In the discussion of political affairs I had recently with your father, I am glad to say that we agree very closely as to the inciting causes of the public discontent, and have a common opinion as to the best,—indeed, the only satisfactory,—means of applying a remedy. This unity of feeling must rivet and perpetuate our friendship, and aid in bringing about, what I ardently desire, some necessary and immediate reforms in our mode of government. I need hardly say to you, who are so dear to me, how fervently I hail this mutual understanding on political matters, and how much I auger from it of weal to the country and of pleasure and happiness to ourselves. Heaven grant that all I expect from it may be realized!
I have no news to give you of social matters in York, save of Lady Mary Willis's Fancy Ball, which is to come off at the close of the year. Mr. Galt, of the Canada Company, the Robinsons, Hewards, Hagermans, Widmers, Spragges, and Baldwins—everybody but a few of the Government House people—are taking a great interest in the coming affair. There is to be a sleighing-party soon also, from the Macaulays to the Crookshank's farm, and on to the Denisons. I have been asked to join it, and wish you were to be here in time, to make one—the dearest to me!—of the party.
With my respects to your father, kind regards to Edward and Mad'lle Helene, and abiding love to your sweet self and the little people of your household,
I remain, ever and devotedly yours,
ALLAN DUNLOP."
But there was little need now of formal—or indeed of any—correspondence between Allan and Rose, for they were soon to be forever together, in the bonds not only of a common sympathy and a common interest in their country's welfare, but in that closer union of hearts which both had secretly longed for and both had feared would never come about. It was arranged that in the spring of the following year there would be a double marriage, and that the day that saw Edward united to Helene would also see the union of Allan and Rose. Even now, preparations for the interesting event had been set on foot, and society in "Muddy Little York" was on the tip-toe of excitement over the coming weddings.
As the winter passed, and the month drew near which was to witness the two-fold alliance, the young people of the Capital took a delirious interest in every circumstance, however trivial, connected with the affair. Of course, the double ceremony was to take place at the Church of St. James, and it was known that the Lieutenant-Governor and Lady Sarah Maitland, before finally quitting the Province, were to be present, and that the redoubtable politico-ecclesiastic, the Archdeacon of York, was to tie the knots, and, in his richest doric, pronounce both couples severally "mon and wife." The wedding breakfast, it was also a matter of current talk, was to be at the homestead of a distinguished member of the local judiciary; and it had also leaked out that, thereafter, the united couples were to embark on His Majesty's sloop-of-war, "The Princess Charlotte," and be conveyed as far as Kingston, on the wedding journey to Quebec, where Edward, with his bride, was to proceed to England to rejoin his regiment, and Allan and Rose were to spend the honeymoon in some delightful retreat on the St. Lawrence.
What need is there to continue the chronicle?—save to assure the modern reader of this old-time story that everything happily came about as foreshadowed in the gossip we have just related, and that the after-fortunes of the four happy people who took that early wedding journey on the St. Lawrence were as bright as those of the happiest Canadian bride and bridegroom that have ever taken the same journey since.