Mrs. Fletcher says you are to get the lozenges at Squire’s in Oxford Street, and be sure to ask for the Vade mecum lozenges. She is all in a flutter about the hounds. She says she hopes John will do nothing of the kind because of the expense; but we all know that she would like him to have them. The subscription is not very good, only £1,500, and it would cost him ever so much a year. But everybody says that he is very rich and that he ought to do it. If you see Arthur give him our love. Of course a member of Parliament is too busy to write letters. But I don’t think Arthur ever was good at writing. Everett says that men never ought to write letters. Give my love to Mr. Wharton.
“Everett is a fool,” said Mr. Wharton as soon as he had read the letter.
“Why is he a fool, papa?”
“Because he will quarrel with Sir Alured about politics before he knows where he is. What business has a young fellow like that to have an opinion either one side or the other, before his betters?”
“But Everett always had strong opinions.”
“It didn’t matter as long as he only talked nonsense at a club in London, but now he’ll break that old man’s heart.”
“But, papa, don’t you see anything else?”
“I see that John Fletcher is going to make an ass of himself and spend a thousand a year in keeping up a pack of hounds for other people to ride after.”
“I think I see something else besides that.”
“What do you see?”
“Would it annoy you if Everett were to become engaged to Mary?”
Then Mr. Wharton whistled. “To be sure she does put his name into every line of her letter. No; it wouldn’t annoy me. I don’t see why he shouldn’t marry his second cousin if he likes. Only if he is engaged to her, I think it odd that he shouldn’t write and tell us.”
“I’m sure he’s not engaged to her yet. She wouldn’t write at all in that way if they were engaged. Everybody would be told at once, and Sir Alured would never be able to keep it a secret. Why should there be a secret? But I’m sure she is very fond of him. Mary would never write about any man in that way unless she were beginning to be attached to him.”
About ten days after this there came two letters from Wharton Hall to Manchester Square, the shortest of which shall be given first. It ran as follows:—
My dear Father—
I have proposed to my cousin Mary, and she has accepted me. Everybody here seems to like the idea. I hope it will not displease you. Of course you and Emily will come down. I will tell you when the day is fixed.
This the old man read as he sat at breakfast with his daughter opposite to him, while Emily was reading a very much longer letter from the same house. “So it’s going to be just as you guessed,” he said.
“I was quite sure of it, papa. Is that from Everett? Is he very happy?”
“Upon my word, I can’t say whether he’s happy or not. If he had got a new horse he would have written at much greater length about it. It seems, however, to be quite fixed.”
“Oh, yes. This is from Mary. She is happy at any rate. I suppose men never say so much about these things as women.”
“May I see Mary’s letter?”
“I don’t think it would be quite fair, papa. It’s only a girl’s rhapsody about the man she loves—very nice and womanly, but not intended for anyone but me. It does not seem that they mean to wait very long.”
“Why should they wait? Is any day fixed?”
“Mary says that Everett talks about the middle of May. Of course you will go down.”
“We must both go.”
“You will at any rate. Don’t promise for me just at present. It must make Sir Alured very happy. It is almost the same as finding himself at last with a son of his own. I suppose they will live at Wharton altogether now—unless Everett gets into Parliament.”
But the reader may see the young lady’s letter, though her future father-in-law was not permitted to do so, and will perceive that there was a paragraph at the close of it which perhaps was more conducive to Emily’s secrecy than her feelings as to the sacred obligations of female correspondence.
Monday, Wharton.
Dearest Emily—
I wonder whether you will be much surprised at the news I have to tell you. You cannot be more so than I am at having to write it. It has all been so very sudden that I almost feel ashamed of myself. Everett has proposed to me, and I have accepted him. There;—now you know it all. Though you never can know how very dearly I love him and how thoroughly I admire him. I do think that he is everything that a man ought to be, and that I am the most fortunate young woman in the world. Only isn’t it odd that I should always have to live all my life in the same house, and never change my name—just like a man, or an old maid? But I don’t mind that because I do
