“Marriage, my dear, marriage,” wailed the old lady.
“Fudge?” cried the doctor. “Here, take your medicine. No; I’ll pour you out a fresh glass. You’ve poisoned that one with salt water.”
“I haven’t, Fred.”
“You have, madam. I saw two great drops fall in—plop. Come, swallow your physic. Bel, give her one of those grapes to take after it.”
“No, no, no!” cried the old lady, protesting. “Don’t, Laury;” but her niece held the glass to her lips till she gulped the claret down, and it made her cough, while the visitor exchange glances with the doctor.
“I—I didn’t want it, Fred; and it’s not fudge. Oh, my dear Isabel, be warned before it is too late. Marriage is a delusion and a snare.”
“Yes, and Bel’s caught fast, auntie. Just going to pop her finger into the golden wire.”
“Don’t, my dear; be warned in time,” cried the old lady, piteously. “I was once as young and beautiful as you are, and I said yes, and was married, only to be forsaken at the end of ten years, to become a weary, unhappy woman, with only three thousand four hundred and twenty-two pounds left; and it’s all melting slowly away, while when it’s all gone Heaven only knows what’s to become of me.”
“Poor old auntie!” said Laura Chester soothingly, taking the old lady’s head on her shoulder; but it would shake all the same.
“I had a house of my own, and now I have come down to keeping my nephew’s. Don’t you marry, my poor child: take warning by me. Men are so deceitful.”