‘How old,’ he inquired, ‘do you imagine the child to be?’
‘Certainly not more than seventeen.’
‘Then let me tell you for your comfort that Lily has reached the mature age of nineteen and a half,’ replied her father.
I was equally surprised and pleased, for it made the disparity between us so much less than I thought, as well as the proposed time of probation.
It was a favourite joke of Mr Langdale’s that it was my darling’s childish trick with the little dog, and not her appearance, which had given me an erroneous opinion of her age. Miss Langdale always pretended to agree with her brother. That good lady highly approved of our engagement, declaring that she had taken a fancy to me from the first. This was not exactly true, but no doubt she thought it was when she said it.
One evening when we were talking over the memorable journey, it occurred to me to ask Lily why she had travelled second-class on that occasion, her ticket being for the first.
‘Hush!’ she whispered, placing her little hand upon my lips. ‘Aunt does not yet know of that flagrant impropriety; but I assure you I had a good reason.’
She told me afterwards that her brother was so charmed with ‘the lark,’ as he called it, that he quite forgot his ill-humour, and tried to assist her to carry out her plan in every possible way; he had taken her ticket and selected a carriage, when it occurred to him that she would look more like a nursemaid in the second-class; to which she agreed. Lily a nursemaid! Did my darling expect to travel only with the blind?
On the twenty-first anniversary of her birthday, our marriage took place at Brighton, where the first happy days of our courtship were passed. Rosa, a pretty little girl quite as tall as her sister, was the chief bride’s-maid, looking scarcely younger than the bride, who is now the beloved mistress of a large establishment. My mother, who resides with us, never interferes with my clever little wife, whom she loves as a daughter; and as for me, I believe—well, I am sure that I am the most obedient as well as the most devoted of her servants.