This, as he expected, was by no means unkindly received; and when Mrs. Compton, having recovered from her first ecstasy, began to hint at income and settlement, the impassioned young gentleman contrived to puzzle her so completely, by stating the certainty of his being disinherited if his marriage were immediately known, and the handsome fortune it was possible he might have if it were kept profoundly secret, that he sent her home as vehemently determined to let him marry her daughter, without saying a word to his family about the matter, as he could possibly have desired.
The result of this may be easily divined. Nothing approved by Mrs. Compton was ever effectually opposed by Mr. Compton; so Miss Sophia was married to Lieutenant Willoughby within ten days of the regimental ball, and within one year afterwards a female infant, called Agnes Willoughby, was placed in the care of the Curate of Silverton and his wife; her young mother being dead, and her broken-spirited father about to set off for the West Indies, having found his father implacable, his well-married sisters indignant, and nothing left him whereon to found a hope of escape from his difficulties except thus giving up his little girl to her grandfather, and exchanging his commission in the gay —— regiment for one in a corps about to embark for a service very likely to settle all his embarrassments by consigning him to an early tomb.
Meanwhile the Curate of Silverton was becoming every day more involved in debt; and his dashing eldest daughter, though handsomer than ever, painfully conscious that among all the successive legions of lovers whose conspicuous adorations had made her the most envied of her sex, there was not one who offered any rational probability of becoming her husband.
The first of these misfortunes was the most embarrassing, and so imperiously demanded a remedy, that the poor Curate at length consented to find it in the sale of his moiety of his paternal acres. It is certain that his nightly potations of hot toddy had very considerably impaired his powers of caring for anything; nevertheless, it was not without a pang that he permitted his wife to insert an advertisement in the county paper, proclaiming the sale by auction of certain crofts and meadows, barns and byres, making part and parcel of a capital dairy-farm, known by the name of Compton Basett.
When the day of sale arrived, several competitors appeared who bid pretty briskly for the lot; for the land, particularly thirty acres of it, known by the name of "the butcher's close," was some of the best in the county; but the successful candidate, who, it was pretty evident from the first, was determined that it should be knocked down to no one else, was farmer Wright, Miss Betsy's prosperous and well-deserving tenant. This, though the purchase was a large one for a mere farmer, (amounting to six thousand five hundred and twenty-five pounds,) did not greatly surprise the neighbourhood, for the Wrights were known to be a prudent, thrifty, and industrious race. It is possible they might have been more surprised had they known that it was Miss Betsy herself, and not her tenant, who was the purchaser. But so it was. The twenty-five years which had elapsed since the death of her father had enabled this careful little lady to accumulate, by means of her rent, her five hundred pounds and its compound interest, and the profits of her well-managed apiary, a much larger sum than it required to become the possessor of her brother's share of Compton Basett; and when she had finished the affair, and leased out the whole property (the butcher's close included) to her friend and tenant farmer Wright, for the annual rent of six hundred pounds (now including two chickens per week for her own use), she still remained possessed of four thousand pounds sterling, safely lodged in the funds; a property which went on very rapidly increasing, as her scale of expense never varied, and rarely exceeded ten pounds per annum beyond the profits of her bees, and her stipulated accommodation from the farm. But, in spite of this strict economy, Miss Betsy was no bad neighbour to the poor, and in a small and very quiet way did more towards keeping dirt and cold out of their dwellings, than many who spent three times as much upon them, and made ten times as much fuss about it.
It was not, however, till many years later, that the fact of her being the possessor of the whole of the Compton Basett estate, became known to any one but farmer Wright; and as to the amount of her half-yearly increasing property in the funds, she had no confidant but her broker. This mystery, this profound secrecy, in the silent rolling up of her wealth, was perhaps the principal source of her enjoyment from it. It amused her infinitely to observe, that while the bad management and improvidence of her brother and his wife were the theme of eternal gossipings, her own thrift seemed permitted to go quietly on, without eliciting any observation at all. Her judicious and regularly administered little charities, assisted in producing this desired effect, much more than she had the least idea of; for the praises of Miss Betsy's goodness and kindness proceeded from many who had profited more from her judgment, and her well-timed friendly loans, than from her donations; and the gratitude for such services was much more freely and generally expressed, than if the favours conferred had been merely those of ordinary alms-giving. It was therefore very generally reported in Silverton that Miss Betsy Compton gave away all her income in charity, which was the reason why she never did anything to help her embarrassed relations. These erroneous reports were productive of at least one advantage to the family of the Curate of Silverton, for it effectually prevented their having any expectations from her beyond a vague and uncertain hope, that if she did not bequeath her farm-house and acres to a hospital, the property might be left to them. But not even the croaking ill-will of Mrs. Compton could now anticipate a very early date for this possible bequest; for, pale and delicate-looking as she ever continued, nobody had ever heard of Miss Betsy's having a doctor's bill to pay; and as she was just seven years younger than her brother the Curate, who, moreover, was thought to be dropsical, there appeared wofully little chance that her death would ever benefit her disappointed sister-in-law at all. A very considerable portion of the purchase-money of the estate had dwindled away ... the little Agnes Willoughby had attained the age of eleven years, and Mr. Compton had become so ill as to have been forced to resign his curacy, when Mr. Barnaby, the celebrated surgeon and apothecary of Silverton, who for the last ten years had admired Miss Martha Compton more than any lady he had ever looked upon, suddenly took courage, and asked her point-blank to become his wife.
Had he done this some few years before, his fate would have been told in the brief monosyllable no, uttered probably with as much indignation as any sound compounded of two letters could express; but since that time the fair Martha had seen so many colonels, majors, captains, ... ay, and lieutenants too, march into the town, and then march out again, without whispering anything more profitable in her ear than an assurance of her being an angel, that the case was greatly altered; and after the meditation of a moment, she answered very modestly, ... "You must speak to my mother, Mr. Barnaby."
Perfectly satisfied by the reply, Mr. Barnaby did speak to her mother; but the young lady took care to speak to her first, and after a long and very confidential conversation, it was determined between them that the offer of the gentleman should be accepted, that fifty pounds out of the few remaining hundreds should be spent upon her wedding-garments, and that whenever it pleased God to take poor Mr. Compton, his widow and little grand-daughter should be received into Mr. Barnaby's family.
It has not been recorded with any degree of certainty, whether these last arrangements were mentioned to the enamoured Galen, when the important interview which decided the fate of Miss Martha took place; but whether they were or not, the marriage ceremony followed with as little delay as possible.
Two circumstances occurred previous to the ceremony which must be mentioned, as being calculated to open the character of my heroine to the reader. No sooner was this important affair decided upon, than Miss Martha told her mamma, that it was her intention to walk over to Compton Basett, and inform Miss Betsy of the news herself.