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Of all the brides, perhaps, Miss Flora got the best set down; for the Woolpack’s house was capitally furnished, and he is far happier driving his pretty wife about the country with a pair of pyebald ponies, making calls, than in risking his neck across country with hounds—or rather after them.
Of all our beauties, and thanks to Leech we have dealt in nothing else, Miss Harriet alone remains unsettled with her two strings to her bow—fine Billy and Rowley Abingdon; though which is to be the happy man remains to be seen.
We confess we incline to think that the Countess will be too many for the Yammertons; but if she is, there is no great harm done; for Harriet is very young, and the Owl is a safe card in the country where men are more faithful than they are in the towns. Indeed, fine Billy is almost too young to know his own mind, and marrying now would only perhaps involve the old difficulty hereafter of father and son wanting top boots at the same time, supposing our friend to accomplish the difficult art of sitting at the Jumps.
So let us leave our hero open. And as we have only aimed at nothing but the natural throughout, we will finish by proposing a toast that will include as well the mated and the single of our story, as the mated and the single all the world over, namely, the old and popular one of “The single married, and the married happy!” drunk with three times three and one cheer more! HOO-RAY!