‘So we are, my pet, but we aren’t going to cut old friends. There’s Joe Wigzell, the jolliest fellow I know, and making twelve thousand a year out of hat linings. Mrs. Wigzell’s a perfect lady, and there’s a fine family of grown-up daughters. You ought to know the Wigzells.’
‘I think if you want to be in county society you’ll have to give up your Wigzells,’ said Bella. ‘They won’t mix.’
‘But they must mix,’ cried Mr. Piper. ‘I shall make it worth their while to mix. Such dinners as I shall give will bring the two classes together——’
‘Like oil and vinegar,’ said Bella, who was a little out of humour with her affianced.
These invitations of Mr. Piper’s, given at random, had swelled the wedding party into an alarming number. Poor Mrs. Scratchell was troubled in mind as to how she should seat her guests. There was a difficulty about the tables. But Mr. Piper made light of everything. He would have no cutting and contriving, no humble devices of Mrs. Scratchell’s, no home-made pastry. He went to Great Yafford and contracted with the principal confectioner of that town to supply everything, from the tables and decorations down to the salt spoons. The breakfast was to be a magnificent banquet, at a guinea a head, exclusive of wines, and Mr. Piper was to write a cheque for everything.
This arrangement pleased everybody except Bella, whose pride was keenly wounded by it.
‘You have made a pauper of me among you,’ she cried angrily, to the family circle, on the night before her wedding. ‘I had rather have had the quietest, simplest breakfast that mother could have arranged, with the Dulcimers and Beatrix Harefield for our only visitors, than all this finery paid for by Mr. Piper.’
‘Fiddlesticks!’ exclaimed Mrs. Scratchell. ‘You weren’t ashamed to take his money for your wedding clothes. Why should you be ashamed of his paying for your wedding breakfast? I hate such humbug.’
‘I have a little pride left,’ said Bella.
‘Very little, I should think,’ answered her father, ‘and what you have doesn’t become you. It’s like the peacock’s feathers on the jackdaw. You weren’t born with it.’