A very singular change was being wrought in this stern matron. Where is the female bosom that can resist a wedding, or a touch of the romantical? Not even that of the Spartan Blodgett. The more she pondered the matter in hand the less terrible she became. She began to ask a dozen questions of us in a greatly mollified voice. Nay, the tone she used to Cynthia might even be called indulgent.
"Well," says she, "seeing as how it is an emergency, you shall have my ring this once, but it goes against my conscience, I am sure. You are doing a very wicked thing, young woman. To think of a little chit like you running away to get married! I am sure I ought not to countenance it. Oh, what will your mother say?"
"I have not a mother," says Cynthia, putting her hands to her eyes, and smiling at me through her fingers.
This admission seemed considerably to ease the mind of Mrs. Blodgett, and forthwith she began wrestling with the wedding-ring on her fat finger. In the meantime her master was very fortunately engrossed in another matter, and we were therefore spared his comments.
It seemed that Blodgett had brought him that day's London Gazette, which had been left by the coach at the village alehouse. It was the newspaper that claimed the parson's attention while his housekeeper struggled with her wedding-ring. I vow it was as whimsical a sight as ever was seen to witness the good lady growing redder and redder in her face, and puffing, grunting, and twisting her countenance into the most fantastical shapes, while she freely "dratted the thing," and called down a murrain upon it. But strive as she might, the precious ring still clung faithfully to her finger. Presently Cynthia was fain to take a hand at hauling it off, but she fared not a whit better than Mrs. Blodgett. Whereon I was called on, and after several very natural and becoming protestations on my part as to my inability and so forth, even I was pressed into the service. I tugged and hauled away with what gravity I might, but never an inch would that wretched ring budge. In the height of this deadlock, I was seized with a brilliant expedient.
"One of the rings round the curtain-pole," says I. "Surely one of them will do most admirably well, and at least there will be no difficulty about getting it off, nor on neither."
Now when I proffered this suggestion Mrs. Cynthia blushed such a colour and looked so ill at ease, that I half began to doubt whether this idea was so fine after all. And indeed, Blodgett took me up warmly.
"Wedded in a curtain-ring indeed!" says she. "I'facks, that she never shall be. Who ever heard of such a thing! Has the man no decency! Rather than that, my dear, I will run to neighbour Hodge's and borrow hers. As she's a thin body it should slip off easy."
There and then the scandalized Blodgett was as good as her word. Favouring me with a glance of such scorn and contempt that a person more impressionable would have been rooted to the spot, she flounced out of the room all in a moment, and directly afterwards passed by the library window, running quite excitedly down the garden path. Surely a whole chapter of dissertation might be written on the metamorphosis of Mrs. Blodgett. From openly deriding Cynthia she had passed to an almost motherly tenderness towards her. She had become as concerned for her as though she had been her own daughter. She was no longer "wench," or "vagrant beggar," nay nor even "young woman," but just "my dear." And why was this? Do you think it was because she had suddenly lighted on some latent virtues in my little madam, some strain of moral loveliness, some unexpected beauty in her mind and heart? I am sure I crave the pardon of her ladyship, but it was devil a one of these things that had such a magic effect on Mrs. Blodgett. It was simply that she had run away to get married, and that this was her wedding morning. Oh, woman, woman! where is the daughter among you that can resist the blandishments of Hymen?
While this was going forward, and we were congratulating ourselves in secret on the most fortunate course this portentous affair was like to take, an incident happened that shook me dreadfully, and recalled to my mind much more sharply than I cared, the kind of fortune I was about to endow my bride with. For the time being I had forgotten the colour of my reputation, the character of my past, and my black prospects for the future, in the cheerful topsy-turvy madness of the last twelve hours. But now all of a sudden, in the least expected fashion, I was reminded as to who I was, and what I was. The parson, who all the time had been deeply involved in his news-sheet, suddenly cast it down, uttered a loud exclamation, and with tears in his honest eyes began striding down in his agitation, and knocked down many an unoffending book.