A few days after, it happened that John was entertaining young Maxwell and a few more in his rooms, as it appeared that he was returning sooner than he had intended to Edinburgh. There was some talk among them of the great adventure which had accompanied his arrival, and they fell into discussion on the subject,—what the motives of the guilty person could be, and whether it was really a woman, and what had become of her. "It would be droll if you ever recognised that woman you saw, Percival," said one of the young men. John acknowledged that it would be droll, though probably she had nothing to do with it: and he asked the advice of his assembled friends as to what, in such a singular case, a man should do, and various suggestions were made, which did not perhaps throw much light on the subject. They were by no means at one as to whether they would denounce her or not, always supposing it was a woman. "Not if she is bonnie," one said, and on the whole this was the general judgment. "If she turns out to be old and ugly, with her head bound up, and all the rest of it, give her up—like a shot" (though, by the way, they did not say like a shot—the slang of their day was different). "But if she is bonnie, nothing of the kind." John went on to suggest other difficulties. What if she should be met with in Society? What if some fellow you knew was going to marry her? This made them all ponder. "What should you do, Maxwell, if such a thing were told you of a woman you were in love with?" "I can't contemplate the possibility," said Maxwell, with a laugh. "By George! but it would be a ticklish position, though," said one of the others. "Awfully hard upon Percival, still more hard on the other fellow." "I would never mind if I were fond of her," said one. "I should mind awfully," said another. (Be it here observed that the use of the word awful is not slang, but the Scottish language.) "You might mind, or you might not mind," said Maxwell, oracularly, "but none of us would make a woman who had done such a thing our wife." He had not the least idea that he delivered his friend's heart from a great weight when he said these words. "So then I am no traitor even to him," John said to himself.
It was felt at Percival's bank in Edinburgh, that though to marry so young might be foolish, there was not a word to be said against Miss Wamphrey of Wamphrey, and that it was a piece of good fortune that the young ass should have fallen on his feet, and made such a good connection. Marion had the opportunity, of which she availed herself quite pleasantly, of refusing Maxwell shortly after; and in spring her marriage took place. There was some story of their having fallen in love with each other over the eating of an orange, people said: and very soon after his marriage, John Percival had the satisfaction of remitting a sum of money from his brother-in-law, Will Wamphrey, in New Zealand, to the bank manager at Dunscore.
A STORY OF A WEDDING-TOUR.
CHAPTER I.
They had been married exactly a week when this incident occurred.
It was not a love marriage. The man, indeed, had been universally described as "very much in love," but the girl was not by any one supposed to be in that desirable condition. She was a very lonely little girl, without parents, almost without relations. Her guardian was a man who had been engaged in business relations with her father, and who had accepted the charge of the little orphan as his duty. But neither he nor his wife had any love to expend upon her, and they did not feel that such visionary sentiments came within the line of duty. He was a very honourable man, and took charge of her small—very small—property with unimpeachable care.
If anything, he wronged himself rather than Janey, charging her nothing for the transfers which he made of her farthing's worth of stock from time to time, to get a scarcely appreciable rise of interest and income for her. The whole thing was scarcely appreciable, and to a large-handed man like Mr Midhurst, dealing with hundreds of thousands, it was almost ridiculous to give a moment's attention to what a few hundreds might produce. But he did so; and if there is any angel who has to do with trade affairs, I hope it was carefully put to his account to balance some of the occasions on which he was not perhaps so particular. Nor did Mrs Midhurst shrink from her duty in all substantial and real good offices to the girl. She, who spent hundreds at the dressmaker's every year on account of her many daughters, did not disdain to get Janey's serge frocks at a cheaper shop, and to have them made by an inexpensive workwoman, so that the girl should have the very utmost she could get for her poor little money.
Was not this real goodness, real honesty, and devotion to their duty? But to love a little thing like that with no real claim upon them, and nothing that could be called specially attractive about her, who could be expected to do it? They had plenty—almost more than enough—of children of their own. These children were big boys and girls, gradually growing, in relays, into manhood and womanhood, when this child came upon their hands. There was no room for her in the full and noisy house. When she was grown up most of the Midhurst children were married, but there was one son at home, who, in the well-known contradictiousness of young people—it being a very wrong and, indeed, impossible thing—was quite capable of falling in love with Janey—and one daughter, with whom it was also possible that Janey might come into competition.