The Chevalier's daughter

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

"But I thought you did not like quiet," I said. "You always seem to enjoy company so much."

"Well, so I do; and I like to dress prettily, just as I like everything to be pretty and neat; but any head is not set on such matters—no, not so much as Martha's, though she is so demure. Perhaps not so much as yours is."

"You would make a good parson's wife in many ways, I am sure of that," said I. "You would make every one like you."

"I know I am not so very bright," said Theo; "I cannot sing and play like you, nor read great books like Martha, nor do any other grand things. But I like to help people enjoy themselves in their own way, and to comfort them in trouble if I can."

"I am sure you do," said I. "Janey Lee said the other day when her child died it was a comfort just to have you come in."

"Did she? I am very glad," said Theo. "But I don't know what I did, only to sit by her, and let her weep, and by and by draw her on to talk of the poor babe and its little pretty ways. I never can preach to people in trouble. It seems somehow unfeeling to talk to them of judgments and so on. No, if I should marry a parson, I should let him do all the preaching, you may be sure of that. I should content myself with making his house pleasant, and cooking up messes for the poor, and making baby things for the lying-in women. That is my idea of a happy life."

It seemed as if Theo's idea of a happy life was like enough to be fulfilled. She went on a little visit to her godmother, any lord's sister, an elderly lady who had a house near Exeter, where she maintained several young ladies of reduced circumstances but good family, giving them a suitable education, and a small dowry whenever they settled in life.

Here she made the acquaintance of the Dean of Exeter, a man, of course, a good deal older than herself, but of fine presence and agreeable manners. He had always been a good deal of a stickler for the celibacy of the clergy; but it seems Theo found means to change his mind, for she had not been at home a week before he followed her, and asked her of her father in marriage.

It was one of those happy matches to which there seems no objection on any side. The dean was rich and greatly respected. He had beside his deanery a cure in the same parish where my lady Jemima, my lord's sister, resided, and a beautiful rectory, where in Theo might concoct sick messes and make baby linen to her heart's content. She had a small property of her own, and my lord gave her a portion as to his own daughter.

Mrs. Martha's wedding (which I should have mentioned in its proper place) was celebrated very quietly, as we were all in recent mourning for my mother; but my lord was determined that Theo should have a grand wedding. So she did, indeed, with all proper ceremony from the first going to church to the bedding of the bride. Matters of that sort have greatly changed since that time, and I cannot but think for the better, though I do hold that weddings should be celebrated publicly and joyfully, not huddled up as if they were something to be ashamed of. If matters go on as they have begun, I expect my granddaughters will jump into a carriage at the church door, and drive off to get as far as possible from all their friends.