In ten minutes the door opened, and Lord Rossville returned to the room, ushering in the bridegroom, who had been cleansed in the meantime from the effects of his fall, and who endeavoured to put a smiling face upon the matter, although still terribly disconcerted.
Then Lady Adeline advanced to meet him, and said in a most gracious tone, "We have been painfully excited on your account, Sir Cherry Bounce."
CHAPTER CCV.
THE BREAKFAST.
Yes—it was to this individual that Maria Villiers was to be sacrificed:—it was to him that the cold and selfish policy of Lord Rossville was about to consign a beautiful, an artless, and an amiable girl.
Sir Cherry's mother had paid the debt of nature about a year previously; and the young baronet found himself the possessor of an immense fortune.
Lord Rossville only looked upon his orphan niece Maria as an encumbrance while she remained single, or as a means of increasing the wealth (and in his idea, the strength) of the family when she married. Sir Cherry had met her in the brilliant sphere of the West-End society: he had courted her; and, the moment Lord and Lady Rossville observed his attentions, they commanded her to receive them with favour. She—poor timid, friendless girl!—was half persuaded into the idea that the match was really to her advantage, and half bullied (for we can actually use no other term) into an acquiescence in the views of her guardian.
Thus she had not dared to utter a negative when the effeminate and insipid baronet had solicited her hand; and, her silence being taken for a ready consent, the preliminaries were hurried on, without any further reference to the inclinations or wishes of the victim!
"We have been painfully excited on your account, Sir Cherry Bounce," said Lady Ravensworth, advancing to receive the bridegroom.
"The twuth wath that my fwiend Thmilackth inthithted on my widing the new horth I bought yethterday," exclaimed the baronet; "and ath he don't theem to be veway well bwoken in, the wethult wath that I nearly got a bwoken head."
"I never saw such a Guy on a horse before—strike me!" ejaculated Major Smilax Dapper, who had followed his friend into the room. "He would keep in advance of me the whole way; and although I called after him to rein in—strike him!—he would not listen to me."