Priscilla. And her dutiful nephew shut up like a jack-knife. "You're foreverlastin' a-talkin'; and a-talkin' nonsense at that. Miss Minnie, I want to take hoff my things which is hinconvenient to wear in the 'ouse, besides wanting to be folded up and put away, to keep them from sp'lin'."

Erminie smilingly rung the bell, and ordered the servant to show Miss Priscilla to her room; and, at the same moment, Lady Rita, impelled perhaps by curiosity, as much as anything else, to see those "rustics," as she called them, swept majestically in, glittering in silk, and lace, and jewels, until she fairly dazzled the eyes.

Erminie rose, and presented her as her "sister, Lady Rita." Her little ladyship curled her fastidious lip slightly, made a profoundly formal courtesy, and gracefully and superciliously sunk into the downy depths on a lounge, and thought inwardly what an "absurd set of the lowest people mamma was gathering about her!"

But from the moment Mr. Toosypegs set eyes on the bright little meteor, he was done for! Pet was forgotten; so was Erminie. Both, in his eyes, were eclipsed by this golden-winged, rainbow-tinted, little, sparkling vision. Poor Mr. Toosypegs, for the third time, was deeply and hopelessly in love!

Three days after, the double-marriage took place, privately, by the desire of all parties. None but the friends of the brides were present; and immediately after the ceremony the farewells were spoken, and the bridal cortege drove down to the steamer that was to convey them to the Old World.

Straining their eyes to catch a last glance of the shore they were leaving, our bridal-party stood on the steamer's deck, Erminie leaning on her husband's arm, and Pet leaning on hers, both with eyes full of tears. Near them stood Lady Maude and Lord De Courcy, both thinking of him who slept, "after life's fitful fever," in his lonely hillside grave. There, too, was Marguerite, calmer and less despairing-looking now, though her wild, dark eyes were deeply mournful still. By her side was her dainty, tossy, brightly-dressed little daughter, inwardly thanking her stars to get home once more. And thus they all stand before you now, dear reader, receding far down in the blue horizon. One more glimpse, and you will see them no more.

At the White Squall still lives Admiral Harry Havenful, who sits in his parlor, gazing on the pink-and-straw-colored man-of-war, and smokes his pipe placidly, as he walks down the serene pathway leading to old age. On fine days Mr. Toosypegs always comes to see him, and there dilates for hours on the manifold beauties and attractions of Lady Rita, to whom he intends to be faithful as long as he lives. Mr. Toosypegs never will get married. He says he intends consecrating his life to the memory of the sparkling little comet that once flashed across his sky, and then disappeared forever. Mr. O. C. Toosypegs' anguish and despair have subsided now to a calm, serene melancholy, seldom relieved by a smile, but by no means distressing to witness. He and the admiral continue to do good in their own simple, unobtrusive way, and find their chief delight in reading the letters they sometimes receive from Erminie and Pet. Judge Lawless lives in solitary grandeur at Heath Hill, the "Grand Seigneur" of Judestown still. Miss Priscilla resides in gloomy state at Dismal Hollow, and continues to murder the king's English and scold Orlando severely every day, which castigations he bears with evident meekness. Reader, to our friends in Judestown, you have bidden an eternal farewell. Ray Germaine has risen to rank and wealth in his profession, and his handsome wife is the leader of the _ton_ in the city where she resides, and excites in turn the wonder and admiration and envy of every one who knows her. Marriage has subdued her wildness a little, but not eradicated it; and our Pet is the happiest little lady in existence. There is a miniature Pet there, too--a saucy little limb already, who promises to be a second edition of wild Pet Lawless, in deeds as well as in looks.

Lady Erminie and Mr. Lawless reside in England, for the Countess De Courcy will not part with her daughter.

Little Lady Rita has married a Spanish grandee--a Don John somebody, and gone to live in her own "castle in Spain." Marguerite has accompanied her to that sunny land.

The Earl and Countess De Courcy, loved and honored, pass happily through life together. Their latter days promise to be as bright with sunshine as their early ones were dark and troubled. Reader, to all these, too, and I fear not unreluctantly, you must bid farewell.

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Missing punctuation has been added and obvious punctuation errors have been corrected.

Archaic, alternate and misspellings of words have been retained to match the original work with the exception of those listed below.

