The nearer the important event approached, the more affectionately she behaved both to Clara and Charley.
She laughed and cried by turns, and said,
“She always knew it.”
Clara would kiss her, and Charley would joke her.
But, despite all her apparent perturbation and anxiety, she found time to have frequent and long interviews with old Sir Richard, until the young couple, seated lovingly side by side on the parlour sofa, could not understand the nature of them.
Dame Worthington deeply regretted that she could not possibly find accommodation for them in her house, but Sir Richard only smiled benignly and said,
“Leave that matter to me, Harriet, my dear.”
The old dame, full of confidence in his wisdom, did leave that matter in his hands, fully assured that he would manage it far better than any one else.
When the day approached, the hurry and bustle in the house increased tenfold, and to such a degree, that the servant confessed to Smith’s girl, across the back-yard wall, that “she was a’most worried to death,” and wished the marriage was over.
On the eve of the wedding, when everything had been prepared, two legal gentlemen unexpectedly arrived and after candles were lit in Dame Worthington’s back parlour, they arranged their papers with much apparent satisfaction.