"Let him but try, there is the curb bit and halter."
"Oh, you need not tell me, Margaret, that you will have him well in hand. Yes, and before that paradise of fools, the honeymoon, is over," laughed her uncle sardonically.
"Yes, the grey mare will be the best horse this time; but what a blessing his father is laid low; it would have been all up, when he saw how cut up our precious Charles is. I did hope, had they come over together, they might have been shrewd as their Yankee neighbors, and gone in with us. Now, if his father should die, we have nothing to fear; if he lives, we must exercise our wits, that is all. And, now, as to your little fiction as to the telegram summoning you away at daybreak, where will you stay?"
"Oh, anywhere, in some quiet cheap boarding-house in East End, London; perhaps Tom Lang's."
"I suppose it's soft of me, uncle; but I may not have a quiet word with you again. You must mind, I mean what I say. You must pay aunt one hundred pounds per annum for her own requirements and beloved mission work, though what she gives would not buy salt to their porridge, unless to that of her pet parson himself."
"When you know this, Margaret, why make such an ass of yourself as to give it her; for, in my opinion, she is hoarding."
"It is in the blood; but you are a monopolist," she said sententiously as, merely tapping on the door of the cottage, they entered sans ceremonie, meeting the Rev. Claude Parks in the hall, who, shaking hands with both, said: "I had some calls this evening, but expecting you in, postponed them. At what hour to-morrow am I to tie the knot?" he asked smilingly.
"Never put off till to-morrow what can be done to-day, Mr. Parks; you may take that for your text next Sunday," said Miss Villiers decidedly.
"Nothing like it, Parks," said her uncle in oily tones, rubbing his hands.
"I shall give you another," said the curate rejoicing in his coming fee. "'If, when done, 'twere well, 'twere well 'twere done quickly.' Do you desire me to return with you?"