Why should Hester Yorke's invitation be of special consequence, does any one ask? Having been put off as long as was possible, the truth must be told at last, though with great dissatisfaction. Miss Hester Yorke is to be the bride. Instead of fixing his affections on Melicent, who was twenty years his junior, or Clara, who was twenty two, nothing would satisfy this man but Hester, the youngest, and Hester he won.
But it was a good while before he won the father and mother. Mr. Yorke consented first, rather ungraciously, but Mrs. Yorke did not yield till the last minute, and then only to her husband's solicitations.
"If Hester is satisfied to marry a man old enough to be her father," he said, "we may as well consent. The age is the only objection."
"Hester is satisfied now," the mother said anxiously; "but she is only a child. We do not know how it will be ten years hence, when her character will be more developed. She will then be twenty-eight, and he fifty. "Oh! I have no patience with these ridiculous widowers!" And the lady wrung her hands.
"You misjudge Hester, my dear," the husband said. "She has developed all she ever will. She is no pomegranate in the bud, but a cherry fully ripened. Have you never observed that whatever is hers is always perfect in her eyes? She is ready now to maintain to the world that this is the most beautiful house that ever was built; that rat-holes are an advantage; that our furniture is the more desirable for being worn; that our roses are finer than any others, our vines more graceful, our birds more musical. Why, my dear, she thinks that I am a beauty!"
A soft little laugh rippled over Mrs. Yorke's lips. "So do I!" she said.
"That is because you look at me with such beautiful eyes," replied the gentleman gallantly. It was not often that his personal appearance was complimented. "But, to return: Hester will be the same to her husband. Once married to him, she will be absolutely convinced that there is not to be found his equal. I have no fear but that, ten years hence, if Major Cleaveland should be placed by the side of the most magnificent man on earth, Hester would maintain boldly that her husband was the superior. No; I anticipate no trouble for a long while. The only disagreeable view I take is, that when Hester is fifty, the golden middle age for a healthy woman, she will be nursing a childish old man of seventy-four, instead of having an equal friend and companion."
"Dear me!" exclaimed the wife, "I cannot possibly weep over what may happen thirty-two years hence."
And so the matter was settled; and now the Major was doing his utmost in honor of the event. The house in Seaton had been already put in perfect order, and the house in town was now, as we see, being adorned. They were to come there immediately, after a quiet wedding at Hester's home.
When Major Cleaveland returned to Seaton, a week after the wedding, he carried two offerings from Mrs. Rowan, one for the bride-elect, the other for Edith. Hester's present was quite simple, a package of photographic views taken in the city of Peking, and, seen through a stereoscope, almost as good as a visit to that city. But Dick's offering to Edith was an extravagant one: it was a Maltese cross set with emeralds.