Page 10: "Hr." changed to "Mr." (and I do assure you, Mr. Harkins, I hadn't the faintest idea of hitting you that time.)

Page 22: "sudder" changed to "shudder" (she said, with a convulsive shudder.)

Page 24: duplicate word "and" removed (there is an individual downstairs who persists on seeing the earl, and won't take no for an answer.)

Page 27: duplicate word "I" removed (I sent him away; I sent him to school with the money).

Page 61: "ad" changed to "and" (and he confessed he did that).

Page 77: "Jernygham" changed to "Jernyngham" (he was joined by Jernyngham and Howard).

Page 80: "Jernynham" changed to "Jernyngham" (Miss Clara Jernyngham had obtained the desire of her heart at last).

Page 92: duplicate word "and" removed (numbing the sense of pain, and leaving nothing).

Page 98: "these" changed to "there" (but her physician said there was no danger).

Page 103: "women" changed to "woman" (Oh, woman! if there be one spark of human nature).

Page 107: duplicate word "to" removed (I'm going to sail for America the day after tomorrow).

Page 111: "catankerous" changed to "cantankerous" (and a cantankerous expression of countenance generally).

Page 119: "Toospyegs" changed to "Toosypegs" for spelling consistency.

Page 135: "yon" changed to "you" (let me tell you that!)

Page 147: "feeling" changed to "feelings" (Somehow, my feelings are always relieved when I'm with you, Miss Minnie.)

Page 163: "the" changed to "he" (as he held the candlestick aloft).

Page 168: "shufling" changed to "shuffling" (setting that ominously-named animal off at a shuffling dog-trot).

Page 174: "comet o" changed to "come to" (I hasn't lived forty odd years to come to dis in my old ages o' life.)

Page 190: duplicate word "the" removed (that was the worst.)

Page 197: "them" changed to "then" (Well, come along then; I'll tell her.)

Page 212: removed duplicate word "of" (Then the very demon of defiance sprung into the eyes of the elf).

Page 218: "loss" changed to "lose" (Since Heaven willed we should lose one angel it gave us).

Page 220: "befor" changed to "before" (it had made her gentle, tender, and more saintly then ever before.)

Page 236: "begining" changed to "beginning" (said her father, beginning to think there might be method in this madness.)

Page 238 and 240: "dispair" changed to "despair" (Reading no expression whatever in that "Book of Beauty" but the mildest sort of despair).

Page 245: "its" changed to "it's" (it's the most peculiar).

Page 245: "sunlght" changed to "sunlight" (the red rings of flame flashing out in the sunlight).

Page 245: "deepy" changed to "deeply" (and in that moment fell more deeply, deplorably, and helplessly in love than ever.)

Page 249: "microsope" changed to "microscope" (You may take a microscope and look from this until the week after next).

Page 276: "remainded" changed to "reminded" (until the air would have reminded you of "Ceylon's spicy breezes,").

Page 278: duplicate word "to" removed (am I to understant that you refuse to marry me?)

Page 278: "hight" changed to "height" (as she drew herself up to her full height, and calmly said).

Page 279: "hight" changed to "height" (as she stood drawn up to her full height.)

Page 281: "gruffy" changed to "gruffly" (said the admiral, gruffly, putting it in his own mouth again.)

Page 298: duplicate word "of" removed (in a low tone of mocking exultation.)

Page 330: "have" added for sentence continuity (they would have made her a prisoner at once.)

Page 339: "Day" changed to "Ray" (Dear Ray, do not look and speak so strangely.)

Page 346: "at" added for sentence continuity (And they had to take and carry me off at such a contrary time).

Page 348: "bread" changed to "beard" (contrasting with his jet-black hair and beard).

Page 372: "stands's" changed to "stands" (There she stands the lost daughter and heiress of Lord De Courcy!)

Page 372: "by" added for sentence continuity (He went over and took his place by Erminie.)

Page 381: "how" changed to "now" (you can afford to wait a few moments longer now.)

Page 382: "to" added for sentence continuity (with a sort of still, deep joy not to be expressed in words.)

Page 384: "parent" changed to "parents" (the long-divided parents and child were reunited at last).

Page 387: "Ermine" changed to "Erminie" ("Now, Pet, why? You can come if you like," said Erminie.)

Page 388: "Ermine" changed to "Erminie" (As for Erminie, she wept audibly as the carriage rolled away).