"A very handsome girl," said Lord Drummond to one of his subordinates. "I met her at Mistletoe. As to that affair with Lord Rufford, he treated her abominably." And when Mounser showed himself at the office, which he did boldly, immediately after the engagement was made known, they all received him with open arms and congratulated him sincerely on his happy fortune. He himself was quite contented with what he had done and thought that he was taking out for himself the very wife for Patagonia.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE WEDDING.
No sooner did the new two lovers, Mounser Green and Arabella Trefoil, understand each other, than they set their wits to work to make the best of their natural advantages. The latter communicated the fact in a very dry manner to her father and mother. Nothing was to be got from them, and it was only just necessary that they should know what she intended to do with herself. "My dear mamma. I am to be married some time early in May to Mr. Mounser Green of the Foreign Office. I don't think you know him, but I daresay you have heard of him. He goes to Patagonia immediately after the wedding, and I shall go with him. Your affectionate daughter, Arabella Trefoil." That was all she said, and the letter to her father was word for word the same. But how to make use of those friends who were more happily circumstanced was matter for frequent counsel between her and Mr. Green. In these days I do not think that she concealed very much from him. To tell him all the little details of her adventures with Lord Rufford would have been neither useful nor pleasant; but, as to the chief facts, reticence would have been foolish. To the statement that Lord Rufford had absolutely proposed to her she clung fast, and really did believe it herself. That she had been engaged to John Morton she did not deny; but she threw the blame of that matter on her mother, and explained to him that she had broken off the engagement down at Bragton, because she could not bring herself to regard the man with sufficient personal favour. Mounser was satisfied, but was very strong in urging her to seek, yet once again, the favour of her magnificent uncle and her magnificent aunt.
"What good can they do us?" said Arabella, who was almost afraid to make the appeal.
"It would be everything for you to be married from Mistletoe," he said. "People would know then that you were not blamed about Lord Rufford. And it might serve me very much in my profession. These things do help very much. It would cost us nothing, and the proper kind of notice would then get into the newspapers. If you will write direct to the Duchess, I will get at the Duke through Lord Drummond. They know where we are going, and that we are not likely to want anything else for a long time."
"I don't think the Duchess would have mamma if it were ever so."
"Then we must drop your mother for the time;—that's all. When my aunt hears that you are to be married from the Duke's, she will be quite willing that you should remain with her till you go down to Mistletoe."
Arabella, who perhaps knew a little more than her lover, could not bring herself to believe that the appeal would be successful, but she made it. It was a very difficult letter to write, as she could not but allude to the rapid transference of her affections. "I will not conceal from you," she said, "that I have suffered very much from Lord Rufford's heartless conduct. My misery has been aggravated by the feeling that you and my uncle will hardly believe him to be so false, and will attribute part of the blame to me. I had to undergo an agonizing revulsion of feeling, during which Mr. Green's behaviour to me was at first so considerate and then so kind that it has gone far to cure the wound from which I have been suffering. He is so well known in reference to foreign affairs, that I think my uncle cannot but have heard of him; my cousin Mistletoe is certainly acquainted with him; and I think that you cannot but approve of the match. You know what is the position of my father and my mother, and how little able they are to give us any assistance. If you would be kind enough to let us be married from Mistletoe, you will confer on both of us a very, very great favour." There was more of it, but that was the first of the prayer, and most of the words given above came from the dictation of Mounser himself. She had pleaded against making the direct request, but he had assured her that in the world, as at present arranged, the best way to get a thing is to ask for it. "You make yourself at any rate understood," he said, "and you may be sure that people who receive petitions do not feel the hardihood of them so much as they who make them." Arabella, comforting herself by declaring that the Duchess at any rate could not eat her, wrote the letter and sent it.