The repast finished, the pleased and grateful guests separated. Harleigh set off post for London and his lawyer; and the Bishop and Lord Melbury, gladly accepted an invitation from the Admiral to his country-seat near Richmond, of which, with the greatest delight, he proclaimed his niece mistress.
But short, here, was her reign. Harleigh was speedily ready: and his cause, seconded by Lady Aurora and the Admiral, could not be pleaded in vain to Juliet; who, in giving her hand where she had given her whole heart; in partaking the name, the mansion, the fortune, and the fate of Harleigh; bestowed and enjoyed such rare felicity, that all she had endured seemed light, all she had performed appeared easy, and even every woe became dear to her remembrance, that gradually and progressively, though painfully and unsuspectedly, had contributed to so exquisite and heartfelt a union.
Her own happiness thus fixed, her first solicitude was for her guardian and preserver the Bishop; whom, with her sympathizing Harleigh, she attended to the Continent. There she was embraced and blessed by her honoured benefactress, the Marchioness; there, and not vainly, she strove to console her beloved Gabriella; and there, in the elegant society to which she had owed all her early enjoyments, she prevailed upon Harleigh to remain, till it became necessary to return to their home, to present, upon his birth, a new heir to the enchanted Admiral.
A rising family, then, put an end to foreign excursions; but the dearest delight of Harleigh was seeking to assemble around his Juliet her first friends.
Lady Aurora had hardly any other home than that of her almost adored sister, till she was installed in one, with an equal and amiable partner, upon the same day that Lord Melbury obtained the willing hand of the lively, natural, and feeling Lady Barbara Frankland.
Sir Jaspar Herrington, to whom Juliet had such essential obligations, became, now that all false hopes or fanciful wishes were annihilated, her favourite guest. He still saw her with a tenderness which he secretly, though no longer banefully nourished; but transferred to her rapturously attentive children, the histories of his nocturnal intercourse with sylphs, fairies, and the destinies; while, ever awake to the wishes of Juliet, he rescued the simple Flora from impending destruction, by portioning her in marriage with an honest vigilant farmer.
Scarcely less welcome than the whimsical Baronet to Juliet, nor less happy under her roof, was the guileless and benevolent Mr Giles Arbe; who there enjoyed, unbroken by his restless, adroit, and worldly cousin, his innocent serenity.
Juliet sought, too, with her first power, the intuitively virtuous Dame Fairfield; whose incorrigible husband had briefly, with the man of the hut, paid the dread earthly penalty of increased and detected crimes.
Harleigh placed a considerable annuity upon the faithful, excellent Ambroise; to whose care, soon afterwards, he committed the meritorious widow, and her lovely little ones, by a marriage which ensured to them the protection and endearments of a kind husband, and an affectionate father.
Even Mr Tedman, when Harleigh paid him, with high interest, his three half-guineas, was invited to Harleigh Hall; where, with no small pride, he received thanks for the first liberality he had ever prevailed with himself to practise.