The young man thus eulogized presented to the reporter’s view a spare and rather undersized personality, plain of feature, and awkward of manner, drawbacks afterward transmuted by the magic touch of the stylographic pen into “slightness, unpretending elegance, and unaffected simplicity. The beaming affection discernible in the glance he turned upon his stately bride justified the eulogistic terms in which that lady spoke of her husband. Their brief but thrillingly romantic courtship, with its strikingly sensational ‘dénouement,’ created a ‘furore’ when detailed by the New York press. The disinterested nature of the attachment of Mr. Lanter (who is a member of one of our oldest New England families) to the superb specimen of American womanhood who bears his aristocratic name may be gathered from the fact that the marriage ceremony was some weeks old before Mr. Lanter discovered that Mrs. Lanter had amassed, during the period of time spent by her in exhibiting her personal developments in the principal cities of Europe and the States, a fortune of ninety-five thousand dollars.�
And in this final statement the stylographic pen distilled pure truth.
HOW THE MISTRESS CAME HOME
THE avenue of lofty elms was veiled in a white fog; upon the low-lying parklands, cropped meadows, and sere stubble-fields, the same woolly vapor lay dankly. But the square windows of the fine old Tudor manor-house flashed with ruddy light, and the hospitable hearth-fires of the hall diffused glow and radiance through open doors. Sir Vivian and Lady Wroth were coming home after a honeymoon of eight months’ duration spent in scampering over the face of the habitable globe; and the village was in a state of loyal ferment over the advent of the lord and lady of the manor. Already the local band, heavily primed with home-brewed, was posted at the station in readiness to burst into the strains of “See the Conquering Hero� upon the arrival of the London express. Eight sturdy laborers, in clean smock-frocks, waited, rope in hand, for the opportunity of harnessing themselves to the bridal brougham, while Venetian masts, upbearing strings of flags and fairy lanterns, testified to the strength and temperature of popular goodwill.
“A sweet pretty creature, ’m, I hear!� said Mrs. Ansdey, the white-haired, handsome, black-silk-clad housekeeper to the Rector’s wife, who had driven up to the house to ask for a cup of tea, and leave a parcel addressed to the new mistress of the manor, containing three dozen very raspy cambric handkerchiefs, hemmed and initialed by the Girls’ Sewing Class at the National Schools.
“Quite a picture, Sir Vivian’s valet said!� added the butler, who was comparatively young, not being over sixty, and therefore looked down upon by Mrs. Ansdey from her vantage of fifteen summers.
“Beauty is grass!� said the Rector’s wife, who was not overburdened with the commodity. She was a long, thin, high-nosed woman, with color distributed over her countenance in little islands. She drank her tea, and toasted her large, useful feet at the glowing wood-fire, and praised the Sally Lunns.
Her reverend partner was down at the village reading-rooms, rehearsing the shrill-voiced school children in the “Greet Ye To-night, Thrice Happy Pair,� chorus from Lohengrin. She knew the quality of the cocoa to be obtained there, and longed to share with him the hospitable burden of Mrs. Ansdey’s silver tray. But as this amicable division of spoil was manifestly impossible, the Rector’s wife consoled herself by making a clean sweep. And so she ate and drank and chatted to the not displeased Mrs. Ansdey with unflagging vigor, while the famous Reynolds portraits of departed ladies of the manor smiled and simpered from the shining paneled walls, and the gray-muzzled bloodhounds, last of a famous race and favorite of the last Baronet, snored upon the leopard-skin hearthrug.
“You have had many visitors this season?� queried the Rector’s wife, with a calculating glance at the donation box, the contents of which went to the Cottage Hospital twice in the year.
“Troops of them,� returned the housekeeper, nodding her lace lappets. “And, as usual, half of ’em with American twangs. Even if they didn’t talk through their noses, I should guess ’em from the States, shouldn’t you, Mr. Cradell?